This is my first post, and I pretty much have no idea what I’m doing. I selected this file for critiquing because I I really like the look of Northern Harriers, and this is one of the very few decent shots I’ve ever gotten of one. It’s hard to get them to cooperate! I shot it on November 6th, 2018 at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge in California with my D500 with a 200-500 Nikon lens and a Nikon 1.4 TC at 1/2000th, f8, ISO 800. It’s cropped. I’d like any feedback comments and critique on it, and also to know if I’m submitting this properly. I’m looking forward to seeing the fine photos posted here, and reading the critiques and learning from them. Greats site, and I’m glad to know about it!
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
Hi Dave. Welcome to NPN and the Avian Forum.
This is a fine first post. Exposure of the Harrier is good, focus looks very good in the largest version, and you managed to catch her flying toward you. I have these hunting my back yard and have been trying to photograph them for ten years and I don’t think I have a better flight shot.
You gave some good technical information, but it would be helpful to know how large a crop it was and what software you’re using for processing the image. The largest version you posted looks quite sharp, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a huge crop. Most people report their crop size in % of the original calculated by multiplying widthxheight in pixels of the final image before resizing for the web by the maximum available in the camera.
The reason I suggest the reporting of software is that there are different capabilities available in Lightroom and Photoshop and most of the others, or at least different ways of doing the same thing. For instance, I use Photoshop for most of the processing of my images, though I do some steps in Lightroom, and I use a few Topaz plugins. One of those is Topaz Detail, which I tend to use in place of sharpening. I’ll usually apply some adjustments to the bird I’ve photographed, leaving the background alone, to enhance feather texture. It makes a surprisingly big difference in the look of the image.
Sorry for the long winded response. this is really a great first image, and I look forward to seeing many more.
Welcome to NPN, Dave. Good to see another avian poster. Excellent facial detail and a nice overall look at the Harrier in flight. One question: did you apply noise reduction to the background? There seems to be a darker blue adjacent to the forehead and beak and around the wingtips.
Dennis-
Hey, thanks for your response. I know juuuust what you mean about getting decent shots of these shy, and always on the move subjects. This gal went by not too far off in the last 10 minutes of daylight and flew pretty much sideways to where I was. Caught a big break. I mostly use Lightroom for processing and use Photoshop for getting rid of distracting crud then back to LR. This was 5568 x 3712 original and I cropped it down to 1925 x 2089. I’m not above hitting “noise reduction” in Lightroom then “sharpening” but I don’t think I felt the need on this one. I will adjust “shadows” and “highlights” as needed on shots and possibly adjust the “contrast” and “saturation” some. After this gal cruised by I think I probably hollered something like, “Hell, yeah!” You know the feeling. You’ve given me some ideas about using Topaz, which I don’t have. I look forward to the heavy-hitter advice from you folks! Great site.
Grasshopper
