The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Yesterday I was driving from a short photo session, looked out my car window and found this red-tailed hawk flying right beside me in the same direction. We looked at each other for a second. It was weird.
I parked off the road and watched for about 5 minutes until he/she left, the hawk flying from light pole to light pole on the hunt. I got a few BIF shots in and was practicing using a faster shutter and higher f-stop to get more of the bird in focus. It was a cloudy morning.
Specific Feedback
The road behind the bird - the hawk was flying parallel and just in front of the road. You can see the yellow line, is it an issue? And just in general, the bird’s sharpness. It looked great in the camera but was pretty soft when I got it into lightroom.
Technical Details
Fujifilm X-T3, 1/2000s, f/8.0, ISO 2000, 400mm. Processed with Adobe Denoise in Lightroom, then a bit of Topaz Sharpen afterwards.
The road doesn’t bother me, Debbie-it’s pretty inconspicuous. While the bird is slightly soft at the size you presented it, it’s adequate. It would certainly look fine on Facebook, particularly by those who like to look at stuff on their phones. Dont feel alone on that one-I have a ton of flight shots that just didn’t end up as sharp as I’d like.
I like this one. The detail looks pretty good to my eyes and I like the wing position and the apparent closeness of the hawk. The low flying, eye level pose and and environment add a lot to this shot. Well done.
P.S. The road isn’t a problem-thought it was water and didn’t appreciate the yellow line at first.
Hey now! Nice timing. I so stink at BIF it’s ridiculous. I think you’re headed in the right direction with this kind of thing. Seat time…that’s what’s needed. Prep for those Great Grays!!!
@Dennis_Plank thank you. I’m a little frustrated with the blurriness I’m seeing in a lot of shots, but typically they’re at pretty low light, and not that close. I went up to 1/2000s to try to fix that a bit but still having the problem. Working on it!
@Allen_Brooks Thank you! He/she was quite close to me.
@Kris_Smith Practice makes perfect! The weather’s supposed to be unseasonably warm this week so hopefully I can get more practice in.
I think this is totally cool!! The pose is great and I don’t see any softness at this size. The focus and DOF look fine. I would never have noticed the road if you hadn’t mentioned it. It would be easy to do a sift-edged quick mask selection along the line and desaturate yellows. You could probably dodge around the weeds – the yellow hardly shows behind them.
Hi Debbie, This is a fine in flight catch IMO. I just see a very tiny bit of softness in the head. The blur in the wings is appropriate for an in flight shot IMO. I think you can tone down or eliminate the yellow line on the road as mentioned above. I think 1/2000s should be a fast enough shutter speed in most situations to get a sharp head/eye. Nice catch.
Hi Debbie, This is a great inflight image. Maybe a little soft, but that could be due to a whole number of things–autofocus of the XT3, hand held motion, etc. As @Allen_Sparks said, 1/2000sec should be fast enough to freeze the hawk even tracking sideways.
I’m fairly new to bird photography, but for birds in flight, I have my camera set 10 frames per second and 1/1600 for slow flying birds like herons, 1/2000 for hawks like this and 1/2500 for swallows and hummingbirds…
The background doesn’t bother me at all. Great image.
Hello, Debbie - you have a nice image with wonderful matching colors and an attractive subject. At this size the sharpness is okay, but I get your concern. You may try and selectively sharpen the eye, as this is what most people will look for first. And the yellow line? Hadn’t you asked, I probably hadn’t noticed … Cheers, Hans
… Cheers, Hans