Is this any better Loupey?

Over the last 2 days i set out to try and get closer, and get a frontal or face shot of the Kestrel at my park, i managed to get these shots and although one day the weather was very dull and overcast, today was a little better and at least she looked at me in one of them, as to say, "if this is what it takes to get rid of you"!

A bit disappointed with the quality but thought them worth a post.

Certainly! :) I knew you couldn't resist a challenge :p

I like them all. Great pose in #2 and love the lighting on the face in #4. She must have been hovering directly above you in #1.

On this size bird, what is your preferred shutter speed? With the smaller birds, I seem to recall you using 1/1500? The position of the wing during its stroke makes a huge difference regardless - #2 and #4 look to be taken at nearly the same time and I'm guessing with the same settings?

Keep em coming! I really like kestrals.

A beautiful little bird. Great shots Bev.

Love the bottom one - she's saying get lost your frightening my food.

Their all wonderful.

Now can you get a pic of my favourite bird of prey the peregrine?

Roger

bev, your photos are always so good that I hesitate to post any criticism, but I think that masking the background off and adjusting the levels and curves in photoshop will make these better pictures - the detail is there, but on my monitor is underexposed. Let me know if you want to see what I would do! Kestrels were always my favorites until a peregrine nearly collided with me while I was on the L train here in chicago, I had never seen one within 5 feet before and I was amazed at the size. I'd love to get photos of one in the city setting, but I'm afraid that my bird-in-flight skills are pretty meager...


Erik.

Loupey, it very much depends on what the bird is doing, how it is flying, ie past me, coming towards me, at an angle,lighting at the time, as to what shutter speed i use, but going on average i would use for a bird like the Kestrel which at most is hovvering, around 250/500 SSpeed.
Two images were taken on one day, the other 2 today, the weather was totally different, first day very overcast and grey, today bright blue skys, infact too bright.
#1 and #3 Sspeed 1/250 f11 ISO320 @400mm (taken today) - #2 and #4 1/1000 f8 ISo320 @400mm.(overcast and grey).

Scott-devon and readingr thanks, your comments are always appreciated and respected, but a peregrine readingr, I wish! oh i wish, i will have to go to Scotland i think which is the nearest they are to me, so perhaps a holiday is on the cards!

Sushigaijin,Please dont ever hesitate to criticise my images, looking at your images that you have posted i think i can learn alot from them, they are always excellent, also your most welcome to edit my images, i appreciate you asking, il be interested to see what you can do, as i am here to learn as much as i can and masking in CS2 is on my "need to learn" list. I bet that was an exciting experience with the Perigrine!

Bev:

here's an edit that took five minutes - used magnetic lasso to layer the bird via copy - the background is not complicated so the lasso worked well, although the magic wand or the extract tool might have worked better...i was going for quick and dirty, so lasso it was!!

then I adjusted the levels on the bird until the contrast was good, then used curves to bring out the details I thought should be seen. Unsharp mask, 0.4 px, 65%, 0 threshold. Again, just quick and dirty but hopefully this shows an easy way to enhance almost-images...

Erik.

http://www.sushigaijin.com/images/photos/bev's%20kestrel.jpg
.

Thanks Eric i can see the difference, i am surely going to have to grasp more of the tools on CS2 to get better results.

The second is by far my favorite.

Another vote for number 2, but they're all great images as usual Bev.