Redtail shot from this aft

[WTP07]

I caught this guy, with the sun behind me for a change, this afternoon.

Slight crop to move him from dead center, MF (for Loupey), actually, my XT won't AF through the 2X TC on the 400mm lens, so most of my shots are MF.

He's not perfectly sharp, but at this level of crop, he looks OK.

I saw a bunch of TV's and Kestrel's today too, but no good captures. I am gonna have to stack some roadkill beside my blind to get a good TV capture I think...

Jay, not too many RL hawks or Harriers left down here anymore, pretty much just RT's now. I did see one RL this aft, very dark morph, upper and lower, but the capture was crappy and the sun was behind him...so I have a fuzzy dark blob.

Cheers,

Randy

[Loupey]

Nice job! I take it he didn't let you get too close (400mm+2x)? Hard to judge what they will tolerate at any given time.

Your image has a little too much blue in the highlights and shadows and also too much cyan (I find this color shift a LOT on mine too). Add in some yellow and reds and I think it will help

[WTP07]

How's this look...any better?



I raised the yellows and reds, and lowered the cyan...

No, not too close. This was a drive-by shooting. I pulled over about a 1/4 mile up the road and walked back, as I got close enough to take a decent shot, he decided that was close enough.

Here is a 75% crop. The 100% gets really soft, and unless I wanted just his head...it is pretty weak.



R.

[Copy_Kot]

The second post definitely looks much better. Wow is that a tangle of branches! Good job focusing on the hawk!

[Loupey]

Randy, I took the liberty of trying my hand at your image. In case you wanted to see the specific steps, here they are:

1) remove some of the "hotness" with a 7% adjustment to just the highlight
2) remove some of the contrast with a "reverse S-curve"
3) adjust the levels at 10, 1.07, 255
4) adjust the color balance (midtones with 10 red; highlights with 7 yellow, 5 green, 5 red)
5) re-adjust the levels at 10, 0.95, 255

Even with my white balance on the camera set to sunlight, I find the blue sky will tend to have too much cyan while the branches/neutrals tend to get too much blue/magenta. So the above color corrections are pretty much a given for me too.

Just my interpretation of course

[WTP07]

Thanks for the help with the PP Loupey....I understood everything except the 'reverse S curve' on the contrast. When I adjust the brightness/contrast, I have just that, two sliders for them...what is this reverse S curve you speak of?

R.

[Loupey]

Sorry Randy, I don't know if you have PS or what version, but CS2 has a "Curves" adjustment which is more powerful and flexible than the usual "Brightness and Contrast" command.

Most people tend to refer to the curve adjustment as an "S curve" to make the image pop by boosting its contrast. I like to use the reverse-S (shown below) to flatten an already contrasty/hot image and to bring back detail in an otherwise black/white regions.

The Levels, Curves, and Color Adjustments are my main tools.

[WTP07]

OK..got it now...I've never used the curves tool before. I will have to play with that one for a bit. Thanks!
R.