Perigrine Falcon

[darknight]

this was quite a hard shot, he had just done a full dive and was levelling out towards me, would like it to have been a bit clearer but this guy was moving!
was thinking of cropping the top of but might make him to near the top?

[Nancy Moran G]

Tough shot but you did pretty good for the surprise flight pattern.
This may be just a photo that you remember the day, not a wall hanger.
I am only learning PSE 11 but isn't there a way to seriously blur the background, maybe that would help?
Nancy

[chauncey]

Mark, once your have your exposure techniques mastered, which you have in this image, BIF images require a lot of practice. You don't mention your gear...what are you using? Shutter speed, proper camera auto-focus set-up, and whatnot all enter into achieving a superior image. In this image, I would guess that you front focused a little and had a slower than needed SS.

[FrankMi]

A great action shot Mark! Some days you just sit back and are thankful for what you were able to capture rather than beat yourself up for not achieving the impossible. I enjoy and appreciate your capture for what it is!

I likely wouldn't try to change it, at least not by much. The Falcon is positioned well within the frame and there is very little to be gained by cropping. Even a background replacement wouldn't be an improvement unless the Falcon was razor sharp.

What you might try, however, is to tone down the white of the birch so that it blends more into the background. That and a very subtle warming of the color of the Falcon to make it stand out a bit more from the background. It's one of those shots that you can play with to learn from but may not be able to significantly improve.

[darknight]

thanks for the cnc guys, i will try and warm him up a bit, and the blurring of the birch may well help too thanks, he was actually flying across me so had to move with him, d5100, 105mm lens i I’m sure was around 1000 shutter speed had to adjust constantly just for this one and the others, i do have some lovely sharp ones of him sitting on the fence about 6ft behind me though

[AB26]

Got to agree with Frank.
Not an award winner but sure to be inspiration to do it again.

[Geoff F]

I would try a slight crop from the top and left side so the bird isn't placed quite so centrally.

One of these, or a Merlin, keeps swooping low across my garden looking for small bird prey. But it is moving so fast I can't even get a positive identification leave alone a flying photo!

[darknight]

geoff, we have a sparrow hawk in our garden but he swoops through to get all our sparrows, never managed to get a pick of her, we have now hardly any sparrows!!!