Anyone want to join me for lunch?

[eric s]

I think this is the best of the bunch, but you all tell me. I was out birding with a group and saw nothing very close (the 13 woodducks were great, but at about 1/8 of a mile away or so they were only good scope viewing.) But as the group was walking back to our cars we saw this, a lovely male merlin just finishing eating a small bird for lunch.

Here are the other pictures in the group, tell me which you like the best:

http://www.marx7.org/~esmith/menotom...nch/index.html

camera: 10D, 100-400L @ 400 (or so) f5.6, various shutter speeds. Tripod mounted, no flash.
Photoshop: crop, sharpen in various ways, shadow/hilight boost on some, some very slight contrast.

Eric

[checklg]

Eric, that's a great result you've got there. The disjointed foot on the branch saids it all.

I just wonder whether the image might lighten a fraction more without wrecking the great feather texture....

Regards,
Graham.

[eric s]

When I saw that leg, I knew I had something special. Then when the feathers were still on the beak for a subtle sign, I just wish I had used RAW to give me more exposure latitude... I new it would be special (it was rather overcase, so exposure was not easy.)

I actually spend a long time on all these trying to get them right both with sharpening and lightness. This is actually a rather dark bird, so I didn't want to push the exposure too much. Althought the male is a bit gray-er and the female is a bit brown-er on the back. Because this was shot at 400ISO and then run through neat-image, some (I don't know about this one) look a bit odd when lightened too much.

What do you think about the pose? In the gallery there are some where the head is turned right (over the leftover leg)... I couldn't decide if that made a difference or not. (Ok I'm being picky, but I wonder about these things... it's my nature.)

Eric

[checklg]

Eric, The pose in this one is great.

You are right about RAW, it would have given you a bit more leeway in terms of exposure. I use it all the time now on my D100. Even with that though there are limits to how much you can push an underexposure before the noise comes out.

Regards,
Graham.

[photosbyvito]

wow! wat is that leg?! looks like another bird of prey....and is that a heart hanging fromt he branch?! lol

nice shot!
i looked at the gallery and the "merlin lunch 7" looked the sharpest......but i don't think you could see the leg.....

keep up the good work....

[Kelle]

:shock: :shock:
talking about being at the right place at the right time.
The remaining leg leaves much to the imagination.
Great shot.


kelle

[PeterP]

You seem to get quite a bit of DOF for 400mm at f5.6. Whole bird seem to be in focus!.

Good shot.

[slipe]

Excellent shot. I couldn’t show it to my parrot though – she would have bad dreams for a month.

[pavaros]

i wonder what kind of bird the victim was...
Great shot!!well done!

[Kanji]

Just an excellent shot! That one could belong in a book. Great work.