Judith Lesnaw  


Hawkeye by Judith Lesnaw

February 2025 - Hawkeye

February 2025 - Judith Lesnaw

Original

February 2025 - Judith Lesnaw

Original 2

About the Image(s)

Several weeks ago I spotted a Hawk who had dropped by for breakfast (I had just filled my bird feeders and scattered peanuts in their shells about). Hawk was perched in a tree the branches of which presented a lovely shape. That hawk posed for me. I photographed him with a Canon R5 propped on a firm foam pillow, and Canon RF 100-500mm lens at 500mm. Settings were: Aperture priority, f 8.0, 1/800 sec, ISO 1600. I imported into Lightroom Classic and then denoised and sharpened it in Topaz AI 3.4.4. Back in LRC I made two crops. In one crop I left the Z branch. I then extended the crop for a portrait. The challenge was to remove the web of twigs and sweet gum pods that I felt cluttered the image. I experimented with the three modes of removal in LRC, and settled on generative fill in the remove tool.


4 comments posted




Pamela Hoaglund   Pamela Hoaglund
Judith, you are becoming a wildlife photographer. Great capture and post processing. The eyes look sharp and he posed very nicely for you. I find it interesting that the bird seems to be mostly sharp but the branch he is sitting on is not sharp even with an aperture of f/8. Not sure why but maybe others have some insight. The sky was not your friend but you have to take what you are offered. To me it seems like the edges of the bird, especially on the right side seem to be blown out. Not sure how I would address those areas. Maybe others have suggestions. Great work in isolating the bird from the surrounding twigs.   Posted: 02/06/2025 01:45:18
Judith Lesnaw   Judith Lesnaw
Thanks for your observations. I selectively sharpened the bird and I added the wing tip below the branch to the selection. Thus the branch was not sharpened. I will try again and this time I will include the branch in the selection. I will experiment with those edges. I may have touched them when I cleaned up the twigs.   Posted: 02/06/2025 01:50:28



Mike Cohen   Mike Cohen
I like your final selection. I see the attraction to the shape of the branch but the subject is the hawk, which your crop emphasizes. (I think is a Red-tail.) I would do a bit of dodging and burning, of which there are many techniques. I'd lighten up the left side of the head and the tail and tone down just a bit some of the highlight areas. Their appears to be a vignette which for this particular image, I would remove. My eye caught it and my taste is for a vignette to be either obvious or not noticeable and this one is between those extremes. Just my taste as it looks good as is.   Posted: 02/06/2025 11:01:32
Judith Lesnaw   Judith Lesnaw
Thanks Mike. I need to study techniques for dodging and burning digitally. Thanks for your thoughts on vignettes. I will experiment. The power and pleasure of our dialog is that I always learn new ways of seeing things - and techniques to present what I have seen.
  Posted: 02/06/2025 12:19:31



 

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