# American Kestrel and Red-tail



## BrentC (Mar 23, 2021)

Its been a long time since I last posted and a longer time since I was able to get out and take some photos.    Had a great day and was finally was able to get decent photo of an American Kestrel.

Please critic because I'm using a new laptop and I have not calibrated the screen.  I have a feeling these might have too much contrast.

*Edit - Had laptop for a while but first time using it for editing.   It had HDR mode turned on which really upped the contrast.  Turned it off and the photos look much better now and similar to my other monitor. 




American Kestrel by Brent Cameron, on Flickr




Red-tailed Hawk by Brent Cameron, on Flickr




Red-tailed Hawk by Brent Cameron, on Flickr




American Kestrel by Brent Cameron, on Flickr


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## PJM (Mar 23, 2021)

Shots of the Kestrel are stunners.  Looking forward to seeing more.


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## Susan Will (Mar 23, 2021)

#3 is so beautiful!


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## Scott Whaley (Mar 23, 2021)

I like #3 the best.


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## K9Kirk (Mar 23, 2021)

Nice set, I like #3 and 4 best.


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## BrentC (Mar 23, 2021)

Thank you


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## Space Face (Mar 24, 2021)

They are beautiful birds.  The last for me is the best but all good.


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## BrentC (Mar 25, 2021)

Thanks


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## willard3 (Mar 25, 2021)

Just love the kestrels


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## nokk (Mar 25, 2021)

#1 & 3 for me.  gorgeous photos.


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## jeffashman (Mar 25, 2021)

Those are really nice! 3 and 4


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## BrentC (Mar 26, 2021)

Thanks guys!


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## ZombiesniperJr (Mar 26, 2021)

Great shots Brent! Those kestrels can be a pain to get photos of.


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## BrentC (Mar 27, 2021)

ZombiesniperJr said:


> Great shots Brent! Those kestrels can be a pain to get photos of.



Thanks Logan.  Yeah they do tend to be very skittish.  This one was kind of chill though.  I'm working on getting in-flight shots.   I know where the pair of them are usually at.   Fast little buggers though.


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## Jeff15 (Apr 2, 2021)

Very good shooting......


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## johngpt (Apr 3, 2021)

Brent, I'm not seeing any significant problem with either blown highlights or blocked shadows.
In image 4, there might be a small area of highlight that seems to not have any data. On our right, under the Kestrel's left eye there is that patch of bright white. 

I'm not sure if you had shot in raw, but if you had, you might see if there is data in that area in your raw editor, reducing exposure or highlights. If there is data, you might then edit so that the data becomes more visible without influencing exposure elsewhere in the image.
I won't go into how you might do that edit, as everyone has his/her own preferences.


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## BrentC (Apr 3, 2021)

johngpt said:


> Brent, I'm not seeing any significant problem with either blown highlights or blocked shadows.
> In image 4, there might be a small area of highlight that seems to not have any data. On our right, under the Kestrel's left eye there is that patch of bright white.
> 
> I'm not sure if you had shot in raw, but if you had, you might see if there is data in that area in your raw editor, reducing exposure or highlights. If there is data, you might then edit so that the data becomes more visible without influencing exposure elsewhere in the image.
> I won't go into how you might do that edit, as everyone has his/her own preferences.



Yeah I know about that area.  Exposure wasnt perfect on the shots and had to recovered some highlights.   I probably could have singled out that spot to try and recover more.  Next time I'm editing I'll see what I can do.    I also have a ton of other shots from that time I should go through, might be one with better exposure to start with.   But I was shooting at a bad time, around noon.


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## johngpt (Apr 4, 2021)

BrentC said:


> Yeah I know about that area.  Exposure wasnt perfect on the shots and had to recovered some highlights.   I probably could have singled out that spot to try and recover more.  Next time I'm editing I'll see what I can do.    I also have a ton of other shots from that time I should go through, might be one with better exposure to start with.   But I was shooting at a bad time, around noon.


Probably just something which points to how OCD I am and you'll probably laugh at me, when I have a spot like that and it ends up not having any information and is truly blown out, I clone data from another part of the image. Sometimes direct cloning works and sometimes I have to use frequency separation (something often used in portrait editing) to get texture into that area.
I've done it for bird feathers and I've done it even more frequently on blown out bits of clouds in landscapes.


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