Sea eagle and Saker Falcon

[Craigie]

I have some reservations on the issue of keeping wild animals in captivate.
But when my granddaughters asked me to go with them to a local animal park/zoo.
I had to say yes (who could no to a 2 and 5 year old).
Knowing they had a large selection of birds of prey, I took my camera along.
Sadly most where in large cages with wire mesh, the only pictures I took were in the open paddock area.
At one point the keepers were holding some of the birds on their arms and one slipped free of it's harness and flew into the distance.
The quote "Free,free at last" came to mind.

1
Saker Falcon


2
White Tailed Sea Eagle


3
Head shot

[Shadowman]

Nice captures.

[chauncey]

Great shots...if your PS skills are up to the task, I would change your backgrounds.

[NorthernFocus]

Zoos/animal parks do present a conundrum. However I typically find the most depressing aspect of visiting them to be the attitudes/behavior exhibited by my fellow visitors.

Nice detail in all three shots.

[bnnrcn]

Nice and clear shots Gary I would reduce the structure of the BG in the first image and may be add some blur to it to make the Falcon stand out.

[Minerva]

Stunning shots Gary, marvelously captured and rendered. I would agree though with the b/g issues.

[Craigie]

Thanks to all for your comments and advice.
My PS skills are very basic, just got it installed 4 months ago.
The Sea Eagle re the BG will be an on going project.
With the Falcon I did some blurring using the Lens Blur Filter on the BG.
Binnur, could you explain what and how to reduce the structure of the background, my lack of knowledge is the problem
C&C welcomed

[bnnrcn]

Hi Gary, depending on the software you use , there are more than one way to reduce the structure : If you have ACR or Lightroom you can push the clarity slider to the left, if you have Nik Software, you can push the structure slider to the left in Viveza ( A part of Nik Software for color images). But you have to do these things selectively just for the BG.Otherwise the look of the bird would be effected too. Also , not to sharpen the BG is another solution. You can always add some gaussian blur to the BG selectively to blur it.It usually works fine to blur the BG.

I also do some noise reduction to lessen the effect of the detailed clouds in some of my landscape images. You might as well give it a go to see how it works but the result may not be as good for the pebbles

Thanks to all for your comments and advice.
My PS skills are very basic, just got it installed 4 months ago.
The Sea Eagle re the BG will be an on going project.
With the Falcon I did some blurring using the Lens Blur Filter on the BG.
Binnur, could you explain what and how to reduce the structure of the background, my lack of knowledge is the problem
C&C welcomed

[Wavelength]

What a majestic creations!!!!

[Craigie]

What a majestic creations!!!!

Mother nature is a wonderful thing.