The noise that killed the hawk

So the other day I had a great opportunity to shoot this hawk. I was able to get out of my toyota and walk slowing toward it. It was pretty accommodating for the most part but I failed to do any manual adjustments to the camera, instead just putting it in auto (sports) mode... yeah I know, big mistake. Anyways it finally flew away and I am snapping pictures left and right...

Unfortunately after i got home and was looking things over i noticed a lot of noise. The camera, in auto sports mode had set the ISO to 1000 giving the image a grainy look... I dont know how many times I have told people to set up their cameras in priority modes or use manual mode, but I failed to take my own advice this time and pending a printing doubt it will be a keeper....

Looks like a sharp shot on here, but the background is not helping show the definition of the wings.

The image itself is fairly sharp just at 100% it is a little grainy. I brought down the saturation on the greens to highlight the rest of the hawk. You think it defeats the purpose?

Maybe. There isn't much distinction between the wing tips and the background, perhaps more color would make it more pronounced. I think the birds positioning against the border of the horizon going from dark to stark white is troubling. Nothing in the sky to balnce the shot- Sorry this has turned into a critique! It is a great stop action shot though, what lens did you use?

Hmmm I may play with it and see if I can find a balance there. What killed me was the head being so close to that sky. The shot before this was perfect in height and horrible in body position. This was one of those win some lose some images.

Ok I decided to play with this image a little more and see what I could do to improve it. let me know what you think.

Johnathan Aulabaugh said:

Ok I decided to play with this image a little more and see what I could do to improve it. let me know what you think.

Click to expand...

Big difference in this rendition. Nice work.

Thanks