Some days it doesn't pay to be a Bull Frog

Dixie · January 2, 2009

Red-shouldered Hawk with the catch of the day. Taken in the Audubon Swamp Garden at Magnolia Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Click on image for EXIF data.

Red-shouldered hawk with the catch of the day.

Harryb · January 2, 2009

Excellent capture Dixie.

raptorcaptor · January 2, 2009

Nicely done!

bfjr · January 2, 2009

Nice catch for your both

Darren Troy C · January 2, 2009

My ol' stomping grounds....used to live right down the road! Great capture! The Audobon gardens are quite the special place. Is the bokeh a bit "manufactured"? I'm not beating up the photo, trust me! It looks a bit tweaked. (bokeh)

bhowdy · January 2, 2009

Super capture Dixie. I discovered the Magnolia Swamp last June and plan on going back this year !

KurtPreston · January 2, 2009

Love tthat almost painted looking background, beautiful shot!

PaulThomasMcKee · January 2, 2009

Great shot!

dbaker1221 · January 3, 2009

terrific capture

Maestro · January 3, 2009

Really nice image Dixie.

Ric Grupe · January 3, 2009

Delightful!

Dixie · January 4, 2009

Harryb wrote:

Excellent capture Dixie.

Thanks, Harry.

Dixie · January 4, 2009

raptorcaptor wrote:

Nicely done!

Thank you.

Dixie · January 4, 2009

bfjr wrote:

Nice catch for your both

Thanks, Benjamin. He really enjoyed his catch. He sat there in front for me until he finished every morsel.

Dixie · January 4, 2009

Idlewild wrote:

My ol' stomping grounds....used to live right down the road! Great capture! The Audobon gardens are quite the special place. Is the bokeh a bit "manufactured"? I'm not beating up the photo, trust me! It looks a bit tweaked. (bokeh)

Not really tweaked that much. I was so close to him that I had to change the setting on my EF 100-400 to the closer setting to get the lens to focus on him. I was less than 20 feet from him with a very narrow DOF at a 5.6 f/stop. Everything behind him was very out of focus. I didn't crop, but I did scale slightly to get the composition that I liked. Because of the sky backlight I did have to shoot at -2/3 exposure compensation which under exposed the hawk. I then used nik's Viveza to correct the exposure on the hawk. The only other process I used was to Darken the surrounding area around the hawk and brightened the area with the hawk.

Dixie · January 4, 2009

bhowdy wrote:

Super capture Dixie. I discovered the Magnolia Swamp last June and plan on going back this year !

Thanks, Bob. I grew up in that area and two of my kids and bunches of grand and great-grand kids live there so I go pretty often.

I should also mention that if you go to Magnolia Gardens and have a photography business card they will normally let you in for free. I've never had to pay and during return visits I will present them some prints stamped on the back with all my copyright info.

I noticed that you are from Maryville so we should get together sometime when I go up to the Smokies to shoot.

Dixie · January 4, 2009

KurtPreston wrote:

Love tthat almost painted looking background, beautiful shot!

Thanks, Kurt. See my response to Idlewild on the background.

ian408 · January 4, 2009

I like the composition, bokeh and color of this pretty picture.

Dixie · January 4, 2009

Thanks also to Paul, Dave, Stephen and Ric for taking the time to look and comment. Your comments are always appreciated.

Dixie · January 5, 2009

ian408 wrote:

I like the composition, bokeh and color of this pretty picture.

Ian, thank you for your comments.