James Nelson
June 2025 - Female Snail Kite
About the Image(s)
Boat tour through Panama Canal backwater near Gamboa. There was light rain and the light level was a little low. I have been told they can be found in Florida and along the Gulf coast. I live on the Pacific coast so this was a new bird for me. I thought the red eyes were quite striking. We tried waiting for her to fly but she stayed perched for more then 15 minutes before we moved on.
Nikon Z9 400 mm, 1/800 sec., ISO 3200, f/4.5
Processed through DxO PureRaw 4. White balance and exposure corrections in Lightroom. Cropping and color space adjustments in Photoshop before saving as jpeg.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
5 comments posted
Allen Kurth
Great shot. I love the eyes and raindrops. Posted: 06/11/2025 13:15:02
(Group 3)
This is a lovely bird with amazing (and sharp!) eyes in a delightful pose. I love the rain, and the dark, saturated rainforest BG. I believe the rain tells enough of a story to carry the image, and those eyes are hard not to love!
I do like the pose, but the image feels stretched vertically. That could be due to the extreme vertical crop. I feel you need more space to the viewer's left - both because the bird is looking slightly in that direction and because it just feels cramped otherwise. If you had to crop it to remove some undesirable element, I do understand that dilemma. My camera (Sony) has twice self-reset its ratio to 16x9, and the result looks something like this when I shoot vertical, so that's something to check if this is full frame.
Lillian Posted: 06/19/2025 16:09:29
I do like the pose, but the image feels stretched vertically. That could be due to the extreme vertical crop. I feel you need more space to the viewer's left - both because the bird is looking slightly in that direction and because it just feels cramped otherwise. If you had to crop it to remove some undesirable element, I do understand that dilemma. My camera (Sony) has twice self-reset its ratio to 16x9, and the result looks something like this when I shoot vertical, so that's something to check if this is full frame.
Lillian Posted: 06/19/2025 16:09:29
Hi James,
Congratulations on your striking image. But there is something wrong with the aspect ratio. It seems to be 16x9, but this would be better at a 2x3 with more space for the bird. Posted: 06/25/2025 10:16:09
Congratulations on your striking image. But there is something wrong with the aspect ratio. It seems to be 16x9, but this would be better at a 2x3 with more space for the bird. Posted: 06/25/2025 10:16:09
Howard Frank
Great detail and bokeh. I agree with the others that the bird looks stretched out. Posted: 06/25/2025 10:31:12
All that Lillian mentioned above....I love the rain drops and birds eyes straight away Posted: 06/28/2025 01:35:56