Montagu's Harrier, Hessarghatta, Bangalore

[AB Apana]

A frame showing the bird in full. I could have cloned out the OOF vegetation in the BG. Any ideas of this? Specifically, would that mean the image is digitally altered or that the essential truth of the image has been compromised?

EOS 40D, 500f4 + 1.4x converter, ISO 400, handheld on Aperture Priority @ f8.

(Kiran, as requested, the entire bird, and very beautiful raptor at that).

Thanks for looking. Comments and critique welcome.

Apana

[Sabyasachi Patra]

A fine bird and a nice portrait. I would have liked some more space at the top. The image is sharp. I don't clone except for removing dust spots. There is one dust spot on the left side.

The vegetation gives us an idea about the habitat. Also, the out of focus branches are at the bottom of the frame and not near the head. So to me it is not a major distraction. Cloning means it would be referred to as digital alteration. If you are not going to cut a branch to get a clear view of an animal or bird while photographing, then one should not do that during post processing either.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Kiran Ghadge]

thats awesome... looks good and perfect with that vegetation. thanks for sharing