Bald eagle, in profile

[ArthurDent]

I'd appreciate some comments on the processing of this image. Most of the work was done in Lightroom, but I also ran it through Dfine6 to reduce the noise.
D500, 70-200 f/2.8 VR at 200 mm, 1/3200 sec., f/7.1, ISO 1100.

The light was not great, about 90% cloud cover and very flat.

[armando_m]

Arthur,
Can you tell a little more , is this a heavy crop ?
Did you have to recover the  shadows ?

Seems the noise reduction affected the fine details as very little is left on the feathers

Focus is spot on the eye

[Akira]

Looks like a heavy crop, but it is well worth trying.

Apparently the cloudy weather offered the well diffused light, even if it was a bit dark.

[ArthurDent]

Arthur,
Can you tell a little more , is this a heavy crop ?
Did you have to recover the  shadows ?

Seems the noise reduction affected the fine details as very little is left on the feathers

Focus is spot on the eye

Armando, thank you for your comment. Yes, it was a fairly heavy crop and I did recover the shadows a bit. I will look at it again, but I don’t remember there being all that much detail in the feathers in the original image, certainly nothing like what I’ve seen posted by some of the members who have super telephoto lenses.

Akira, thank you for your comment. The sky ws quite white and almost uniformly bright, not my preferred sky for photographing birds in flight, but perhaps ok for birds on the perch.