Another (and probably the last) from my trip on the 28th. This owl was obviously a popular attraction at the refuge and apparently enticed a number of people to break the rules because they’d put in a barricade at a pull-off, taped it off and put out a reminder sign for people to stay in their cars. However I was early enough that there wasn’t much traffic and there was one small location with an unobstructed view of the owl without leaving the car so I took a string of shots.
Specific Feedback Requested
Given the bright background I brought the owl up quite a bit to make it stand out. I’m curious how people feel about the brightness balance.
Also, when I brought up the brightness of the bird I could just barely see that the eyes were slightly open but there wasn’t enough light to more than barely make out the irises. As and experiment, I painted in tiny arcs for the irises. Do they look natural and reasonable?
Technical Details
Is this a composite: Yes
Sony A7Riv, FE200-600 @ 600 mm, beanbag on car window, f/8, 1/800, iso 2000, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. I brought up the exposure of the owl quite a bit and also dodged some of the major branches a bit. As mentioned above, I also painted irises into the eyes. Cropped to 3720 x5052. Taken at 8:37 am om February 28th.
Dennis, this is a beautiful bird and it paid off to get there early. The only thing that struck me at once was the way its ears seem to be linked by those two vertical branches to the horizontal branch above its head, and I found that a bit strange. Probably just me, but I would remove those two vertical branches.
Hi, Dennis. The brightness doesn’t bother me; those are always such tough shots to make work. I enlarged the image before I read your description and thought to myself, “He barely had his eyes open”, but I didn’t think they looked strange so, I would say you did a masterful job. I do agree that the two strands of moss, or whatever it is, hanging straight down above his ears pulls my eye, but it would probably be a lot of painstaking work to remove them. Overall, a nice image.
I like seeing the aspects of camouflage in this image.
A lot of photographers, rightly so, want the subject to stand out. I think one place where that sometimes fails is with wildlife that are designed almost entirely for stealth and camouflage like owls. A sharp image where I have to look twice to differentiate the owl from its surroundings even if the owl is fairly closeup would be just as interesting or more interesting than one where the owl is highlighted.
Good for you to be the early bird Dennis and also to get the owl out in the open. Hard to do sometimes. It is a complicated setting at best. You have the owl in its natural environment resting. I think the brightness balance is fine. I tend to expose for the bird and completely blow the sky out and then try to tone it back down later.
I can’t quite make out the yes so i would suspect they are fine.
Another good day.
Hi Dennis, I think you did quite well with this image. Having the bird amongst its natural habitat works for me as is and you did a good job making the features of the bird stand out for us. The eyes look realistic to me.
Hi Dennis
This photograph shows how nature has designed the Great-horned Owl to blend in to the background. Everyone who wants to see the Owl, has to work at it. Nice work and keep the moss.
Peter
You did a really good job with the detail on this one considering the light and the setting. Tough to focus on these when they have so many branches around them. Good job.
