There is a family of Owls in tree that I passed by. This is a young Owl peaking out as I walk by. According to google translate they are called Tengmalm’s Owl (Pärluggla in Swedish). I like the way it keeps us in sight while we walk by.
All feed-back is very welcome
Is this a composite: No
600 mm, f/6.3, ISO 1400, 1/500 sec.
Very nice facial detail and I like the surrounding tree bark as well. Nice capture.
thanks a lot for your comment Allen!
An owl I’ve never seen before - thanks for sharing. I really like the low light and the saturated colors. I think it evokes the forest very well, and the low light loving nature of owls themselves. Terrific sharpness and framing with the OOF elements and the nest opening itself. What a beauty!
Thanks a lot for your comment, the feed-back is very appreciated!
I really like the dark moodiness of this image. Excellent detail on the owls face. And I like the color of the bark. That said, the out of focus branch at the top of the image draws my attention away from the owl. I would consider holding out the out of focus branch just above the owls head in the hole and I would try to blend away the out of focus branch at the top of the image. Another option would be a closer crop. Hope you don’t mind my edit…
Very cool image. Love the light in the image. I do like the edit that @David_Schoen suggested.
Superb job on the focus on the owl and the spot lighting on the face is extremely effective, Johan. I was going to suggest getting rid of at least the bright out of focus stuff immediately over the head, but I do think David’s edit would be even more effective. Excellent image.
Thanks for taking tome to look at my image and suggesting how to improve it. I think it looks better than my original image!!
Thanks a lot for taking time to look at my image!
Thanks for your comment Dennis! I am happy you liked the image but I have to confess I brighten up the owls face quite a lot…and darken the tree…
Hi Johan
You have a very interesting photograph here. The highlights and eye contact of the Tengmalm’s Owl, just draw me into the photograph. The only adjustment I would try, is on the bright spot over the Owl’s head, The out of focus branches just add to mystery of this photograph. Nice work.
Peter
Ps
What camera did you use and how far up the tree is the Owl’s nest.
Thanks for your comment Peter. I have a version on my website now that I did exactly what you suggested removed the bright spots above the owl but keep the branches. The nest was very high up in a tree (20 meters) but there must be some optical illusion with the bird look down that makes it look like I am at the same level. I used a Nikon D850 with Sigma 15-600 C lens (at 600 mm). I cropped it heavily and then used Topaz Gigapixel to upscaled it to 4000x4000 px. For me Gigapixel is hit or miss but in this case it worked very well. I think I will print this image.
HI Johan
I tried Topaz Gigapixel and had vary little luck with anything over 1.7 times upscale.
Peter
Ps The Owl does look like it is at eye level.
I think this is just a great image. The color, lighting and composition work perfectly together.
thanks a lot Richard!
