Flammulated Owl

[Rick Bowers]

Flammulated Owl - <st1:place><st1:city>Chiricahua Mountains</st1:city>, <st1:state>Arizona</st1:state>, <st1:country-region>USA</st1:country-region></st1:place> - May<o:p></o:p>

This is a red morph adult. Gray morphs show almost no rust in the face or breast. The red morph is what this species was named for - Flammulated means flame (reddish) colored.<o:p></o:p>

10D, 600+1.4, 1/160sec; f/10; ISO 200, flash. PP - levels and slight boost to saturation.<o:p></o:p>

[Loi Nguyen]

Rick, very nice owl. Regarding the image, not sure if this is a large crop or not, but I would expect to see more details with a 600 +1.4. Did you shoot handheld or with tripod at 1/160 SS? The image seems to have too much flash to my eyes. Loi

[Marina Scarr]

Another interesting owl and good job on lighting him up. Agree with Loi on a bit too much flash. I took the image into PS and burned the bird, esp the whites, and it really improved the image.

[Doug Brown]

Rick, very nice owl. Regarding the image, not sure if this is a large crop or not, but I would expect to see more details with a 600 +1.4. Did you shoot handheld or with tripod at 1/160 SS? The image seems to have too much flash to my eyes. Loi

This shot is done using flash as main light, so the camera's shutter speed does not reflect the effective shutter speed of the exposure. The effective shutter speed is the duration of the flash. I think there's plenty of detail here. I think a little less flash output and perhaps some off-axis flash would have helped some, but this is what nighttime owl photography looks like.