Owl through the bannister

[Jon Pugmire]

Canon 50D
70-200 2.8L IS USM II @ 185mm
AV mode +2/3 EV
1/1250
f/2.8
ISO 800

Taken at Dusk 8/2/14 in Albion, ID

[Jeannean Ryman]

I'm usually not a fan of panoramic type crops, but I think this is one that could benefit from it. The focus has to be the eyes, since that's pretty much all that's visible of the owl, so think that crop might work better.

[Jon Pugmire]

I played with lots of options. What I was trying to maintain was the parallelograms. There is an inner one and an outer one, this crop maintains the 3:2 aspect ratio and the outer. I didn't try just the inner one in a pano, so that's worth a try. Thanks!

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice & interesting shot, Jon! You have my vote for a pano crop, but not too much because you need to keep context for the photo to work. I would try to darken the white-ish frame on the right & front (selectively as you don't want to darken the highlights in the bird's face too), which should accentuate those eyes even more. Show us the RP!

[Jon Pugmire]

Excuse my ignorance but what's "the RP"? I'll get up on my acronyms over time :)

Here's a pano crop, the frame is already significantly darker than the original. If I take it into Photoshop, I could probably do more, but just reducing exposure in LR leaves it heading towards gray.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Excuse my ignorance but what's "the RP"? I'll get up on my acronyms over time :)

Here's a pano crop, the frame is already significantly darker than the original. If I take it into Photoshop, I could probably do more, but just reducing exposure in LR leaves it heading towards gray.

RP = "Revised Photo", OP = "Original Photo" Jon, you're going to see those terms quite often... :t3

I would have taken away a little less for the pano feel but it's obviously a personal thing - no 'right' or 'wrong' here. Also I would not have changed the overall exposure (as mentioned in my previous post), but just on the light frame section (i.e. the rim of the bannister on the right & front - hope this makes sense). I prefer the overall exposure of your OP.

[Jon Pugmire]

I had an adjustment brush applied to everything but the owl, and on the pano version I raised the shadows on that brush, as it felt too dark overall with that crop. The light frame elements in the OP were darkened significantly to begin with (there was a separate brush applied to just that area), as I darken them further they go a little grayish, but I can probably correct that also.

Thanks.

[Diane Miller]

I'm on the road (back later today) and only able to check in occasionally and mostly by iPhone. Good discussion here. My only additional thought would be that there is so much wonderful flexibility in LR adjustments and its good to see you using them. I'll often go to PS for more precise masking, often with a Curve adjustment. And Nik Viveza can be uncanny for its section of soft edges, although its adjustments are not as powerful as PS or LR.

You got a very interesting and unique shot here that looks to be of good quality. Worth giving it your best interpretation!

[Jon Pugmire]

Some context to the shot. Family reunion at Albion State Normal School (est. 1893) which has some buildings remodeled/converted to a retreat for families or other groups. Old red brick buildings. Discovered several owls around, but always in upper boarded up windows of the unused buildings. This one was perched on a bannister. Approached slowly, took shots, kept getting closer trying not to disturb. Finally was right under the owl, and it reminded me of a cat. Mostly it was looking another direction, but occasionally it would briefly look at us (a couple of nieces were with me) with disdain for a few moments and then return to ignoring us. Obviously used to human presence, and was obviously not concerned other than giving the impression of being rather annoyed.

Those eyes just jumped out as I had never observed them that close before. Seemed to convey a sense of major irritation that we had not left yet. There were no angles with a reasonable background, then I discovered I could see through the gap left by a missing post of the bannister railing and thought it might be interesting. Got in position, but for the longest time it wouldn't spare the time to even look at what I was doing. Finally, I got this look. I was going to stop down to see if it was more interesting with more DOF, but the owl wouldn't even glance at me after the first stare.

Short version, trying for the "stop bothering me" feeling.

[Jeannean Ryman]

Jon, I like your repost and the story behind the shot. The tighter crop conveys that feeling better to me. :)

[Jon Pugmire]

A couple of more options, one obvious thing I was missing is the eyes needed to be in the top part of the frame, not in the bottom IMO.https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O78nTrHRl90/VAfrhCnXGII/AAAAAAAAVt8/Yo5C3oVsh3w/w1170-h675-no/IMG_5006-2-2.jpg


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Naz63K_F-ks/VAfrhD9z-sI/AAAAAAAAVt0/aPi1aQMQeSo/w1170-h590-no/IMG_5006-3.jpg

And the bird letting me know it really felt about the whole situation:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LGD5kk9Vlxc/VAfrhP7fDHI/AAAAAAAAVt4/vG0OUwHVGXQ/w541-h810-no/IMG_4851.jpg

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Your last pic has my vote of approval Jon - it's all a matter of personal preferance, of course. I'm very cautious in saying this as one can easily go to far but I probably would have raised the highlights just a tad on the owl (alone!) to bring out a little more definition in the lighter feathers around the eyes & beak and to and accentuate the eyes a little more. But just a tad!

Happy snappies! :w3

[Jeannean Ryman]

LOL at the last shot! I kind of like your larger pano crop (1st in this group) a little better than your repost. So many different ways to "see" things!

[Diane Miller]

Just got back to this -- your first RP (pane 5) is the one that works for me. The eyes are the focus there -- no need to feel you need to move them to the top of the frame at the expense of including a lot of out of focus light stuff at the bottom.

A wonderful catch!!