Indian Rarity - Little Owl

[supreet.sahoo]

These little fur balls are confined to a very small village in the rocky himalayas of India. A population of less than 10 reside in this tough to reach place accessible only for a few months of the year. Even if you reach there life doesnt get easy! With just 1 small place to stay and food so basic things get worse when you start searching for these guys. To make matter worse getting a good angle, an eye contact and perfect light is a near impossible task, to say the least! For us things were very different though. After spending a few hrs just to see them there was the golden 2 mins where the bird perched at eye level, the sun was covered by a layer of clouds which ensured no shadows and a near perfect lighting condition! Hope you guys like this.

Canon 7d/300 f4
5.6, 1/400, -1/3, 400

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[Ian Wilson]

Heroic work Supreet, I am sure everyone will take their hat off to you for bringing this picture to our gallery. The only question I have is whether you feel the white balance is perfect; it looks just a tad 'warm' but that may be how you remember it in which case I happily accept your judgement. Well done! Regards, Ian.

[gail bisson]

I am afraid to critique this when I read your story on the difficulty in capturing this image!
I like the composition you chose very much. The stone ledge is very unique and plays well into your composition.
I like the clean BG.
I have to agree with IAN that the color balance seems to be off a bit. It looks too warm.
I see a bit of noise on the little owl. Was the image underexposed? I ask because it seems weird that you were at -1/3 EV in the light conditions you describe.
In any case, a little bit of PP would elevate this lovely image to another level,
Gail

[Jim Crosswell]

Beautiful image Supreet! I like the stone wall, eye contact, complimentary BG and composition. I can appreciate your efforts to obtain this image.

[supreet.sahoo]

Gentlemen, this forum is all about learning from each other and by no means I would feel bad to get honest critique. Thank you all for taking you time to appreciate the effort and also adding your valuable suggestion. I completely agree with the white balance being off and reworked on the image again. Having said that i was always shoot at -1/3 for most occasions as I somehow believe that my canon 7d has the tendency to overexpose by a third of a stop at all times. But in this case I probably should have dialled 0. Also, i had to bring up some details in PP and that would have caused the noise but this is a disadvantage of using shorter focal lengths in birding - I had to crop the image! I would let the cropping take the blame for the noise which i have tried to address a bit here. The green bands in the bg were branches of a tree which was behind this stone wall and has now been removed in PP. Hope you guys like the repost and honestly Im still willing to take more feedback on improvement if any.

PS: The loss in image quality is also because of the extreme compressing :(


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[David Salem]

Very nice shot Supreet and I applaud your efforts in getting to the remote location. That's wildlife photography, it sure doesn't happen on the couch. I like the pose, the comp and the stone wall. I think you went from one extreme to another with the re-post. I like the warmth of the evening light but somewhere in between would be better IMO. Nice work.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Congratulations on your rewarded efforts to photograph this species!! I love the composition, stare, perch. My first thought was about the colour balance...the repost addresses that nicely and is a huge improvement!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice one! love the original post. Thanks for sharing.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Very nice, beautiful little owl, nicely shown. Lovely composition. I commend you for your efforts and determination to photograph this bird. Thank you for sharing.

[Tom van den Brandt]

It's always rewarding if you go through so much trouble when you finally get the shot. Love the composition and I think the WB should be in-between the 2 somewhere. The repost looks a bit too red IMO.

Tom

[Binu John]

Beautiful shot and I applaud your efforts to get this shot! Lovely composition and light! The RP took care of the yellow color cast. Well done.