Ma, I can Fly - First Image with 1DX II

[Loi Nguyen]

A burrowing owl chick testing its wings. He seemed so pleased with his new skills although he hasn't really been able to fly anywhere yet other than jumping straight up in the air. Surprisingly, the chicks all have bands, but they are wild and free.

1DX Mark II
400f4 DO II
1/4000
f9
ISO-2000
HH

I knew it would be hard to nail the focus right on the bird with them jumping every which way, so I went for F9. The 1DX II is a dream machine. If I don't get good enough images with it, then it is clearly operator's errors.

I cropped pretty tight on the left because there was half the back of another chick. Cropped to 16:9, took some from bottom and right and rotated slightly.

Thank you for your comments.

Loi

[Randy Stout]

Loi:

Excellent timing, exposure, flying grit.

With the gaze angle, I might be tempted to try a version with the bird on the left cloned out and cropped in a bit from the left. I normally don't do that, but it might be fun to try.

Cheers

Randy

[Diane Miller]

Beautiful catch with great detail! Good point from Randy -- the bird on the left isn't adding much. Or would be interesting to see more of the image on the left and clone out the distraction.

Wonderful body and lens combo!!

[Loi Nguyen]

Thank you Randy and Diane. I see what you meant by the owl on the left doesn't add anything. There was no apparent interaction between the two owls. I don't think it's worth the trouble of cloning though. That's just an easy out. I'd rather go back and work my way towards a better image :). It's more fun that way too.

[Randy Stout]

Loi:

By all means, if you have the opportunity to go back to that site again, go for it. Always my 1st choice too, but not always possible.

Good luck.

Randy

[David Salem]

Great detail and clarity in this one Loi. I like the pose and the HA and the BG adds to the overall image. Definitely remove the second owl. Well done.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hi Loi,

Superb (almost flying:bg3:) pose from the little owlet, what an experience it must have been to witness this! Well exposed and some wonderful detail, great (and natural looking) colours on the subjects, killer BG. Nice DOF by the way, good techs indeed, quick thinking out there in the field.

Very well processed. I tend to agree with David regarding removing the other owl, at the same time I feel the other character adds some context to the story you are telling, so in two minds about this:tinysmile_shy_t:

A pleasure to view, thank you so much for sharing!

Kind regards,

[arash_hazeghi]

looks cool Loi, I'd remove the OOF adult owl on the left as I find it distracting

TFS