Short eared owl

[Mike Poole]

185320


Met up with Jon Ashton, and given the recent weather conditions near us, I was confident of a good owl display. I was wrong! For the best part of an hour we stood and chatted whilst this solitary owl sat in the marsh directly against really strong sunlight.

Jon had to go, then about 15 minutes later he decided to give us 2 passes on a decent sun angle

Nikon D500
600mm f4 + 1.4x
ISO 1250
1/3200th f5.6

Mike

[Jonathan Ashton]

You're not kidding, decent sun angle and a decent shot too!! You have beautiful colours there and the fluffy feathers around the bill look just sublime. Super detail in the underwing , so easy to over expose the tip of the tail but spot on. You should be very pleased with that one Mike.
It did brighten up today but the wind was in excess of 23mph so no good.

[Bill Dix]

Nicely done. The flight angle and sun angle were just right to light up the facial disk. How I wish I could get these guys in sunlight.

[Dorian Anderson]

Nice view of this species, one I still don't have on my collection. Would be nice to have more eye contact, but it is what it is.

The face looks unnaturally bright given the light angle, and there is a noticeable processing halo around the bird's head. I
understand the processing motivation, but it looks overdone here.

[Mike Poole]

Nice view of this species, one I still don't have on my collection. Would be nice to have more eye contact, but it is what it is.

The face looks unnaturally bright given the light angle, and there is a noticeable processing halo around the bird's head. I
understand the processing motivation, but it looks overdone here.

I appreciate your thoughts here Dorian, but there is no processing halo around the face - I've not touched that area. I took some blue out of the side of the face nearest the camera but as you can see by the nearly blown areas in the face near the beak there was no need to touch that area. What you're seeing is just the mottled BG

Mike

[Dorian Anderson]

Makes sense, got it, thanks!

[John Mack]

Nice of the owl to give you this fly by with a nice pose. Background is right on. Detail looks nice as well.

[dankearl]

Nice flight image of this species. A head turn would be great... next time.

[gail bisson]

Oh, I would be doing a happy dance with this one.
Great wing position and BG.
Yes, to some eye contact but he is doing his thing flying around and not posing for you!!
Gail

[Alex Becker]

I'd be pretty thrilled to see this on the back of the cam. Great BG and pose. Details look good, but maybe a tad crunchy on the face. Are the underwings really more grey than white? I'd expect them to be 'purer' white but never seen one in this lighting. Don't mind the head angle here. TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Mike, great flight pose with the raided wings, and I quite like this side angle showing only one eye. Love the detail on the face, and thats a killer BG.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like this one, nice BG and view of the eye. the owl looks a bit grey on my screen. would warm up the colors to bring it to life. The face is also a bit over sharpened, the SEO's have very soft faces and perhaps that's why you applied a bit more sharpening to it, IMO softer looks more natural here.... but else is great

TFS