Tawny owl (Strix aluco)

[Jonathan Ashton]

Another shot of Tawny owl, I just cannot geta good viewpoint, just so difficult to find high up in the trees. They are becoming more mobile now. I will check them out tomorrow but I would not be surprised if they have flown away.
Hand held
OM-1 OM 150-400TC
Focal Length (35 mm conversion) : 947.0mm
ISO : 800
Exposure compensation : 0.0 EV
Exposure mode : Manual exposure
Shutter : 1/800 sec
Aperture : F5.6

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jon, tough to shoot through into the canopy, but you did well. The FG branch really dominates for me, plus the amount of grain in the face at ISO800, unless under exposed it should be perfect. Colour still looks odd and the way the lens has compressed the leaves looks a bit funky.

Bar climbing into another tree to get a better shooting angle, not much more you can do other than hope they come into a better clearing, but I doubt that sadly. Be careful, look out for the parents, you don't was another Hoskins issue!

TFS
Steve

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hi Jon, tough to shoot through into the canopy, but you did well. The FG branch really dominates for me, plus the amount of grain in the face at ISO800, unless under exposed it should be perfect. Colour still looks odd and the way the lens has compressed the leaves looks a bit funky.

Bar climbing into another tree to get a better shooting angle, not much more you can do other than hope they come into a better clearing, but I doubt that sadly. Be careful, look out for the parents, you don't was another Hoskins issue!

TFS
Steve

Steve, I suspect the leaves look soft because I have deliberately blurred them, i.e. nothing to do with the lens. The grain you refer to doesn't trouble me, I suspect it is a slight fault of sharpening, I am messing with sharpening using the subject mask in ACR vs using the conventional sharpening. The latter is adjustable the former is only in terms of amount.

[Steve Kaluski]

The grain you refer to doesn't trouble me, I suspect it is a slight fault of sharpening, I am messing with sharpening using the subject mask in ACR vs using the conventional sharpening. The latter is adjustable the former is only in terms of amount.

Jon, grain won't come from sharpening, so it must stem from within your PP, otherwise other5 areas would be affected.

I think you might be going down a rabbit hole in your sharpening thinking based on what you have described, however to a degree you are correct, but... You imply you are sharpening within ACR on the Raw, (known as input sharpening) fine, but it should be minimal. You ONLY then sharpen at the Output stage after cropping and have flattened the file, (Save As) and at the final size of output. Whilst sharpening at the output stage you can then adjust the amount applied, but you must set the file up correctly.

I'm trying to read between the line here Jon, but ultimately the best form of sharpening is via PS. :S3:

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Steve.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Jon ... might not be a prize winning image , been there myself two years ago with the owls on my neighbors property . So I can follow your thoughts on shooting this ,
To me it does look nice overall .... under the given circumstances .

Good luck with them

TFS Andreas

[Dorian Anderson]

You know the scene is busy, but you got a decent view and great eye contact to make this worth hanging onto. I agree with Steve about the grain on the face, but that's minor given the other limitations.