Little Owl VII ( F )

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi folks .. my first decent flight shot of the Little Owl
Had to work more than I would have liked to get the composition in post , as the original capture was off in terms of comp .
Too low in the frame and the perch visible in the upper third of the frame .
So I added canvas in the lower third and removed the perch ....


Canon EOS R 3
RF 2,8 400 IS L + 1,4 TC
HH

F 6,3 ; Iso 2000 ; 1/5000 sec

Processed with Canon DPP and PSCC 2023

Thanks for watching and commenting to my previous postings

Cheers Andreas

[Jonathan Ashton]

Super shot Andreas, focal plane spot on, beautiful light on the eyes, wing position and tail very good indeed.

[Steve Kaluski]

Head on isn't easy with this owl, but you pulled it off. How do you know it's the female?

Just watch the slight posterisation in the dark bottom RHC, I too was getting it as in sRGB it can't handle some of these tints, but a simple work around sorted it.

TFS
Steve

[Randy Stout]

Nice save! I might have traded a bit of SS for greater DOF. Personal taste. How fast of flyers are they?

Randy

[Steve Kaluski]

Good point Randy, as the lens has to work quicker the closer the subject flies towards you. And so you runout of DoF very quickly.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks folks for your kind comments , much appreciated .

@ Randy ... by now I am happy with the DOF due to the fact that I am not that much trained in shots like this , as I am really struggling to keep the Owl in the frame and to get a decent shot .... a steep learning curve for me at the moment . Learning to predict what the lady might do .... mostly I am missing the first split seconds when she starts from the given perch . But I am becoming better ... at least I do hope so . I wish I have more time .... but the youngsters are on the way to move out of the area . Can't get any more decent images of them . Even if I would have stopped down to f 9 / 11 would have not brought in the whole wings . As a downside the BG becomes more present ... which I wanted to avoid . At the time of shooting she might have been away roughly 7 m which means I do have a DOF of 5 cm , at F 11 it would have been 10 cm . But I might try if Owl and light does allow it . Not sure if it works ... as I am leaving on weekend for a trip to Slovenia to go hiking and biking . Not that much for photography ....

@ Steve ... at least for me they are fast flyers , but you have more experience with them . For me I am feeling so lucky and privileged to have this option with them this year , luckily the landlord let me do my things on his property ..... but I do not want to push boundaries :w3. I think it is a female ... as this individual is slightly bigger than the other one . The other one was way more shy and I do actually do not see him anymore , sometimes he comes back close to darkness and I do identify him by the call .

Cheers Andreas

[Steve Kaluski]

After 7 years with them it tended to be the male that was visible more, but unless they are side by side it’s pot luck to know who is who. Parents will be taking them further a field each day and then abandoning them. Once that happened they all just disappeared. Haven’t seen them for many years now which is sad as they were always entertaining and gaining their trust was such a privilege.

Very hard to get head on flight shots as they fly like a roller coaster up & down.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Pretty cool image of this Little Owl. Love the eyes, I also think pose is great, never easy to capture an avian subject flying towards you... so very well done, Andreas!

PP work very nice, have not seen the original but trust your judgement, looks great without a perch in the BG and with some extra canvas where needed.

I particularly like the background colours and the subject's face is sharp with nice detail. Well exposed too and DoF spot on. Nice SS:t3

Hope you get more opportunities like this, perhaps if you show the owner of the property your owl images he will give you a special permit to visit more often:w3

Kind regards,