another Northern Hawk Owl

[Paul Kusmin]

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3118/3242424833_7503923b3e_o.jpg

Hope no one minds another Hawk Owl shot, I realize there have been a few lately.
I took a ferry out to Vancouver Island yesterday morning to get some shots of this bird.

D300 + 1.7x tele + 500mm f4 AFS-I

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 850 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Exposure Bias: -1/3 EV
Flash: No Flash

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find and the little rodent adds to it. I would sharpen a bit more and increase contrast. Do you have an image with the owl looking at you? A lower angle would have been great. Could you have backed up a bit? Keep them coming!

[James Salywoda]

Nice shot! You could sharpen this a little more and give it a slight contrast boost to improve this image.

[Steve Large]

Hi Paul,
Hope you enjoyed yourself this weekend in Nanaimo. I got my share of photos of the hawk owl on Friday so I took a trip out to get a few shots of all of you guys taking pictures. I don't think I have ever seen so much hardware in one place :D. Would have liked to have met you but too many unknown faces. I see you got the shot that I was hoping for. Voracious little hunter isn't he? You have my vote for a bit more sharpening.

take care,

Steve

[Paul Kusmin]

thanks for the C&C everyone, much appreciated.

It was a mad scrum of photogs all trying to get this shot and I was on the sidelines with some branch clutter to shoot through but at least I got two shots of this pose (this being the better of the two).
The owl only showed us his lunch briefly before taking off with it, no doubt to stash it away for another time.

I think some selective sharpening is in order and I agree about the contrast as well.
cheers!