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Steve Large
02-08-2009, 08:46 PM
Hi Everyone,
Hope you are having a great weekend. Here is another picture of the local celebrity Northern Hawk Owl. Unfortunately this is the lowest angle I could get on him today where all the criteria was met for good BG etc. Hope the "Hand of Man" element doesn't detract too much from the photo :confused:.

Camera stats: Canon 50D, 500mm F/4 with 1.4X, Wimberley with tripod
F/6.3 at 1/250 sec, ISO 320

Thanks for looking,

Steve
Axel Hildebrandt
02-08-2009, 08:48 PM
Great find, details and BG. While the perch is not exactly great, I don't find it distracting. There is a slight blue cast on my monitor, raising the color temperature might fix this and I would run NR on the BG.
Steve Large
02-08-2009, 09:47 PM
Hi Axel,
Oops! Looks like the same problem as last week. Here is the repost.

Thanks,

Steve
Axel Hildebrandt
02-08-2009, 11:55 PM
Steve,

The repost looks definitely better. I'm wondering if raising the saturation a few points would make it even better and I might give it a bit more room at the top.
Arthur Morris
02-09-2009, 01:16 PM
The re-post is better but it could still use a bit more punch: contrast/SAT. At least the perch is a clean one.
Steve Large
02-09-2009, 03:06 PM
The re-post is better but it could still use a bit more punch: contrast/SAT. At least the perch is a clean one.

Hi Artie,
Thanks for your comments. Here is another try. I Used the black in the bird's pupil to set my black point and the whitest part of his back feathers to set the white point. Saturation increased by +10.

Hope this looks better,

Steve
Arthur Morris
02-09-2009, 07:34 PM
I like this one best of the three. Way to go.
Juan Aragonés
02-11-2009, 09:23 AM
I like the composition and head turn burt the perch is not the best but I have to agree with Axel that it is not very distracting. I like the second repost but I sugest to add a touch of selective saturation to the nice green BG and the eyes. Another round of USM for web presentation can improve the result. Love this species ! ;-)
Steve Large
02-11-2009, 01:00 PM
H Juan,
Welcome. I don't think that I have had you comment on any of my photos before. I have added some more USM. I guess each time the picture gets processed it looses a bit of clarity. I don't have the original here at work so I will have to post this one from the forum again.

Thanks for your critique,

Steve