Barn Owl hover

[BillRazor]

Taken at Tophill Low, a nature reserve near Driffiled, U.K. Nikon D3 500mm lens. 1/800 sec at f4 at ISO 1600. The image has been cropped by approx 50%. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4146/4841258124_3d620f8357_o.jpg

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent exposure and very nice BG, I would crop from the bottom and sharpen the bird more. great first post

Welcome to BPN!

[Dick Glover]

What a fine image. You have set a high standard for your first post. Sure held up well with a big crop, but maybe a little more sharpening would be good. Since the bird is so beautiful a further crop might emphasize it even more. Welcome to BPN, and keep them coming. TFS.

[Tony Whitehead]

Welcome, Bill. Excellent image to start posting with. Lovely pose and plumage details. Agree that a tighter crop may be worth exploring. D3/D700 images seem to hold up well to cropping. Another option is to darken down the bright areas left upper corner and maybe lighten the dark area lower right. Looking forward to more of your images.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Welcome to BPN. I really like how the bird stands out against that BG. Nice pose and exposure. Thx for sharing and looking forward to more.

[Svante Larsson]

I think this is a very nice image.

The background could however IMO take some Gaussian Blur. To avoid bleed from the owl duplicate the image with the owl removed and then make a copy of this layer and make it into a clipping layer. Gaussian blurring the top layer then doesn't get any bleeding from the owl.

/Svante

[Arthur Morris]

Wonderful pose and a difficult subject in the wild. A 20% Linear Burn on the owl would likely increase the density and detail. The bird is a bit lost in that big BKGR.....

[Fabs Forns]

Big welcome to BPn, Bill, looking forward to helping you improve your skills and hope you can feel right at home here. Anything you need, please send a PM.
Great advise given above, congrats on capturing a great subject, just a little tender living care in post processing and it will be much improved.

[BillRazor]

Thanks guys for all your tremendous advice. It's great to receive such constructive criticism.