Barred Owl

Whooo, Whooooo, Who cooks for you... that call led me to this owl high in a Live Oak tree. Image captured at Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County, Florida. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED + Nikon 1.4 teleconverter III, image captured at 550mm
1/250 F/8 Matrix Metering EV +1/3 ISO 500 Auto 1 WB, camera supported by a monopod
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2019 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped for composition and presentation

Depending on what is above the frame I would have gone for verticals here (perhaps you did also). Good looking Barred Owl in a great setting with those mosses. A bit steep, but they don't always perch low eh!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daniel Cadieux

Depending on what is above the frame I would have gone for verticals here (perhaps you did also). Good looking Barred Owl in a great setting with those mosses. A bit steep, but they don't always perch low eh!

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Dan, thanks for viewing and commenting. Here is a vertical, most times have one on hand if appropriate. At Circle B one has to stay on the trails and the owls are mostly up in the branches so difficult to overcome a steep angle.

I love that Circle B mossy environment. NIce look at him. The repost has the advantage of getting rid of the oof moss blob on the left, but I like the OP too, maybe even more. Nice work.

Like the vertical one. The framing and all that moss are great. Nice how the owl is looking past you.

Nice work. I think I like your OP framing better than the verticle. So much texture, depth, and environment, and the owl pops. The bright sky of the LHS does compete with the owl, however. You could afford to crop off the right 1/3. With what's remaining drop the exposure on everything, but raise it selectively on the owl. I suppose, alternative to that, globally raising the exposure on the entire image might have a nice effect.

This has the classic Circle B environment!
Gotta love those spanish mosses!
Vertical crop is the one for me!
I would sharpen the owl a bit more.

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, very much appreciated.

I like the vertical crop much better. Had the owl looked down at you a bit the angle of inclination would have appeared much less than it was ...

with love, artie