Short Eared Owl, just landed

Fir Island, Skagit County, Washington, on a rare bright winters day. She flew in right towards me and landed on driftwood about 20' away
Canon EOS 30D ,Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM
1/500s f/5.6 at 400.0mm iso500, EV +1/3, handheld
Sue

One of those soo near but yet soo far images that we all have-Just not critically sharp-A real shame as its nicely composed and nice timing

Hi Sue,

Your subject looks out of focus in my monitor. The image looks a little overexposed but a very close call!

I agree with the sooo sooo close comment -a bit sharper would have put this over the top. I have more images than I care to think about like this.

Great pose and composition, but definitely not quite sharp enough and also over-exposed.... What was your ISO??? (Or, why such a slow shutter speed with bright conditions?) And why so much noise in the BKGR? Is this a big crop???

later and love, artie

With such a beautiful pose I'd take this into the digital dark room for some creative work with filters or something. The focus makes any conventional use a little tricky, but this is defiantly worth keeping for other treatments.

I would agree on the sharpness. Also I would darken the dark tones just a tad in curves. Everything else about this is awesome.

I was thinking that this image was not as soft as it seemed (from the over-exposure). Ten mintutes in Photoshop yielded the image below.

Whaddya think?

Later and love, artie

Relly nice shot i like what Artie has done to it looks great

Wow! What a difference!