Short eared owl

[Ivan Ellison]

I am looking forward to the return of these stunning birds this winter.This bird was taken in Lincolnshire Feb 2011.. Every time I went the weather was dull and grey but with a change in my shifts , hopefully this year I can pick a nice bright day.
About a 70% crop from original that was shot in portrait mode. Taken in JPEG- before I started to shoot in RAW. Processed in Elements 10. Levels brought in a little, slight lift to colour saturation, piece of barbed wire cloned out and a little extra canvas added to top and RHS- done x using clone tool as I do not know how to add any other way. Sharpened using unsharp mask and after resizing sharpened a little more.
Canon 50D,
Canon 500 f4 is
ISO 640
1/800 sec
f 4.5

[Randy Stout]

IVAN:

Beautiful bird, great eyes, nice comp, perch, although man made, shows off the talons well.

Perhaps a tiny cloning defect along right side of tail.

Look forward to more, owls are always such great subjects

Cheers

Randy

[dankearl]

Very nice details, I also think the manmade perch looks fine here, very sharp and well exposed.

[Lorant Voros]

Awesome eyes, beautiful plumage , clean BG. I don't mind the perch either. Well done.

[Marina Scarr]

Stunning portrait of this beauty. I traveled to Amherst Island to try to capture them last winter without success. :( Very nice details and BG here.

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the sharpness, exposure, eyes and BG. Excellent image.

[Nelson Mena Alfaro]

love it this owl is awesome

[Shawn Zierman]

The eye contact is working it's magic on me here...
I like the diffused light quality and sharp details.
Randy noticed the pp work still visible along the right hand side
of the primaries. Try using a layer mask and work on that small
area of the image, applying a light gaussian blur prior to sharpening,
just to tweak it a bit...

[Satish Ranadive]

Ivan:
Absolutely superb image.
Love the pose,colors,details and above all eyes of the owl.Beautiful background too.

Regards,
Satish.

[Daniel Cadieux]

What a great owl! I've only ever seen them flying far out into fields and always dream of encountering one perched like this by the road. I do wish it had chosen a better weathered post, but man all else is fantastic. Just tweaking the little blotch Randy points out at right, and perhaps try a warmer version too.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Ivan, love the eye contact, and I do like the pose. You have brought excellent detail, and I like the colours. Killer BG.

[Karl Egressy]

Beutiful image of a stunning bird, Ivan. Love the backgroud!!!!

[Robert Holguin]

Wonderful image.
Love the soft muted light, excellent pose, wonderful background, and dont mind the perch.
Well done.