Great Horned Owl Brancher
Stumbled onto this juvenile Great Horned Owl sunning itself on an oak branch along one of the rocky bluffs here at the Prairie Garden Trust.
It was too young to fly so I was able to photograph it at my leisure. After about 15 minutes one of it's siblings crawled up to join it.
Canon 1Ds Mk2
600/f4 lens with a 2X teleconverter
Manual Focus
ISO 640
Aperture f/10
Shutter Speed 1/320th
Aperture Priority Exposure + 1/3rd
Last edited by Peter Kes; 12-17-2012 at 05:42 PM.
Nice portrait, Henry. It looks like the eyes are already OOF ever so slightly, (Shallow DOF even at f10). No wonder you were shooting with 1200 mm.
Very nice portrait Henry. I like the stare, the colors, and the sharpness in the focused regions. I do agree with Karl about the eyes being a bit oof.
Karl & Miguel, I'm very sorry to see that you are right!Originally Posted by Karl Egressy
Sharp focus is just in front of the eyes.
Thanks for the feedback, I can see that I need to be MUCH more careful to check sharp focus on the eyes.
The OOF eyes struck me immediately and is unfortunately a deal-breaker here.
Looks like a quirky owl.
Why were you using the 600 + 2x instead of a bare 600 and cropping afterwards? DOF would have been easier to control...
Lovely portrait and the right crop for such a close-up. I agree that the bird's left eye in particular could be sharper. The detail on the beak and facial feathers is excellent.
Richard
Its going to be difficult to get a lot of DOF at that focal length. Considering that, I'd have placed critical focus on the eyes. Nice expression and BG.
This image made me smile! Issues already addressed ,
Gail
Eyes in Focus
Thank you for pointing out my mistake. How could I miss getting the eyes in sharp focus!
I went back and looked at my files and I had another image taken seconds later where the eyes are tack sharp.
Of course now the beak was out of focus.
So I did some focus stacking.
I feel much better about this image.
Thanks for the help!
Henry
Henry:
Your repost looks definitely beautiful.Love the expression of chick,nice details,colors and eyes.
Regards,
Satish.
Good repost....very much a"feel good " image, made me smile immediately
You've done a great job on the repost Henry - a very sharp image now and those eyes are so captivating..!!
Yes, the repost is much better with the eyes sharp. If a had to choose I'd always go for sharp eyes even if that means a softer bill. Focus stacking has addressed that even better with the best of both worlds :-) The pose is very quirky in a good way, but the comp is awkward IMO. I'd have preferred a vertical with more showing below, or just plain square with more top and bottom. A mighty fine opportunity you were presented with and I'm sure you took a variety of images!
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