Barn Owl in Flight

[Loi Nguyen]

I'm a newbie to wildlife photography and this is my first post here. I have seen amazing photos in this forum and would appreciate your feedback. This barn owl image was taken with a 1DX, 500f4 II, 1.4X III on a Gitzo 3550LS tripod with Wimberley V2 gimbal head. ISO-1000, f5.6, 1/8000, center focus expand with 4 surround points, evaluative metering, +1/3 EV, around 8AM in the morning. I saw her perched on a fence post and stopped the car across the road for this shot. There were 2 distracting sticks and an ugly barbed wire behind the bird, which I cloned out in Adobe Photoshop Element (first time using this tool too).

[CM Prince]

I not a Pro on what is good or bad with pictures, but the Barn Owl looks like a read one. Not so doctor up that it don't look real.

C M Prince
Mission, TX

[Melissa Groo]

Welcome Loi! You will learn a lot here. This forum is really the best out there in terms of truly substantive and helpful comments that help one to improve.
Your first post is terrific. For someone new to wildlife photography, you seem to have a great sense of timing, exposure, and composition! I only have a couple of suggestions. I see evidence of cloning perhaps on top of his left wing, as well as underneath. And I suggest lessening the size of your signature on the pic as it's a bit distracting. But otherwise, I think this is a wonderful barn owl image! Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Make sure to comment on others' pictures as that's a wonderful way to learn too, as well as helping build community.

[Randy Stout]

Loi:

A big welcome to BPN. Good input from above. I agree about the cloning work, pretty close, and a few seconds with a low opacity clone stamp will clean up the slight marks left.

Nice colors on bird and background.

The cropping is very close. For my personal taste, I might add just a sliver to the right and below, but is good as posted.

Looking forward to more!


Cheers

Randy

[Loi Nguyen]

Welcome Loi! You will learn a lot here. This forum is really the best out there in terms of truly substantive and helpful comments that help one to improve.
Your first post is terrific. For someone new to wildlife photography, you seem to have a great sense of timing, exposure, and composition! I only have a couple of suggestions. I see evidence of cloning perhaps on top of his left wing, as well as underneath. And I suggest lessening the size of your signature on the pic as it's a bit distracting. But otherwise, I think this is a wonderful barn owl image! Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
Make sure to comment on others' pictures as that's a wonderful way to learn too, as well as helping build community.

Melissa, thank you for your comments and suggestions. Will work on my cloning skills and make the signature less distracting. And yes, will spend more time in the forum commenting on others' pictures.

[Troy Lim]

Very nice flight image. Agree with Randy on using low opacity when doing that. Perhaps there are some color cast. For that camera, I am surprised that ISO1000 is giving it that much noise. You could have shot this at a lower ISO by dropping your SS. You don't need 1/8K to freeze this bird.

[Loi Nguyen]

Loi:

A big welcome to BPN. Good input from above. I agree about the cloning work, pretty close, and a few seconds with a low opacity clone stamp will clean up the slight marks left.

Nice colors on bird and background.

The cropping is very close. For my personal taste, I might add just a sliver to the right and below, but is good as posted.

Looking forward to more!


Cheers

Randy

Randy, thank you for your comments, will try a version with less crop and a low opacity stamp tool (haven't tried this tool yet).

[Loi Nguyen]

Very nice flight image. Agree with Randy on using low opacity when doing that. Perhaps there are some color cast. For that camera, I am surprised that ISO1000 is giving it that much noise. You could have shot this at a lower ISO by dropping your SS. You don't need 1/8K to freeze this bird.

You are absolutely right about the speed. I had the camera set at 1000 ISO since it was early in the day when I started out driving. When I saw the owl, I was too excited to check the shutter speed and reduced ISO. I had less than a min to get the tripod set up and took the shots before he took off. The noise you see may come from the LR4 => photoshop element => LR4 and/or my skills in PP. the RAW image does not have much noise and I usually don't even apply NR at ISO-1000.

[Troy Lim]

You are absolutely right about the speed. I had the camera set at 1000 ISO since it was early in the day when I started out driving. When I saw the owl, I was too excited to check the shutter speed and reduced ISO. I had less than a min to get the tripod set up and took the shots before he took off. The noise you see may come from the LR4 => photoshop element => LR4 and/or my skills in PP. the RAW image does not have much noise and I usually don't even apply NR at ISO-1000.

Glad to hear that it was the PP. Understand completely about the shot time you have to capture the images. You will pick up tips on PP from here for sure.

[Uri First]

excellent flight shot of a very difficult birds to capture. beautiful light. i would like to see more space on the right and bottome. well done and welcome.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Very nice post and welcome to the forums! Can't add to the overall advice above so just dropped by to say welcome!

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Loi -

Congrats on joining BPN! As you have read above, this is one of the top places to learn about avian photography - no doubt!

For just starting off in wildlife, you sure do have a grasp on some of the fundamentals. I agree about the cloning being a bit obvious, but like Randy mentioned, it can be easily fixed.

Great job all around and I look forward to seeing more!

Miguel

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Cool owl, like the light and clean BG. I find a greenish color cast that could be easly fixed. Welcome on board!

[Kiran Poonacha]

Beautiful Frame. Loved the light and BG here.. cheers

[Daniel Cadieux]

I do not have anything else to offer on your beautiful owl as the comments above have already suggested great stuff you. I do want to take the occasion to welcome you to BPN!! Looking forward to more from you....

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Welcome aboard. I see that you've already got a lot of suggestions here. Perhaps more than you will get in a week on some other forums :-) Looking forward to your shots. Terrific first post.

[Loi Nguyen]

Dear All, thank you very much for your kind comments and good suggestions. I gave the PP another go.

Adjusted WB back to as shot to remove the green cast
Be more careful with the spot healing tool
Use a stamp tool with 50% opacity
cropped less, left some sticks on the ground for scale
increased exposure by 1/3 EV to lighten up the background.

Well, I kind of like it better, but the reaon I posted it here is because I would love to hear from you!

Thank you in advance.

Loi

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent details, nice pose and a nice BG. repost is a big improvement