Barn Owl Portrait

[Loi Nguyen]

I saw this barn owl perching on a fence post one early morning and used my car as a blind to approach within 15 yards of him. Shot thru an open window, handheld.

1DX
500f4 II + 1.4X III
1/8000
f5.6
ISO 1250
Handheld
0EV Evaluative Metering

I could have shot this at much lower ISO, but I was too excited to check my setting.

I took out a distracting branch across the chest of the owl and a couple of branches on the side, and crop for vertical format.

Appreciate your comments.

Thank you!

Loi

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice pose, good BG. I wish he had chosen a natural perch, and bummer the tail was clipped. details look sharp. the barn owl whites show a yellowish color cast, should be easy to remove. For successful processing make sure your monitor is carefully calibrated.

TFS

[christopher galeski]

nice capture,pity about the perch but is what it is,like the BG,wish the wings were not clipped.thanks.

[Nick Palmieri]

Good looking bird. I wish you didn't clip the tail.. I think there are some bright spots on the bird and perch that could be toned down a bit. TFS

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Loi, I get so envious of all these different owl shots, and I dont have single owl image in my files. Good detail throughout, and interesting to see how they hold onto a non natural 'perch'. Pity about the clipped wing. I realise how excited you were to have come close to this fellow. Normally, I would fire off a quick few shots, and then happy that I have him in the bag, I would then play with different settings, and different comps - in this definately a vertical shot.

[Colin Gilyeat]

Nice pose and colors. Too bad the wing/tail got cropped in the shot.

Colin

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Loi

Nicely captured. As mentioned above, I wish the tail weren't clipped. I think takin the teleconverter off would have done the trick, since you couldn't physically move further back. The perch isn't ideal, but it works. Can't comment much on the colors since I haven't seen one of these guys in person.

Miguel

[Daniel Cadieux]

What a beautiful face, full of beautiful details. The claws look great. Love the warm colours too. I too wish the perch was natural but at least the colours match. Since you were approaching it from further out, and I assume you had full view of the subject, is there a reason for not including the full body (perhaps trying to minimize the perch?)

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi all, I just simy miscalculated how close I was able to approach the owl in a car, so after the initial shots, I turned the camera in a vertical position, but I had a 2 seater so maneuvering was difficult and he flew off. I do have other shots with full body - no clipped tail - from a different angle which I will post later tonight. He is really a very gorgeous owl!

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the sharpness, pose and details. Look forward to seeing the other images with full body.

[Loi Nguyen]

Well, I did look at other full portrait images to find one without the clipped tail. Unfortunately, there was a ugly barbed wire running over the tip of the tail and I couldn't remove the wire without wrecking the tail! So, I'd like to offer a different view of this beautiful owl. The sun is behind her at an angle, so I waited until she turned her face a little bit and there was a catch light in her eye when I took this shot.

1DX
500f4 II
1/6400
f4
ISO-800
0 EV Evaluative Metering, Hanfheld.
2 barbed wires and a few small sticks removed

The details on her face is not as sharp as in the close up portrait, but her color marking is beautiful under the early morning sun. The BG is a bit noisy when I converted from RAW to TITF 8 bits to work on PS Element 11 (I know, I should upgrade to CS6).

She is just a gorgeous owl!

Thanks for your comments and suggestions!

Loi

[David Salem]

Nice shot and exposed well. I like the last shot better and I would work it a little, take some off the top, and re-post as a new post in the future. Nice work.