Barn owl in flight

[Ivan Ellison]

Another barnie from last week. Am hoping tomorrow may bring more as good weather forecast.
Cropped about 60% of orig. Darkened exposure , increased clarity, sharpened and slight nr in ACR. Tweaked the shadows /highlights and sharpened twice in PSE 10. Blur tool to bg and cloned out a few odd lines in the bg.
Canon 1D mkIV
Canon 500 f4 is mk1 + 1.4 conv mk11= 700 mm
1/2000
f 5.6
ISO 800.

[Bill Dix]

Nice and sharp on the face, and an interesting wing position. I personally might have liked it better without the green grass, or at least less of it, but it's hard to tell them where to fly. I don't know if a pano crop would help?

[Loi Nguyen]

Ivan, beautiful owl, tack sharp with good exposure and details. Not sure about the blur background. It looks a bit like painting to me. I don't know this tool, so would liek to ask if you could also post a version without the BG blur? thank you.

[dankearl]

Pretty nice habitat photo and the Owl looks great.
I would tone down or remove the dark blotch in the BG above the Owl

[Nick Palmieri]

Beautiful job on the bird. Nice flight position. he looks sharp and well exposed. I am bothered by the FG grasses but easy fix if you choose to change them.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Ivan,

Wonderful shot. I like the the unusual wing position. You did a great job with the sharpening, as the owl looks very natural.

I agree with Dan about cloning out the dark portion above the owl. A 16:9 crop with a bit less on the bottom might be beneficial.

Miguel

[jack williamson]

The owl is really sharp with an excellent wing position. The BG is fine with me, looks wind blown. I have to agree with the others about the dark spot above the owl. Well done tracking this one to get the focus right.

[Joe Senzatimore]

Can only call it "SWEET".

[Karl Egressy]

Excellent pose nice and good IQ. I was wondering about a tighter crop leaving most of the green out.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent pose and wing positions, nice BG. I would go for a tighter crop

[Jim Neiger]

Nice capture. I like the in flight pose. I would crop a bit tighter.

[christopher galeski]

nice image,good flight pose,sharp were it needs to be,well done.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Awesome pose, and the owl pops very nicely from the BG which you've blurred nicely. I'm wishing the OOF FG grass wisps were not there at left, but overall a fine image. The dark spot above the owl is an easy "fix" with a low opacity clone tool (30-40%-ish)

[Ivan Ellison]

Thanks for all your comments ,I am putting them all together to make the image right before I have it printed.