Young Great Horned Owl In Nest

[Mark Jones]

I attended an Arthur Morris and Denise Ippolito workshop in Tampa this past weekend. There is a great horned owl nest near the restrooms at North Beach. Sun angle was completely wrong for this shot as it was coming in from behind the owl's right shoulder, almost right opposite where it should be, so I tried a three shot HDR (-2,0,+2 EV) trying to save the background as much as possible. I also moved my tripod to the left as much as I could in an effort to better frame my subject. This was a tripod mounted 600MM II lens with 2X converter. Processed with PS CS6 and Nik HDR Efex Pro. I know my subject is almost smack dab in the center but I think the branches and tree trunk frame the owl rather well.

[Diane Miller]

The centering works beautifully for me! Great job of dealing with bad light.

[Faraaz Abdool]

Is this the HDR you were speaking of in the other thread, Mark? Excellent work - I wouldn't have realized it was HDR! Great idea and perfectly executed.

[Mark Jones]

Is this the HDR you were speaking of in the other thread, Mark? Excellent work - I wouldn't have realized it was HDR! Great idea and perfectly executed.

Hi Faraaz,

Yes, this is the owl shot I spoke about in the other thread. By moving as far left as I could with my tripod and trying HDR I managed to control the highlights a bit better. I was actually surprised the shot turned out this well as there is usually the "HDR look" to be concerned about in most cases. I think this shot looks quite natural despite it being an HDR which is what I was hoping for. In any of my other attempts I couldn't even control the highlights with exposure compensation. Another thought that comes to mind is just taking a second shot of the blown out background using whatever exposure compensation is called for and then importing both shots into Photoshop as layers. It wouldn't take much to brush out/in the desired effect. I may give that a go too. Unfortunately, we can't always get the ideal angle, background, etc on a subject.

Regards,

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Mark,

You did quite well with the gars backlight. I like the image design. What is the stuff in the center below the owl? It is pretty grungy looking.

It was nice meeting you and Tony and it is great seeing you here.

[Mark Jones]

Hey Mark,

You did quite well with the gars backlight. I like the image design. What is the stuff in the center below the owl? It is pretty grungy looking.

It was nice meeting you and Tony and it is great seeing you here.

The foreground stuff is owl ......stuff.....you know.....droppings, feathers, left over meals, etc I blurred it a little to render it a bit less unsightly and was going to crop it out entirely but figured, hey, it was there and all birds do it! BTW, I called Wimberley and resolved the weight distribution problem with my 600mm II and extender. There is an adapter plate available that makes the foot longer.

Thanks again for a great weekend.

[Arthur Morris]

The foreground stuff is owl ......stuff.....you know.....droppings, feathers, left over meals, etc I blurred it a little to render it a bit less unsightly and was going to crop it out entirely but figured, hey, it was there and all birds do it! BTW, I called Wimberley and resolved the weight distribution problem with my 600mm II and extender. There is an adapter plate available that makes the foot longer. Thanks again for a great weekend.

Thanks Mark. That's what I figgered. The problem, which we discussed during the seminar, is that o-o-f stuff in front of the bird can be problematic. I am not sure if blurring it was the way to go. Can you post one without the blurring?

[Marina Scarr]

I thnk I recognize this owlet!!! You did a good job getting the subject sharp and I like the center comp. I would like to see this with less on the bottom and more on top if you have it. Taking some off of the bottom will help take some of the focus away from the "stuff." I have a similar image and decided to crop from vertical to horizontal and actually like it better.