Burrowing Owl -- My First!!!

[Loi Nguyen]

Thanks to David Salem who took me to his Burrowing Owl spot, I got to see these guys in the wild for the first time. Not only that, I got to photograph them up close. It was an overcast, cloudy day with the sun trying to shine thru cloud, so not ideall, but I was so happy to have these images. This is one that I like

1DX
500f4 II + 1.4X III
1/1250
F5.6
ISO-400
+1/3 EV Evaluative metering as frame
Manual Exposure
BLUBB Bean Bag from car window
Original image was horizontal, cropped to vertical, taken a wee bit off the top.

I converted the RAW file in DPP to TITF, imported to LR4 and increased exposure by 0.5 EV as I felt the image a bit dark from my recollection. Increased contrast a little bit and sharpened a little bit. No NR applied.

Appreciate your comments and suggestions to make this imag better.

Special thanks to David Salem!!!

Loi

[Dennis Zaebst]

Very nice portrait Loi. Good light and sharp. I might crop just a sliver off the top. I see a slight green cast in the eyes (I have only seen bright yellow irises). Very well done.

[Nick Palmieri]

I like the pose and nice low angle. Agree that a bit off the top may strengthen this. TFS

[Loi Nguyen]

Very nice portrait Loi. Good light and sharp. I might crop just a sliver off the top. I see a slight green cast in the eyes (I have only seen bright yellow irises). Very well done.

The green cast may be my doing. I though the BG a bit too Yellow so I lowered the Luminance in LR4. I will look at the original image and repost later. Thank you!

[David Salem]

Nice job on this one Loi. Good detail and exposed well for the conditions.

Glad you made it out today but sorry we didnt get better weather. Normally its always sunny out here but we get some spring gloom now and then. Next time:)

Glad you got a kick out of getting that close to them. Nice meeting you. See ya soon.

[Loi Nguyen]

Nice job on this one Loi. Good detail and exposed well for the conditions.

Glad you made it out today but sorry we didnt get better weather. Normally its always sunny out here but we get some spring gloom now and then. Next time:)

Glad you got a kick out of getting that close to them. Nice meeting you. See ya soon.

David, getting that close to these burrowing owls is awesome! Thanks to your skills and knowledge of their habitat. Forgot to mention that yesterday was the first time I had a chance to practice with the BLUBB bean bag and it worked out very well. Thanks for showing me how to balance the rig. Loi

[Daniel Cadieux]

The comp works quite fine as is...with the head angling a bit upwards the extra room above is justified IMO. I agree the eyes seem less yellow than I remember with this species, and perhaps a little darker too. Love the habitat.

It was an overcast, cloudy day with the sun trying to shine thru cloud, so not ideall

Those are my favorite outdoor photography conditions!!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Very Nice!!! I agree with tweaking the yellows.....but an easy fix to a very nice image!

[Loi Nguyen]

The comp works quite fine as is...with the head angling a bit upwards the extra room above is justified IMO. I agree the eyes seem less yellow than I remember with this species, and perhaps a little darker too. Love the habitat.



Those are my favorite outdoor photography conditions!!

hi Daniel, I find this owl image a little flat, lack of contrast - so I added contrast during PP - but for example the eyes don't look sparkle and there was no catch light. The advantage is that there is no deep shadow and one could shoot e en in mid day sun, but I would still prefer the early morning or late afternoon with the sun out.


I'm reading Artie's Digital Basics now and will try to improve this image and repost.

loi

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Everyone

I had a 3-hr flight today to Houston, so cracked open my PS CS6 and Artie's DigitalBasics to try on this image. It was not the easiest image to work on, but I gave it a try and decided to show more of the owl habitat. This is almost a full frame image. I can't tell if it has a Green cast or not. Appreciate your comments.

Thank you!

Loi

[Dennis Zaebst]

Hello Loi, I still see a greenish cast in the eyes and beak.

I brought your JPEG image into LR 4.4, and adjusted the eyes and beak only using the adjustment brush. I adjusted the exposure by +.41 EV, the color balance toward magenta about +63, and increased saturation slightly. All adjustments were to the eyes and beak only.

This is approximately how the eyes should look (assuming nothing odd happens during the conversion, export, and upload). I hope you don't mind, but I thought perhaps you might get a better idea of the correct color in the eyes. As I mentioned, I didn't modify any of the rest of the image.

[Loi Nguyen]

Hello Loi, I still see a greenish cast in the eyes and beak.

I brought your JPEG image into LR 4.4, and adjusted the eyes and beak only using the adjustment brush. I adjusted the exposure by +.41 EV, the color balance toward magenta about +63, and increased saturation slightly. All adjustments were to the eyes and beak only.

This is approximately how the eyes should look (assuming nothing odd happens during the conversion, export, and upload). I hope you don't mind, but I thought perhaps you might get a better idea of the correct color in the eyes. As I mentioned, I didn't modify any of the rest of the image.

Hi Dennis, this is awesome! I see now the green cast in the original post.

Thank you.

Loi

[Dennis Zaebst]

You are welcome Loi.