Burrowing Owl - BiF

[Minh Insixiangmy]

Nikon D800 : 300mm f2.8 Af-s Dii & TC-20e iii
Tripod with Jobu Jr 3 Gimbal
600mm : ISO 800 : 1/3200s : f8 : -0.7EV : AutoWB
Lightroom 4 : WB adjustments, Spot brush Clarity + Shadows, cropping

Comments for improvement welcome. "I wish i had him framed more towards the right of the frame but he was so hard to track."

[Marina Scarr]

Welcome, Minh, and what a terrific first pose!!! I have to say that I really like the composition you have chosen here. It's unique and it works esp b/c of the placement of the owl in the upper left third and b/c of the included vegetation. I would like to see you sharpen the owl a bit more, esp the face. I would be pretty happy with this one if it were mine.

[Don Lacy]

Love the pose with the down beat on the wings and the killer eyes these guys have. I spent about five minutes playing with this I added canvas to the top and right then filled it in with content aware and cloning then cropped it from the bottom and left.

[Minh Insixiangmy]

Thanks for the suggestions Marina and Don. After looking at it more, I like the tighter crop. I feel like the elements of the owl cause your eye to circle the photo and the ground plants take you around and back into the photo.
I think i sharpened him up, without making him look too "crunchy" =)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Repost in pane #4 works very well with the additional sharpening (and larger image!). I love the original comp too, because of the vegetation balancing it out. I'm wondering why the middle branch is floating like that...was there an OOF foreground element in the way?

All in all this is an excellent way to start posting images here...looking forward to more!!

[Doug Brown]

Good work by everyone! One thing I'll add is that I see a bit of a greenish cast to the image.