I was quite happy when this young individual looked directly in the camera for this pose. I had too much lens however and clipped the wingtips so I cropped a bit tighter on each side to make a more comfortable compositional "cut" to them. It is still about 80% FF of the original vertical with some cropped each side and bottom.
Canon 7D + 500mm f/4 II + 1.4 TC, manual exposure, evaluative metering, 1/200s., f/5.6, ISO 800, natural light, handheld, pale area below owl was originally white so I used a soft paintbrush at low opacity to add some bit of green there.
What a beauty, Daniel! Love the expression on the owl's face! The IQ is great and the subject pops nicely against that soft green background. I like the way you cropped here-it works, I am just sorry you did not get the wing tips in...This is one of the cutest owl images I have seen lately.
Too bad about the clipped wings as this is a wonderful shot. I just love the face! I'm usually not a fan of square crops, but this might be a case where it would work. For me, there is too much missing wings and it leaves me wanting to see either more, or less (if that makes sense), and draws my attention away from that adorable face.
Great head on stare at the camera. I dont mind the missing wings, makes for a more intimate scene. Techs look great and I like the gleam in its eyes. Nice one.