Owl in Flight

[Michael Stern]

Greetings Everyone,,,
Well I think I heard somewhere about "an owl a day keeps something away"? In any case this little burrowing owl jumped out of a tree and flew almost right at me! I tried to do the best I could, see attached. Maybe could be a little sharper but really like the way he is looking at me! I am trying to get the photos of them flying as the sitting / standing poses are almost worn out, in my opinion...maybe one of those sharpening programs would help with this image???
All comments and certainly suggestions most welcome.....
My settings were:
70-200 with 1.4x
shutter speed: 1/3200 sec
Aperture: 6.3
Exposure mode: Manual
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 400
Focal length: 160mm

Best to All,
Michael
(Fabs - note: manuel mode!)

[Arthur Morris]

Wonderful pose and attitude but way-soft... Did you sharpen this at all?

In addition, you could either lose the leaves in the llc--they are a distraction, or do a big Gaussian blur on them.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Pose and eye contact are fantastic. I'm not sure about the crop and the branch, though. This is a strongly sharpened version. What camera did you use? I'm not really sure the bird is in focus.

[Michael Stern]

Pose and eye contact are fantastic. I'm not sure about the crop and the branch, though. This is a strongly sharpened version. What camera did you use? I'm not really sure the bird is in focus.

Dear Artie and Axel;
Thank you for the compliments...!! My camera is a Canon 40D....I did not do much in the sharpening end...I guess I should have and will !!!! I like what you did....
Best,
Michael

[Maxis Gamez]

Lovely pose and eye contact. Axel's re-pose works much, much better with some sharpening.

[Arthur Morris]

Axel, that is one killer re-post. Thanks for your time and effort.

[Michael Stern]

Axel, that is one killer re-post. Thanks for your time and effort.

And Thank You all for the help....
Michael
Axel,
How did you do the sharpening?
Michael

[Axel Hildebrandt]

And Thank You all for the help....
Michael
Axel,
How did you do the sharpening?
Michael

Michael, I sent you an e-mail. I used "Smart Sharpen" in CS3: 500, 0.3, remove artifacts, lens blur and applied noise reduction on the BG.

[Blake Shadle]

Great initial effort, Michael. The wing position and eye contact that you capture is excellent. Axel, you did an awesome job processing a small image!!