Pleasant Surprise.

[keith mitchell]

Little Owlet.
Nikon D4
Nikon 300ml 2.8
1/320@f8 iso 1250.

Spent a lot of time with a family of Little Owls and at the time I thought they had only reared one Owlet till looking through my shots I found this one that has a White bib so that makes two different birds ,nice surprise. The BG is a wheat field.

When photographing these birds I was able to try and get my head around my D4 by trying different F numbers and ISO settings which I found very good for my education .

Thank for your comments and tips on my last post and for looking at this one.

Keith

[Grant Yang]

Congratulations on a very nice shot. Nice clean background, and sharp eyes. I feel that the bird is a little on the cold side. Seems to me, it would look a little better if you adjusted the wb a little warmer.

[Karl Egressy]

Nice super clean background and nice looking Owlet. IQ is very good.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Keith, your 'educational' endeavours are really working well together and good to see you pushing that ISO, but go higher, the D4 can take it and you will have more SS to play with. Processing is looking much better too, but just drop the blue in the image, perhaps around -60, it will help the image overall I feel. I also wonder if you need to adjust the white slider in Levels, 246 is where it just starts to clip, but it may also help the image overall. With this image I just wonder if you need a sliver more 'perch', so if you have it, just drop the whole crop down a fraction, but I would wait to see what others think.

That wheat BKG is a real killer, one I would gladly trade you for.

TFS
Steve

[dankearl]

Nice but I would go way up on the iso and get the bird sharper.
I also might go vertical if you have it.

[Shawn Zierman]

Lovely little owl. I enjoy the bird's focus. Sharpness looks good to me. In fact, any softness due mostly to the narrow dof at this working distance, is desirable in my opinion. I like the idea of exploring a slightly warmer presentation. A selective pass of NR on the background would not hurt, and it would also help to diminish any dust sensor spots....I see one to the right of the bird's perch about an inch and a half....Good call on the horizontal presentation...vertical does not work here imo due to the direction of the bird's focus. Great image!

[Arthur Morris]

Good eye Shawn. That is one large dust spot. I love the image. The perch works well and there is just the right amount of perch showing for me. I love the softness and the 45 degree head position. And as noted above the BKGR is killer. Welcome and thanks a stack for your membership support. Keep 'em coming!

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Really nice Keith. The bg is beautiful and the bird looks plenty sharp to my eyes. I like the little stick in the mouth too as well as the interesting perch

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Keith, I like the angled pose, alert too. Well placed in the frame, and the soft plumage shows up nicely. Any smooth BG always helps.

[Graeme Cox]

That is some image. Crisp and sharp.. Great detail.. We don't get to see to many in Aus..

[christopher galeski]

nice capture Keith,love the BG,nice pose and perch,looks like he or she was having perch for breakfast.

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi Keith, great shot , love the soft look, super BG, the white bib is most interesting.

[keith mitchell]

Thanks a lot for your comments and tips much appreciated, Grant I will warm it a tad and repost later,Dankearl I was doing some experiments with ISO settings and do have some more images with higher settings but must admit I do not like to see over processed and sharpened birds ,Shawn well done seeing the dust spot there is no way that these old eyes of mine would see it .

Keith.

[Holger Leyrer]

This is a very nice Image. Love the soft look too. BG and perch are great.