Eastern Screech Owl (Rufous)

[Ashleigh Scully]

Hi - posting this for Ashleigh today.

She had a snow day yesterday and we tried a recent find of hers down the road - a Rufous Eastern Screech. Something she's been looking for ever since we had them in the yard in a nest box - it's great to see one in a natural cavity. I don't know how she finds these things, I'm just glad she finally did because my neck hurts from looking into all these tree cavities for so long!

(Dad's gear:)
Canon 5D Mark III
Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4x III

ISO 1000
700mm
f/5.6
1/160s

From beanbag, car window, about 100 feet away. In the RAW conversion she adjusted Exposure up a bit, then she cropped about 40% off. In PS, slight saturation enhancement and USM of the bird.

She is wondering what you think of the crop, and whether a vertical would be better. She mentioned that she liked the layering of the trees that adds some depth to the image. Also, some OOF branches cutting across the trunk may be a distraction.

Appreciate your thoughts as always,

Gerry

[Henry Domke]

wondering what you think of the crop, and whether a vertical would be better.

I like what you have. There is a surprising sense of depth and a fresh composition.

some OOF branches cutting across the trunk may be a distraction.

I like them. They are subtle and enhance the sense of depth.

Well done!

[Troy Lim]

I agree with the oof branch is a distraction. How about cloning it out?

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'd leave the crop as is, it's got the right amount of setting this fella was found in and it is a well balanced comp. I love the accumulation of snow on the head and sprinkled here and there on the tree. Grumpy look to the owl too. The OOF is a bit of bad luck but should be easy to remove if inclined to. To me there is not enough snow falling apparent in the image and for that reason I'd remove the ones that are against the roosting hole.

Great job Ashleigh!

[Ashleigh Scully]

THanks so much everyone! I removed the falling sleet as Daniel said and I agree. I missed the snow by a half hour it would've been beautiful. I tried using the rubber-stamp tool also on the tree trunk to remove some of the out of focus branches. I didn't get all of them but I'll learn how to do that better.

I have some more Great Gray Owl photos to post but Im having a hard time getting to saved under 400kb. I'll keep working on it.

Thanks again and I hope I get to post better shots of this Screech.

Ashleigh.

Oh here is my repost:

[Troy Lim]

Now that I am looking from a computer, focus seems to be on the right side of the frame. I would do a selective sharpening on the owl itself.

[Ashleigh Scully]

Here it is sharpened on the owl again and I fixed the tree cavity. Im up too late thanks for commenting.

[arash_hazeghi]

great find! I like the snow on his head! I wish you only had the owl and his tree (vertical composition) the OOF tree on the left doesn't add anything to the image. For web presentation you can crop it tighter. The sharpening in repost made it better.

[David Salem]

I like this one Ashleigh. The snow on the head and the look at the nest cavity are great. I agree that the branch on the left is a bit distracting but it looks fine as is. Maybe crop it out? The repost looks sharper too. Nice work.

[keith mitchell]

Ashleigh I love the way you have captured this with snow on the birds head and it's typical pose, the only issue I have is the bird itself does look a bit soft but a nice image .


Keith

[Jim Crosswell]

I like the snow on the head, eye contact, setting and repost is an improvement. Nice find Ashleigh.

[Marina Scarr]

I really like this image although the owl still needs sharpening. I would leave in the falling snow. It tells more of the story...that it was actually snowing when you took this image. I agree with Arash about going vertical. I just cropped it to vertical, sharpened the owl more and it came out very nicely for web presentation...although wouldn't work for print.