This is a shot of one of the adults I frequently have the pleasure of watching hunt and feed its young. The owl was using some long, overhanging branches right above the waterline--and right at eye level-- to hunt. It almost always uses a branch that is surrounded by other small branches, so i usually just wait for it to catch a crawfish and/or choose a better perch. This time it flew down but did not catch anything and lit on a branch right beside my vehicle. It did not seem uncomfortable but I did not want to take the time to take my 1.4x tc off and risk missing this shot because I loved the BG and FG. So, I took a few shots of its upper body and a few of its lower body knowing I could combine them in PS. This is the result after doing an auto merge in PS, adding a sliver to the bottom, and cloning out a few offending branches. This is a wild owl, which was neither baited nor called.
Lyle, a great shot considering your tight shooting conditions.. smart thinking on the merge of top and bottom... Way to go with fast thinking... not sure if it's me, however the merge darker band is a bit strange there...Unfortunately the branch position, and HA are tough here, and working against this image.
Cheers
Don
Very good thinking to shoot for later reassembly! I do that occ. with loons, but not easy to make it look convincing with birds on water. Was the merge zone where the dark brown horizontal band is?
The head angle is fine for me. You could remove the stick, but it doesn't bother me much here.
Good thinking indeed to get those top and bottom parts for post processing merge. I like the owl's alert pose, and I like the green BG. I could see a more vertical version, and there is a repeating pattern on the very lowest part of the perch to tidy up.
Thanks for the feedback. The merge line is about 1/2 inch from the very bottom (probably where Daniel spotted a repeating pattern but I'm on my iPhone, so I'll have to look into it later). The dark band is natural, didn't touch it. I'm of 2 minds about the twig-- I could see it gone but it seemed like it would be a bit too unnatural.
Very nice owl. I would suggest a 2:3 crop and would clone the stick as it does not improve the image if that does not go against your ethics. All in all, a very nice image with clean BG and lovely soft light.
Beautiful bird with a gorgeous natural-looking BG. I like the head angle. The merge looks great to me-- good thinking. I could go either way on the stick but it adds some character to the perch.
I might consider darkening the LL corner a little, but no big deal. The very bottom of the perch could profit from a retouch on the cloning.
Last edited by Diane Miller; 07-03-2015 at 11:45 AM.
Barred Owl Pano
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