Little owl in snow WIP

[dennis greenwood]

HI, this shot is a work in progress shot,i say that as its been a lot of years trying and not succeeding in getting the owl in snow,i have said previously we either get to much or not enough, however today the forecast was a full afternoon of snow and after arriving at the site a gamble was taken to sit it out ,the first gamble was risking getting snowed in as its a long climb to get to the top of the quarry and two no guarantee the bird would show ,the snow arrived early dinner while I was set up and after a long and cold afternoon the bird decided he would come in at dusk ,luckily he picked the perch I set up and not the one he would normally land as I also left that in situ as its there all year round ,its not the best shot technically and to be honest under normal conditions I would have not bothered taking shots but after sat there for nearly four hours I wasn't going to walk away with nothing, I have looked and looked at the image and I reckon I am not far away with my WB but I would appreciate any opinions on the outcome ,i have done very little PP as i didn't want to overdo it but i did apply NR ....canon 1d mkiv iso 1600 300mm f4 at f4 and 1/25 sec tripod mounted

[John Robinson]

Great stuff Dennis. You got there at last ! Fieldcraft and being at one with your subject pays off in the end. Not sure I,ve seen one in snow before.. I would raise the detail in the darks a bit but thats a minor nit off a fine shot.
John
Well done mate.!

[dennis greenwood]

Thanks John ,as said its work in progress and not ideal but to see the big picture around me with the snow and the owl coming in as made up for cold feet ,in my haste I only put normal socks on under my wellies and I couldn't feel my toes when I eventually left the hide ,if we got snow regular and staying around longer I would get the shots I want.

[Mike Poole]

Hi Den,

I know what you've produced here is probably very similar to the scene as shot and given the light quite accurate to the eye. However, as a photo I think it could do with being a touch brighter, although not too much to lose the realism.

For this, I opened it up in PS, did 2 curves adjustment, one to brighten the owl, and another to keep detail in the background. I then did a hue/saturation layer, selected the cyans and lowered the saturation too lose some of the blue cast. Just a rough edit, what do you think?

[dennis greenwood]

Thanks mike I think I will try those adjustments to the original, as said I didn't do to much PP for fear of overcooking the image ,to be honest it was a nearly dark as I had trouble focusing ,

[John Robinson]

Den
What I meant by lifting the darks a bit
John

[dennis greenwood]

Thanks for having a tweakMike/John I have done a revisit and set the drl

[Karl Egressy]

I'm wondering if it would look better after removing the cyan and blue cast from the image like this:

[Diane Miller]

Kudos for going out in tough conditions and staying with it! You got a nice reward.

It is on the blue side and as pointed out in the RPs, the darks could be lighter. But it is best done in raw conversion. Don't know what you use but in LR/ACR the Shadows slider would be perfect here, and maybe bring down the Highlights a bit too. And the Temp slider would take the edge off the cool tone.

Is that a blurred snowflake in front of the wing? Did you get another shot without it?

[dennis greenwood]

Thanks for taking time to view ,I do have a few more shots without the snowflake,i am going to revisit the raw files and edit as per suggestion's, I use LR