This image was captured in Cape Coral, Florida. This Burrowing Owl chick has yet to fledge, it is about 5 inches tall. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.
Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED shot at 400mm (600mm FFE)
1/1000 F/8 Matrix Metering +1 EV ISO 1250
Post processed in Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC
Cropped from horizontal to vertical for composition and presentation
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
Hi Andre, I didn't want to go lower that 1/1000 on the shutter speed (I was sitting on the ground hand holding). F/8 is a touch sharper than 5.6, also insurance that I would have enough depth of field. At the 20 feet that I was from the owl I had 4 inches for the depth of field. After capturing the first image I checked the histogram and dialed in +1 to move the exposure to the right where I wanted it to be, with the camera set on Auto ISO the +1 raised the ISO by one stop. Hope this makes sense, rather than raising the ISO manually using the +/- EV seems a quicker way to do it. Thanks for viewing and commenting, Andre.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
A great direct look from this little guy, and you did well to get this one fully in the open. I suspect that under the circumstances it would have been tough to get much lower, but that might have reduced the amount of white sand and gotten more of him against that nice bg. I never thought of using Auto ISO and the +/- EV. Sounds like it's worth a try.
Nicely framed, I would suggest possibly a tad more sharpening on the head and shoulders or possibly consider some slight use of Nik define. I would also consider lowering the highlights a tad, I think more detail would be apparent. I really like the eye contact.
Sorry for being so late to reply, had some issues to attend to.
The reason I asked is that I shoot Manual with Auto ISO and try to always shoot ETTR. I hardly shoot more than +0,3EV on Matrix metering, I found that if there are whites in the image, they might well be blown.
I always aim for detail in Darks AND HL in camera, not always possible. When I check Histogram in field, I can often miss the one narrow spike on the right- blown HL..The moment is gone, forever!
When viewing the image in camera, do look at histogram and move only when you have spikes on left or right, + or - EV or change SS/ f-stop, or want to move histogram to right.
I found are more faster/accurate method in the field is to use the "blinkies" screen with all three channels (RGB) present.
Remember- if the histogram does not spike left or right, all can be manipulated PP, but if it is blown, it is blown- gone!
One can try to use View NX to manipulate RAW, but it is better to work with well exposed image than trying to fix a blown one.
I only use +EV when there are lots of darks present, I might even move to centre-weighted metering if BG is very bright, or even -EV!
Now to your image- Nice comp and like the low POV.
You have blown the whites in the sand and some of the soft feathers lower down.
Can do with some MT contrast on belly and chest.
Do you use the adjustment brush in LR CC?
How do you sharpen for web?
Make sure you use masked adj layers at different opacities/ blending modes in PS to target only certain areas.
Hi Andre, after reading your recent post I think you and I work pretty much the same way. I do use the blinkies and the screen you mentioned that show the blinkies and four channels. While I do not have the screen on all the time I am constantly switching between them if time and action permits. In this instance I think the bright sand was dominating the exposure, to get what appeared to be the correct exposure on the bird I needed to bias the exposure to +1, otherwise the bird would have been underexposed. The raw image when imported into Lightroom does not show any clipping (a screenshot post accompanies). Any clipping in my image as posted is inattentive and poor post processing, most likely rushing to post in BPN. I appreciated your time and interest in helping, Thank you.
You asked if I used the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom, the answer is yes. I am learning to make more adjustments local and less global, once the basic settings are defined. I only recently subscribed to Lightroom and Photoshop CC so much of Photoshop is new to me other than the image cleanup tool of spot healing, cloning. patch etc.
Above is the print screen when I imported the image into Lightroom. I also will post a reworked image of the owl which I think is better. Thank you for help and counsel.
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
Here is a reworked and edited post of the original image. I think this addresses the suggestions commented on. Thank you all for viewing, commenting and suggesting ways to improve the image. Very much appreciated...
Joe Przybyla
"Sometimes I do get to places just as God is ready to have somebody click the shutter"... Ansel Adams
Worked of RP. 5x7 crop, 1 adjustment brush on green BG, 1 on sand, 1 on owl.
Some masked layers in PS to target certain areas, Dodge&Burn layer, selectively sharpening for web.
Not ideal working of JPG, just a fast edit.
Cheers
Andre