Great grey owl

[Jonathan Ashton]

Canon 1DX Canon 500mm MK II & 1.4TC III ISO 8000, 1/1000 sec f6.3
I desaturated the tree on the left quite a bit.
All C&C welcome.

[Joe Subolefsky]

Beautiful love the snow. I might have tried pulling a crop in tighter to the tree on the left edge.

[keith mitchell]

This is great Jon love the pose and the falling snow,agree with Joe about pulling the crop in if possible you have two nice trees to give you framing but I'm sure you will have looked at this,excellent capture wish it was mine.

Keith.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Jon, I know it's overcast and even dark judging by the techs, but it looks a bit drab, sorry, perhaps it's the desaturation???

I wonder above moving it more to the right and so less of the Conifers and more of the falling snow, likewise making the tree a bit more vertical? Also I find everything lacking in detail/depth with not much to fix the eyes on, did the DoF really drop off that quickly???

Sorry Jon, am around if you want to talk.

TFS
Steve

[Tim Foltz]

Jon, beautiful environment and subject matter, love the snow flurries also.
I hope you don't mind did some quick tonal adjustments to make it pop a bit more.

-Tim

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Jo & Keith, I did toy with cropping but decided to leave it full frame, on reflection a slight crop may have been better.
Steve and Tim, I know what you refer to Steve and thanks very much Tim I do not mind whatsoever in fact I appreciate the repost.
The desaturation was solely on the left hand tree.
The strange thing is my original interpretation was very similar to the one posted by Tim but then I reflected and remembered how dull and dim it was, some images were taken at ISO 16000. Same old story for me I am often torn between portraying as it was as opposed to something more pleasing to the eye. For some reason this has been particularly so with images taken in Yellowstone.

[Geoff Newhouse]

I actually prefer the more somber look of the original as that to me looks like it should in that type of situation. I'm so jealous of any and all GGO shots as I've never seen one outside of a zoo. I hope to find one someday.

My only crits on this image is that the two trees both the in focus and OOF compete with the subject. Desaturating the near tree has helped a lot though.
Falling snow adds to the image a lot.

TFS
Geoff

[keith mitchell]

Jon i still go for the original keeping the dull and dim conditions ,on reflection I might try lifting those magnificent eyes but that's all ,just my personal thing of course.

Keith.

[William Dickson]

Well capture Jon. Lovely looking image with great detail and pose between the trees. Something between the two images for me.

Great work.

Will

[Glenn Conlan]

Great image, a wall hanger for sure

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks very much everyone I appreciate your comments, it is interesting to note the differing viewpoints.

[David Salem]

This looks awesome Jon. Love the pose between the trees and the nice details in the feathers.
I like the repost as the layered feathers really pops well.
Nice one!!