Spotted Owl

[Walker Noe]

I happened upon this beautiful male Spotted Owl in the Huachuca Mountains in southeast Arizona. Definitely my favorite image of the species I have so far. May, 2017.

Postprocessing:

Standard contrast, slight (approx 0.10 EV) exposure boost, crop for composition, sharpening, red-eye fix

Tech:

Nikon D500
Nikkor 300mm f4 AF-S (old version)
Nikkor AF-S 1.4x TCE II
handheld
Nikon SB-910 (TTL -2.0)

f/6.3
420 mm
1/1000
ISO 800

[John Mack]

I don't anything about taking photos at night with flash. This maybe a little underexposed? The composition is nice.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Walker, good vertical comp, and I like the overall IQ. The image does not have an overly "flashed" look to it, which is a good thing. Good job with the eyes. I'd be tempted to tone down, or fully eliminate the vegetation in upper right corner. If this was a daytime image I'd say it was a touch underexposed, but as a nighttime image I like it as is.

[Isaac Grant]

Still have not seen a Spotted Owl but boy would I love to. Nice direct stare here. I agree that the image is too dark.

[Walker Noe]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I will experiment again with bringing the exposure up, but I recall when I initially did that the image began to look over-flashed as Daniel mentioned. I will also reduce the vegetation.