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Thread: "When a Plan comes Together"

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Default "When a Plan comes Together"

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    Looks like it's Owl week!!
    I just had a great owl experiance a few days ago so this looks like a perfect time to post one from that outing.
    A non-photographer friend of mine had called me to inform me that he knew were a group of burrowing owls were. He said that he wasn't sure what orginazation had done it, but they were transplanted to this location.
    A few days later I decided to go look for them in the evening. Using his directions, 15 poles down the dirt road and turn left before the river bank, I eventually found the location. There were 4-5 man made burrows and I saw a total of 5 owls, 4 adults and one baby.
    The temp was very hot that evening and all the shots I took were full of heat shimmer and unusable. I did get one pretty good flight shot of the baby though. The shots wouldn't have been any good anyway because the perches they had for the owls were regular wood construction stakes and white PVC poles.
    I told my buddy Glenn about the find and the lack of perches so we decided to go to search for sutable perches. I knew a spot that had a few Cholla cactus and we were hoping to find some dried out pieces for perches. They look really cool and give that south west desert look.
    We found some nice perches and headed out to the owls. We zip tied them to the existing stakes and hung around for about an hour to see what they would do. As expected they were weary of them and did't use them so we left and planed on coming back on Sunday morning.
    We showed up at 6am Sunday and within a few minutes we saw a few owls using our perches. Killer!!
    We setup on this perch and this nice male landed in front of us. We were stoked getting great shots of him with perfect light and a killer BG. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, Jr. jumps up on the perch with his dad!!
    Needless to say we were laughing at our fortunate situation and the baby gave us 10 minutes on the perch with a few different poses. It was way better than we expected or could have hoped for.
    This image shows that with a little forethought, insight and planning, you can achieve the images you are looking for!!
    The long time personal joke between Glenn and I when we get something good is "You can't get images like this on the couch"
    Get out there and get some good ones!!

    D5---840mm---f6.3---ss1/2500th---ISO1000---Handheld from truck---30% crop---cloned band

    Thanks as always for looking and for your input. I appreciate it.

    David
    Last edited by David Salem; 07-18-2018 at 10:50 AM.
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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    It all came together to produce a killer B O frame Great planning, a bit of (earned) luck with junior, and your usual superlative techs. We'll be looking for more from this outing.

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    killer man both tack sharp great eye contact BG and perch

    I may have to come down there
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    Lifetime Member Stu Bowie's Avatar
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    Hi Dave, I dont know how you always get your subjects to give you direct eye contact all the time, but this rocks. I like the curved perch, and both Owls are tack sharp with good DOF on the overall image. The light played along being nice and soft, as did the smooth OOF BG. They dont much better than this.

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    Just crazy good Dave. Both tack sharp and with perfect eye contact. Killer background. Congrats man.

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    Lifetime Member Mike Poole's Avatar
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    Top notch again Dave, too true about missing shots sat on the couch

    Mike

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    BPN Member William Dickson's Avatar
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    Double WOW. Two rockstars on the same nice perch, with a fab BG. Very well done.

    Will

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    Super Moderator Daniel Cadieux's Avatar
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    Awesome story and image to prove it all! Great perch selection - I'm always on the lookout for perches for setups and have a stack in my garage. Techs are spot on as usual. The only thing I'd do is warm up the image...it seems a bit too blue to me, but otherwise top notch!!

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Thanks everyone
    Glad you like it!
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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Daniel Cadieux View Post
    Awesome story and image to prove it all! Great perch selection - I'm always on the lookout for perches for setups and have a stack in my garage. Techs are spot on as usual. The only thing I'd do is warm up the image...it seems a bit too blue to me, but otherwise top notch!!
    Thanks Daniel!
    I had processed 2 versions, one a little cooler, the one that I just posted, because the first one looked a little warm to me last night.
    I will post the warmer one tonight and if you come back to this thread, let me know what you think.
    Thanks again.
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    This looks great. Love those eyes. Neat little back story as well. Great background.

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    Fantastic result, David but you put the effort and planning in to get there. Hard to see how this could be bettered. Thanks so much for sharing.

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    BPN Member Tim Foltz's Avatar
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    Nice one Dave the planning came through, nice and sharp, clean BG and you picked a nice looking perch, sure beats pvc.

    -Tim

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Default Warmer

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    Thanks again everyone. I appreciate the nice comments.

    Here is the first version I processed. It looked a bit warm but probably represented the actual look that morning better.

    Let me know your thoughts.

    Thanks
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    Super Moderator Daniel Cadieux's Avatar
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    I do prefer the warmer colours of the repost, but personal preference really as both versions rock.

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    Gorgeous David, well done I like both versions, super detail and lovely light..........after seeing this I think I 'll put mine to bed!

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    Hi David, super planning, wonderful image. I prefer the first image, probably why Isaac is always telling me my images have a blue cast. Wish here it would be possible to attach a perch to the crosses set out for the Burrowing Owls to perch on. The areas are roped off and watched carefully but the owl police. Well done, thank you for sharing.
    Joe Przybyla

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    Fantastic. Wonderful pose, colors and background.

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    David I am so impressed with this I just had to look again, I still think it looks first class, I didn't mention it previously but I thought and still think it might just be a little oversharpened, nobody has mentioned it but the facial discs look a little refractile to me.

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Thanks everyone!!

    Thanks Daniel for getting back to me on the warm frame. I like the warmer one as that's what it was but I like both versions too so not sure what I would do if it were to be printed.

    Thanks again
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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    Thanks Johnathan,

    Burrowing owls are a little tricky when it comes to sharpening. They have quite a few "whiskers" around the nare and beak so sharpening without making them crunchy is a fine line. You are right, this one is right on the edge. Actually it's almost where you need to be for these guys because if not, then it looks a hare soft.
    When I was done with my first edit I decided to selectively sharpen the dad's face a bit more as it didn't look quite as sharp as the baby.

    Thanks for the comment and for keeping an eye open ;)
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    Hello and wow,

    you can see me sitting here with open mouth.. great pcture !!

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    Lifetime Member Marina Scarr's Avatar
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    Killer opportunity and image. Like the warmer one. Love seeing the 2 together and the perch is perfect as is the varied BG.
    Marina Scarr
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