Another Barred Owl...

[Geoff Newhouse]

This one was what I would call a 100% Hail Mary fluke of the year shot...this owl went over my head by inches and this is the only shot even close to being in focus of the ~10 shot burst...it just happened to pass through a beam of sunlight in a really dark Pacific rainforest and for whatever reason, maybe the light or maybe just random focus shift it got this shot.

This was with D850, 300/4PF at 300mm, f/4, 1/1000, ISO 4000

It was overexposed and brought back to this...still some small clipped areas but I thought okay...it is 5208x3472 crop. I have the entire owl in the original frame but liked it cropped tighter.

[arash_hazeghi]

this one is much better than the last one in terms of IQ. Although this one is closer I can tell that unlike the other shot, focus actually locked on the face here. grain/noise so much better in this one as well. some whites are still a bit over but not much you can do

Despite the sharp focus the image has a few things that hold it back, I wish the BG didn't have the bright gaps, again not much you can do. The owl itself is a bit too large in the frame, and while I do not mind the clipped wings I do wish we could see more of the near wing to balance the frame and have more symmetry. I also wish his face was parallel to the back of the camera

if you are using calls try to place yourself farther from the owl so you can capture it when it is coming right at you with both wings visible, it is also much easier for the AF to lock when the owl is not so close to the camera

[Jack Backs]

Nice capture, fluke or not. Not sure how much info is in the raw file but to me the face needs a little more contrast. The eyes look a little foggy, I would probably be inclined to burn/darken the pupils except for the specular highlights.
At least the overexposure allowed you to get more iris detail, normally tough to get on Barred Owls.
Jack

[Geoff Newhouse]

this one is much better than the last one in terms of IQ. Although this one is closer I can tell that unlike the other shot, focus actually locked on the face here. grain/noise so much better in this one as well. some whites are still a bit over but not much you can do

Despite the sharp focus the image has a few things that hold it back, I wish the BG didn't have the bright gaps, again not much you can do. The owl itself is a bit too large in the frame, and while I do not mind the clipped wings I do wish we could see more of the near wing to balance the frame and have more symmetry. I also wish his face was parallel to the back of the camera

if you are using calls try to place yourself farther from the owl so you can capture it when it is coming right at you with both wings visible, it is also much easier for the AF to lock when the owl is not so close to the camera

Thanks Arash. This one wasn't called...this was us walking a trail in the woods to get to the clearing area and this one owl went straight towards a second owl and we were just sort of caught in the middle, surprised...I rattled off 6-7 shots and couldn't believe this showed up on the rear LCD. When we did call them we did it in an open area right on the river (we were in the middle of the river on large area of bedrock that was above the water). But it is still a very limited set distance we can work in as all around us is forest...we went as far to one end before hitting either forest or the next waterfall and used every inch of "tarmac" we had to get the straight on flight passes. In that area we got straight on passes like the previous post...this one was just as I say...one total fluke. As I mentioned I do have the entire owl in the file so can play with the crop but it did catch it in the lower right of the frame so I didn't have good space for him to fly into if I did a crop with the entire owl (I would have to add canvas but decided instead of doing that extra work decided on just the tight crop.

[Geoff Newhouse]

Nice capture, fluke or not. Not sure how much info is in the raw file but to me the face needs a little more contrast. The eyes look a little foggy, I would probably be inclined to burn/darken the pupils except for the specular highlights.
At least the overexposure allowed you to get more iris detail, normally tough to get on Barred Owls.
Jack

Thanks Jack. Yes the over exposure did get something more out of the eye than you usually do with Barred Owls....Barred owls as you know are really the worst species to photograph as they lack the amazing yellow eyes of all the other owls around our parts.

[Colin Driscoll]

I really like this 'in your face' shot.

[John Mack]

I don't mind this. My eye goes right to the owl's face. Detail look pretty good for what you were working with.

[Alex Becker]

Pretty cool details on the face and looks good for the lower SS and high ISO. I think I would clone out the stick between the birds wings if willing. I'd also darken the pupils just a tad as well. TFS

[Geoff Newhouse]

Thanks for the most recent comments. Alex, I agree about the stick above the wing...I was actually thinking about that after Arash commented on the background....I'm okay with the green/white mottled background but that one line you mentioned would be a good place to start in cleaning it up a bit. Probably the four bright spots in lower right would be good to go also.