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Thread: Short-eared Owl

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    Default Short-eared Owl

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    We have a good number of Short-eared Owls in the grasslands surrounding New York City this year. The problem is that the birds typically come out very late and are far away. This is as close as I have gotten to one in a very long time. I was lucky that it came out early and the light was just amazing. Being that I could not get super close as it was on protected grasslands that you can not walk on I tried to get a shot that showed the beauty of the bird and the amazing light and habitat it was in. The grass was golden and the snow turned a beautiful blue.

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    Very nice capture of this owl, the habitat adds so much context. Great capture, great fieldcraft. The 'beautiful blue' of the snow is also very apparent on the end of the tail feathers. Neither the owl or the snow is a light source, so I understand the reflection of the spectrum the shade, but you always seem to advise this is not what we should reflect in the image as the owl does not have blue feathers?

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    Well done Isaac, the face is beautiful with so may details. I like the habitat you chose to include as it tells the story. Colors are rich and i like the wee wing blur. I think you did very well considering theses shorties like to stay far away.

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    I have to agree with Greg! You always suggest toning down the color in the whites so I am surprised you left so much blue in the snow.
    Owl looks good.Light is beautiful.
    I would clone out the long grass behind and in front the owl and if the IQ doesn't suffer maybe crop a bit off the LHS and add a bit of canvas at the top.
    I feel like the image needs to be rotated a bit CW- it looks like the terrain was a bit uphill IRL.
    Gail

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    Hey guys thanks for the comments but I think there is some confusion about what I suggest. I suggest toning down the colors in whites when they are a function of a color cast or are too blue from under exposure or way too yellow from the sensor tech over saturating the yellows and oranges. Something like that. Always have to pay special attention to what they look like in the field, not what the whites look like on the screen when you get home and assume they are one and the same. In this case the snow naturally turned a deep blue. It eventually got even bluer than this. Same goes with the end of the tail. It was picking up the natural blue from the reflection off of the snow and therefore I left it. I don't see any reason to take what was natural and change it. The colors late in the day really were amazing. The grass got a deep golden and the snow turned blue. That is the kind of colors I always want in a photo and would never change them. Hope that helps clear things up.
    Last edited by Isaac Grant; 02-23-2019 at 05:25 PM.

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    Nice flight capture of this beauty, Isaac. I would tone down the blue reflection in the feathers, as well the blue in the snow even with your explanation why you left it in. Love those eyes and stretched out legs.

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    Last edited by Geoffrey Montagu; 02-23-2019 at 11:14 AM.

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    Default Short-eared Owl

    Hi guys! I love these discussions! I'm 100% with Isaac on this one since I cannot see a color cast on this beautiful image. Is this was mine I wouldn't change a thing since the blue reflection was not introduced by the camera or post processing, it was just there. Ultimately this is an Art and it will look great with or without the blue reflection on the tail, will depend on the artist's choice. Great job on getting this stunning image Isaac, totally different from the ones I've seen in the past. TFS.
    Last edited by Juan Tolentino; 02-23-2019 at 02:41 PM.

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    No issues here with the colour. The bird is well framed in the habitat, and the snow looks exactly the way it normally does when it's in shadow at the end of the day..blue! I've seen that happen plenty of times, even when shooting a feeder setup in the woods. Nice detail on the talons of the near foot as well.

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    Color looks fine to me, I would bring down the image a bit, and I would get rid of all the grass in front as an alternate.
    They add a bit of environment but are mostly distracting to me.
    Dan Kearl

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    Short eared Owls are a grassland bird and this bird is in perfect habitat for them with short grass and some disperse longer grasses that the picture portrays perfectly in my book. Interesting idea but I would never clone out all the grass in front as I find it beautiful and appropriate for the species. The exposure is also spot on. Perhaps from viewing on a different monitor but I am not sure what you are seeing. This bird was flying directly into a setting sun in golden light and that is what the photo shows.

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    Isaac, it is just a critique forum, not personal, just my opinion,
    not sure what the problem is, I have been posting here for years....
    Here is my take, just for fun...

    sho2.jpg
    Dan Kearl

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    Dan I have no clue what you are talking about. I do not take anything personally about a photo. It is just a photo. Nor did I say anything that attacked you. I merely responded to your comments and tried to help you understand my thought process.

    As for the image, I will ignore that it is very difficult to clone out grasses after NR has been applied to the background (your version posted looks awful because of that) and just comment on what you did. Don't mind the tighter crop at all but I do not like it without the tall grasses. Looks too plain and not like typical Short eared habitat. I also do not like the darker background as that is not how it was in real life. When in the field I compose the shot as best as possible and only shoot the bird when it is where I want it to be. If on the beach I will set up on the cleanest spot of the beach so I do not have to clone in post. If shooting waterfowl I will go the the spot that has the best background or reflections so I do not have water to clean up. Same goes for this image. I have 800 sharp photos of this bird in all different poses, banking left and right, standing in grass, turning left, turning right and so on. But I chose this one and maybe one or 2 more eventually to post as I feel it showed enough of the habitat, the beautiful grasses and the blue snow. Point is that there are times when I will clone out some minor stuff like specular highlights or things like that but I do not like to fully alter the images. I try my absolute best to make the strongest image in the field that requires the least work in post.

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    Love the sharpness on the face and the great legs hanging down pose. While I love the habitat the scraggly grasses in the foreground are distracting. As far as I know, snow is white. It looks blue when it is in the shade as in this photograph. So semantics aside, there is.a blue cast on the white snow. I am not saying that you should remove it, just saying that it is a color cast on the snow :)

    with love, artie

    ps: easy to clean up all that scraggly stuff if you so choose.

    pps: did not see Dan's repost.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    Short eared Owls are a grassland bird and this bird is in perfect habitat for them with short grass and some disperse longer grasses that the picture portrays perfectly in my book. Interesting idea but I would never clone out all the grass in front as I find it beautiful and appropriate for the species. The exposure is also spot on. Perhaps from viewing on a different monitor but I am not sure what you are seeing. This bird was flying directly into a setting sun in golden light and that is what the photo shows.
    As I said, for me, the scraggly grasses are quite distracting :) I find them ugly from an artistic point of view. Yes, the image shows what you saw perfectly including the long grasses that I and Dan find distracting :). Heck, I just took a closer look and see that the distracting grasses are not grasses at all, they are actually distracting stalks. Note that there are no such stalks in the background. Had you been lucky the stalks would not have been there and the result would have been a stronger image ... Bad luck I would say.

    with love, artie

    with love, artie
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    I like some environment in a shot, so the grasses/stalks don't bother me at all. It might be cleaner without, but its their habitat. Great light and a nice pose

    Mike

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    Nice pose and nice light. I don't mind the environment at all. The composition is spot on. I would be thrilled to see a owl in the wild let along photograph one. Well done.

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    There is not an artificial blue cast to the snow. The snow in real life turned blue, my shadow turned blue, everything was either golden or blue. When we all refer to a cast we are talking about an unnatural color cast in the photo which is not the case here at all. The colors are exactly as they were naturally.

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    Funny I really like the stalks and chose this pic to post because of them. This particular owl hunted in this habitat. It caught 3 voles in front of us all which where in the short grass with dispersed stalks. Seems I am often on the other side of the issue on this but I am not always a fan of super clean "landscaped" backgrounds.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    There is not an artificial blue cast to the snow. The snow in real life turned blue, my shadow turned blue, everything was either golden or blue. When we all refer to a cast we are talking about an unnatural color cast in the photo which is not the case here at all. The colors are exactly as they were naturally.

    Last time I heard snow was white ...

    a
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    Not in that light it wasn’t. Not really sure why this is so difficult to understand. Seems beyond basic to me.

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    Snow is white seems pretty basic to me ...

    with love, artie
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    So you are saying that snow looks the same in all light? Snow looks the same in glowing warm light and in deep shade? Hard to believe you would say that but honestly don’t care anymore. People can believe what ever they want. My photo as presented is spot on accurate with zero color casts.

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    I like how the light just makes the face pop. I like the wing position, details and great view of the feet. Excellent image Isaac.

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    Look what I found in Google!!

    Why does the snow look blue?
    What causes the blue color that sometimes appears in snow and ice? As with water, this color is caused by the absorption of both red and yellow light (leaving light at the blue end of the visible light spectrum). ... As this light travels into the snow or ice, the ice grains scatter a large amount of light.
    Snow & ice | Causes of Color - Webexhibits
    WebExhibits › causesofcolor


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    Super interesting. So when the sun is high in the sky it reflects off of the snow and the snow appears white. But I guess as the sun gets lower in the sky and the intensity of the light gets greater the super saturated yellow and red light get absorbed and that only leaves the blue light to show. The warmer the light the bluer the snow will appear. Excellent stuff Juan!

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    Isaac: Interesting debate going on here. Let me just say that for me it's a great image as is, and doesn't need anything changed from your original. I'm also somewhat of a fan of unaltered habitats (as in many photos by Glenn Bartley)...unless there are obvious distractions such as specular highlights, or a twig sticking up from a bird's head in which case one would move position anyway). I too would be happy just to see one of these owls let alone photograph one. I fully support your explanation too, as well as the effort you go to to get the images you like. (surprised?...lol). It's all about what YOU like anyhow...different strokes and all that.
    Cheers,
    Paul

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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    So you are saying that snow looks the same in all light? Snow looks the same in glowing warm light and in deep shade? Hard to believe you would say that but honestly don’t care anymore. People can believe what ever they want. My photo as presented is spot on accurate with zero color casts.

    The colors of snow are of course always influenced by the color and quality of the light. As are bird's feathers. You choose to call that a color cast when it suits you and to call in natural when that suits you :)

    And yes, I do understand that some color casts are caused by the camera or by poor post-processing.

    It is pretty much all semantics.

    with love, artie
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    It is not semantics and it is not what suits me. It is what is natural and what isn't. No clue why you have such a hard time admitting that or that you are just wrong.

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    Nice one Isaac. The bird really pops and you had some great light. I've only seen one SEO this year hunting super far away in the rain, so very jealous. Hanging feet are great. I don't mind the stalks as I've only ever seen SEO's in this same habitat. I like the overall slightly looser crop. TFS, a very nice frame

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    I really like the original post Isaac! The light is perfect, great exposure and the pose is spot on. I don't find the snow unnaturally blue. I live in Sweden and we have about four wintery months of the year when the sun stays very low during all of the bright hours of the day and this blue cast is the natural result of those conditions. I also find it weird to argue so strongly for the blue cast in the snow on the base that it looks unnatural when you on same time are prepeared to remove all of the straws and grass in the foreground to acchive a more pleasing image. The grass shows a typical habitat and I think that makes the image stronger rather than a distraction even if it is all down to personal taste.

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    Whatever you say Isaac. I will try to remember that snow is actually BLUE :)

    with love, a
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    Hi Isaac, accepting that you will find fault in this edit I am still going to give it a try. I lived and worked in winters in New Hampshire for all my working time before retiring to Florida. I know snow well and while there may be a slight bluish tint in the shadows I have never seen snow as blue in your first post. I did a quick edit, this is what I think you saw when taking the image and were tricked by the post processing to believe the snow was really that blue. Thank you for sharing, it a wonderful image of a SEO.
    Joe Przybyla

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    Joe I appreciate the edit and the effort. Always do. But your assumption is wrong. That does not look like what I saw in that field. I do not get tricked and did not make a mistake. I always pay special attention to the details of the lighting and colors and that day was no different. I also know the birds like the back of my hand since I have been birding since the age of 4 and was raised by a birder. I have seen thousands of species of birds all over the world. I can instantly assess when the colors are off on them which is why I am so picky about colors and mention it so often in other peoples photos. My kids know computers in a way that I never will because they grew up with it. I know birds. The snow was not blue because of shadows it was blue because of light. See above. There were 5 of us on a platform and while the owl was just sitting in the fields for long periods of time we were talking about how blue the snow was and how vibrant the colors were. We were looking at our shadows and talking about how blue they were as well and how would we process the shadows because they were so blue. Let me repeat that. We were having conversations about how BLUE the snow was, not about how gray it was with a touch of blue. When I viewed the photos on my computer I was very pleased with the photos and the colors that I saw. As an aside I have been very pleased with the colors out of the Nikon D850 files in general and find they need very little if any tweaking at all. I am telling you that the snow got more blue than what is in my picture, not less. Sorry Joe but your edit is not true to what the conditions were that day. I say it is BPN field trip time! Come on up and lets photograph birds in the snow late in the day on a perfect sunny sunset in that field. Maybe if you see it for yourself you will feel differently.

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    As the one who asked the first question on blue to this post, I thought I should circle back and make another comment. Note also in my original post I did not say I would want to change anything, I also like the habitat. And I have learned a lot from reading Isaac's critiques, even if I think they are becoming too absolute of late, less teaching. I did ask specifically about the blue tail feathers not the blue snow, although both have similar causes. I also think in isolation if I posted a picture of an owl with blue feathers I would be instructed to remove the cast...
    But all the light on the sensor in this capture came from the sun. As we know light travels in straight lines, so with the sun behind all the light was either reflected, refracted, scattered, or in combination to get to the sensor, which in turn is aiming to simulate the sensitivity of our eye. Those processes can operate with different efficiencies for different wavelengths. If the sun is behind us, why do we see a blue sky? Light is scattered in different directions, some back towards us. It happens that scattering is about 10 times more efficient for blue wavelengths than red, so the sky looks blue. If we look back towards the setting sun it looks red because the blue is scattered out, and as the sun gets lower and the light travels through more of the atmosphere it looks more red. If it were not for reflection, refraction and scattering shadows would be black like on the moon, but it is a fact that the spectral content of objects in shadow is bluer than those in direct light. The object (feathers/snow) did not change, but we perceive it differently because there is less from the red end of the spectrum. If you shine a bright flashlight at the snow in this situation you will see it is white.
    Tried to make this short, and there is a lot more to it, for example our eyes which are most responsive to green light become more responsive to blue in low light, so our perception changes. It seems that we in general prefer the redder cast of early/late direct light to that of deep shadows for pleasing wildlife photos, but that does not make one right or wrong. So I am not sure exactly what it means to know color, but we certainly know what appeals to us. At the end of the day we can choose to reflect in images what we think we saw, or what we would like to ideally see, I don't think either is right or wrong, just artistic choice. Blue feathers are fine in context.
    Very nice capture of this owl, the habitat adds so much context.

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    Greg since we are talking about perception do me a favor. Download this image and bring it into PS. Then zoom in on the tail and select it. Then go to hue/saturation and in the drop down select the blue channel. Then lower the blue -100. Then zoom out and tell me if you can see anything more than maybe a slight adjustment at most. If you can see anything at all. For those that do not want to go through the trouble here it is where I have done exactly that to the tail. Reduced the blues -100. You still see blue tail feathers or you see the perception of blue with at most a tiny tiny tiny bit of blue cast that is reflected from the blue below. But do you really see any difference from the original post? The repost with the blue -100 is on the bottom. So did I post an owl with blue feathers or you thought I did? When in fact what I posted was an owl where the tail was slightly shaded so you think it is blue but it isn't.

    As to my critiques I don't know how to help you. If you go through each and every day I offer information, much of it the same thing day in and day out about color casts, depth in photos, getting whites correct, NR, sharpening techniques, reposts and so on. If you think I am now too absolute I challenge you to find anyone else that gives more info than I do about how to fix problems in photos and not just comments about what is wrong with a photo. Below are some of my comments from today. If you check yesterday you will see more of the same. And the day before that more of the same. If you still find that too absolute then feel free to not read any of my non helpful comments any more. Absolute enough for ya?

    Nice pose, nice eye contact and I love the beautiful patterns in the water. Even nicer that you didn't slip from the absolute edge of that cliff!!! On my screen the whites of the bird are a touch bright and could use a bit more details. Your exposure was good so should be an easy fix. What I would do is select the bird, use NIK detail extractor at about 25-30% opacity to bring out a touch more details. It will also gray out the whites a little so then I would go into selective color and lower the blacks in the whites maybe 10 points or so. You will have to play with it to get the proper balance. But I think that minor adjustment will have a nice impact on the shot. Would also warm it up a bit as well. The changes will be subtle but should strengthen an already very nice photo.

    Exposure and colors look perfect to me. I love the green background that really makes the bird stand out. Do wish for a better head angle but always a reason to go back! As for the adjustment you made it is very difficult on a bird like this as there is not an abrupt change in color but there is more of a gradual transition. If you are going to do that type of an adjustment try a large feather of 7-10 pixels (when you have your selection done just hold down SHIFT and hit F6 and then enter the amount of the feather) and try and be as precise as possible with your selection. Then when you inverse and do your adjustments just make sure that the transition point is not apparent. If it is you could always do a bit of cloning to smoothen out that line and blend the areas back together. Let me know if you have any questions. Always happy to help.

    Very nice flight shot Jim. Good head angle, good eye contact, good wing position and good background. You have a bit of a blue cast on the flight feathers of the rear wing and the dark feathers of the breast. Just select those areas and lower the saturation of the blue channel and you will see the cast vanish. I would warm the image up a bit and agree with Gail that it could use a touch more sharpening to the head. Maybe smart sharpen just the head at 50 and .3. Easy fixes for a very nice image. We get very few of these in my area and I have some photos from years back but none that I consider top notch now. It is high on my list of wanted waterfowl species and I would be thrilled to have a shot like this.



    Last edited by Arthur Morris; 02-25-2019 at 09:14 PM.

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    Isaac, I know there was some jargon in my response, but in essence it says that there is a (complex) scientific explanation which supports the exact interpretation of the image you presented, and how you observe changes in light in the field. Sorry if that was not clear.

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    So does that mean that I posted an owl with blue tail feathers or there is a scientific explanation which supports the exact interpretation of why you thought my owl had blue tail feathers?

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    Getting pretty critical over a very small natural color difference. I love the blue snow as I love the warm hughes of a nice evening shot. My favorite shot of your last SEO outing. The well it eyes look great! Well done Isaac
    Come join me for a Custom Raptor Workshop starting this November 2019- January 2020.
    P.M. me to inquire on dates, pricing and availabilities. Thank You.
    www.davidsalemphotography.com

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