These Feet Are Made For Digging...

[Joseph Przybyla]

Florida Burrowing Owl captured on one of my trips down south on Marco Island, Florida. These owls are tiny about 8 to 9 inches in height, what you see on your screen may be larger than life. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VR AF-S ED, handheld sitting on the ground
1/500 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV +2/3 ISO 1100 Auto WB, image captured at 400mm (600mm 35mm Equivalent)
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2023 and Topaz Denoise AI
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Joe, I like the simplicity of the shot and if you have more below great, but the light to me, is all one direction, so you have Darks & Light, but very little if any, Mid tone (where detail is} and what gives the depth to the subject. Getting more tonal range with exposure you get more form and structure back into the owl, nothing to do with any sharpness, it's already there.

TFS
Steve

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe, I like the simplicity of the shot and if you have more below great, but the light to me, is all one direction, so you have Darks & Light, but very little if any, Mid tone (where detail is} and what gives the depth to the subject. Getting more tonal range with exposure you get more form and structure back into the owl, nothing to do with any sharpness, it's already there.

TFS
Steve

Hi Steve, thank you for viewing and suggesting improvements. Would you edit the image to show me and say what you did. Love to learn, thank you...

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Joe, can you pop the raw across the pond please. Being very close I’m also wondering if f/8 may have helped, but your ISO/SS would drop do you would have to increase and I’m not sure what the D7000 is like at higher iso ie 3200????

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Joe, thanks for the file but why are you converting to DNG and not keeping to Raw????

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe, thanks for the file but why are you converting to DNG and not keeping to Raw????

Hi Steve, because every camera has a different raw file and DNG works almost everywhere. It just takes a little longer to convert on downloading. I have the time.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Joe, firstly keep it at the Raw, no converting to DNG, can't remember if there is any loss, as I don't have to do this, albeit some may with the Z9 or use the new Nikon software!!!!!

OK looking at the DNG you have fallen into the trap of 'Cropping' into the image way to much, probably bordering on around 45-50%, therefore you are loosing valuable data, if you can't reach put a 1.4 on, it's sometimes better. As a result the image isn't quite pin sharp due to the cropping so IQ will suffer, personally I crop less than 15%.

Having taken it into Lr, I got a grey balance of around R50.2:G50.1:B50.1 which gives me a great start from the post are some tweaking, no biases to colours now, but then tweaked it for the whites. This to me is your starting block where you then take it to your recollection or preferred look, it's down to you. BTW it's Adobe Standard for you profile, not Neutral that was in the old days, plus using other any third party filters or Profiles well bin them, they are pointless/pants. Avoiding ramping up the black & whites and so all the base colours are muted, I think you have tweaked the blacks & white by other means producing a more 'contrast' tonal range so you miss retaining mid tones and depth, basically you blow any slight tones range in the HL so it looks white rather than a shade of Black ie Grey scale. In framing you needed to lower the camera frame to get more below rather than keeping the subject with the centre off the frame, any reason ie Focus points Joe? The BKG is crappy so you would have lost some of the dark backdrop you carefully addressed.

Once every thing was of an even keel, exported to PS'23, applied some Curves adjustments via Vibrance, Levels tonal range, applied some RGB masks to build the depth, saved back to Lr as a complete unflattened PSD file, made some basic masks for the Light exp, dark exposure, cropped, exported via Lr saved for Web via Legacy.

Joe its not ideal, or faithful in colour to the scene, but hopefully you can see by playing with adjustments you can 'build' on the file so everything has a role to play. To me the light was on the LHS so the RH would be darker and more in shadow, if that makes sense. your finer details are a tad loss due to cropping and in the original capture so hard to pull that out.

No idea on the D7000 but keep SS high, cropping to a minimal or use a converter, exposure is good so maximise the pixels.

Not sure if this helps or....

Cheers
Steve

[Steve Kaluski]

Joe, probably somewhere between the two.

[Dorian Anderson]

Given the tall bird standing on a post, I would have tried for a vertical orientation. But it looks like you've cloned out the dark strip at the top? If yes, that was a wise move as it was -- for lack of a better word -- hideous.

Steve's RP is a slight improvement, but the ceiling for this image is rather low given the very flat lighting and background issues (pre-cloning anyway). Steve's suggestion of f/8 for more DOF is good as you're ISO wasn't high.

Also, most on this board crop significantly more than 15% when not shooting in set-up conditions. So, take that advice accordingly...

[Joseph Przybyla]

Here is redo, this time I used Adobe Standard as a profile. I also removed the purple flower bed at the top shown in Steve's edit. The brown feathers are lighter toned than in Steve's edit, for Florida that is more natural as the feathers of resident birds are lighter from bleaching from the sun. WDYT?