First Snowy Owl...

[MichaelM]

This was my first encounter with a Snowy Owl... Some minor adjustments in post...curves, gradient on the sand in the foreground, general sharpening and selective sharpening on the eyes, and though the D300 typically handles ISO 640 pretty well, the golden brown needed a bit of NR. Did the best I could.

Followed Artie's recommendations and shot manual since light was very consistent.. in anticipation of the lift off .

IMHO, it looks a little softer than I would like.. Shot with Sigma 500 / Nikon TC14E, mounted in Mongoose. It was quite windy and I had the F1 bracket, SB-800 & BB mounted. Though I didn't use use fill flash, the BB was very "sail-like" and might have imparted a bit of camera shake...

[denise ippolito]

I hope my first snowy owl looks that good! Love the composition and BG .The owl's HA IS PERFECT - on my laptop and can't see the whites too well to say how they look, but it looks like a great shot to me

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Hi Michael, it looks very good to me. I like the composition and the exposure looks VG. Might just be tempted to blur the BG a bit more and maybe a little sharpening to the eyes. Nice shot!
What was your shutter speed?

[Julie Kenward]

How thrilling! I have yet to see any owls out in the wild...this one would have made my day!

You explained why your ISO and ss were up so high - you were waiting for take off. If not, I think you could have gone with much lower settings and had much less noise to deal with. In any case, the bird looks perfectly exposed - I can't find any evidence of any blown whites and your HA is really nice. I think they only thing that would have added a little more to this would be if his head were tilted down just a bit more so he had a straight-at-you stare. As it is, his eyes look just a little bit past you...again, very small thing.

As far as the composition goes, you could probably slice a small piece off the left side, putting the bird more in the ROT's position. It's nice with the clump of grass on the left to balance it out but it does make the bird feel more centered because you have equal distance between the clump and the frame and the bird and the frame.

All in all, I'd be really happy with this image. Minor tweaks could make it better but this is pretty sweet as is!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Michael,
I like your composition. you have good sharp details on your bird, with good color rendition, and a crystal clear, sharp eye. I do see noise in the background and the out of focus vertical blotches grab my attention...I did a few changes to the base image. to illustrate a different perspective on this fellow...I cropped from the bottom about 1/4; cropped from the right side of the frame to off set the bird, he was too centered in frame. I opened up the mid-tones in the background to lighten it a bit..the image was under exposed. also ran some noise reduction, blurred and liquefied it, to blend it more naturally. On the subject, I toned down the whites around the face and selective sharpened the eyes a bit more, and selective sharpened portions of the feathers. I also boosted contrast just a tad. see if this sits well with you...:cool:

[Alfred Forns]

One fine image Michael !!! Love the pose bg and great exposure on the bird.
Whites look just fine on my monitor !! This (and any other) we can tweak all day but sure is a good looking image as presented.

I like the bottom crop a lot, cleans up the bottom and I like the proportion. Did you get the liftoff !!! Big Congrats !!!

[Katie Rupp]

It's a beauty, Michael and I like the effect of Gus's crop.

[Nonda Surratt]

Wow just wow, great first, heck I'd be breaking my arm patting self on back.

Do really like Gus's crop

[MichaelM]

Hi Michael, it looks very good to me. I like the composition and the exposure looks VG. Might just be tempted to blur the BG a bit more and maybe a little sharpening to the eyes. Nice shot!
What was your shutter speed?

Thanks Jackie!! I thought about blurring the background...it was a mix of dry grass, berry bushes and sand dunes. My skills with masking are limited so I thought this might be one to leave well enough alone.

Shutter speed was 1/2000, noted in the caption under the image.

[MichaelM]

How thrilling! I have yet to see any owls out in the wild...this one would have made my day!

You explained why your ISO and ss were up so high - you were waiting for take off. If not, I think you could have gone with much lower settings and had much less noise to deal with. In any case, the bird looks perfectly exposed - I can't find any evidence of any blown whites and your HA is really nice. I think they only thing that would have added a little more to this would be if his head were tilted down just a bit more so he had a straight-at-you stare. As it is, his eyes look just a little bit past you...again, very small thing.

As far as the composition goes, you could probably slice a small piece off the left side, putting the bird more in the ROT's position. It's nice with the clump of grass on the left to balance it out but it does make the bird feel more centered because you have equal distance between the clump and the frame and the bird and the frame.

All in all, I'd be really happy with this image. Minor tweaks could make it better but this is pretty sweet as is!

Jules thanks... Yes...I was anticipating the launch, hence the high shutter speed and ISO.. Truth told, the D300 usually does ISO 640 far better, even with very dark BG's..for some reason the mid-brown is a fright to work with.

The day was perfectly clear, so once the histogram showed a clean exposure I just switched to manual.

As far as the head position...what I am noticing from the other images I have, is that when it's head was tilted down the pupil was mostly hidden by the upper eye lids...gives a sort "sad-sack" look. I'll post one to show you what I mean. That said, I think I have a few with a "stare-down" though not the sharpest of the series.

Not sure if I can post a subsequent image or if it should be a limit of one, but this is a different image from the same series but with an 8x10 crop..




There is a really offensive dry brown shrub just off to the left that made the earlier crop necessary... this is a bit better.

Thanks for the tips and I'll look for the images with better HA.

[MichaelM]

Hi Michael,
I like your composition. you have good sharp details on your bird, with good color rendition, and a crystal clear, sharp eye. I do see noise in the background and the out of focus vertical blotches grab my attention...I did a few changes to the base image. to illustrate a different perspective on this fellow...I cropped from the bottom about 1/4; cropped from the right side of the frame to off set the bird, he was too centered in frame. I opened up the mid-tones in the background to lighten it a bit..the image was under exposed. also ran some noise reduction, blurred and liquefied it, to blend it more naturally. On the subject, I toned down the whites around the face and selective sharpened the eyes a bit more, and selective sharpened portions of the feathers. I also boosted contrast just a tad. see if this sits well with you...:cool:

Awesome work Gus!!

Much of what you describe finds itself beyond my skill in post processing...I'll use your image as a base to see if I can reproduce it. My limitation might be Lightroom v2.0.

[MichaelM]

Did you get the liftoff !!! Big Congrats !!!

Wow... Nice to hear praise from all of you!!

I did get a few captures of lift off...but with the wind in my face, they are mostly tail feathers.. Lots of talons too..

I'll see what else I can share!

Thanks again!

[MichaelM]

Wow just wow, great first, heck I'd be breaking my arm patting self on back.

Well... I was sort of disappointed to tell the truth. The Sigma 500 + TC just isn't giving me the tack sharp images I feel I should be getting..especially at 1/2000th, within 150 feet and locked down. Not sure what else I can do..I'd like to think my technique is pretty solid.

Most of my disappointment has since dissipated given the responses here. Rest assured, these are going to be tough to beat next time out! :o