Snowy Owl

[Raymond Barlow]

Amherst Is, Ontario, Cananda
1/2500s f/7.1 at 400.0mm iso200
D300 / 200-400 VR
hand held, natural light, 60% of ff

hard to believe I wasn't shaking like crazy, 5F, wind, and only one glove!
Special thanks to the kind farmer who gave me permission to trek onto his property.

I was thinking a tigher pano crop might work, to remove the dark tree line on top,
might try that in a future re-work of this image.

[Juan Aragonés]

Ray I downloaded your owl´s image to my hard disk to try a differet croping and to remove the dark area in the top of the frame and after doing that I read the text in your post. I absolutelly agree with you about a different croping and I would remove the dark area for sure. This one works very finely in pano format.
I like the composition a lot, with the owl placed in the upper right corner and looking to the opposite direction. Io removed the black grass at the right of the owl. You guys are really lucky for having the oportunity of photograph these beauties :p

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great find, pose and details. I like both crops, I could also see it as a slightly tighter crop.

[Raymond Barlow]

thanks guys for the comments, thanks Juan, i appreciate your efforts...I did get a lower view which brings the dark trees in the bg more into play, I will post a link once I have it online.