Help/advice with first Barred Owl Picture

[Marina Scarr]

This Barred Owl was photographed in Myakka last weekend. The owls are difficult to photograph b/c they are rarely out in the open and usually found in the dark woods. Therefore, fill flash is often needed as is the case here. I have no idea how to fix the eye so that it looks more natural. Also there is the problem of the bits of white sky in the BG. Is this a keeper/fixer upper or a delete? If it's a keeper, what can I do to help the eyes and the BG?

Canon 40D, 400 DO & 1.4TC @ 560mm
F8, 1/80s, ISO 400, manual mode
Flash on high sync at -1
Tripod mounted, very slight crop.

Your help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Marina

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Marina,
I like your composition and capture very much. yes the image is under exposed...I don't know why you are dialing down the flash lumen's by a minus 1 factor...did you have a Better Beamer attached to the flash? As far as the image goes, I will show you how to adjust it when I get home tonight, because I don't have Photoshop in my PC at work...This is a definite keeper...the head angle and eye contact are there, you just need to tweak this up a little...be back with you later on...:):cool:

[Stefan Minnig]

Marina,

Definite keeper. I like it. You'd be amazed what Photoshop can do to finalize this capture.

[Marina Scarr]

Hi Marina,
I don't know why you are dialing down the flash lumen's by a minus 1 factor...did you have a Better Beamer attached to the flash?

Dialed down b/c there was quite a bit of light filtering through the trees; also b/c I didn't want to overflash the bird and mess up the eyes. Then there's the "I am pretty clueless when it comes to flash photography." answer.
I did not use the Better Beamer b/c the bird was quite close. This was nearly full frame.

Thank you for your help.

[Gail Spitler]

Marina I am sure this is a keeper with some PS work. It is a lovely composition, good eye contact, sharp.
I am just a PS novice and used the image to experiment on. I basically selected the bird and lightened it with Levels, Curves and adjusting the exposure. Then I inverted the selection and did the opposite on the bg, trying to darken it some. The bird lightened up very easily, but I had trouble controlling the varied lighting in the bg. I am sharing my attempt only to see what a beginner attempt might look like.
I'm sure Gus will have a helpful re-post; I am looking forward to seeing it.
Thanks for posting this
Cheers
Gail

[Lance Peters]

Hi Marina - agree with Gus on the techs - keeper for sure, I will let Gus tweak and repost for you - eye's aren't that hard just a bit of work.
Like the Ha and eye contact.
Congrats :)

[Nonda Surratt]

Agree with everything said and yes a keeper.

NICE re-post Gail!

[Harold Davis]

awesome capture, marina!!!! dont hesitate to bump up your ISO to get some more shutter speed. you did great at ISO 400, but i find it difficult to get all keepers at that low SS. there is a little color cast on it. i think it could be corrected with a contrast boost. i'd increase the brightness a little, but it's not bad as it is. really close! as far as the eye goes, i'll let someone else help you there. i have a way, but not sure it's best.

[Ramon M. Casares]

Marina, a keeper for sure! Here's a repost, hope you like it.

[Harold Davis]

that's nice ramon. about exactly what i had in mind!!

[Marina Scarr]

I was hoping there was a way to make it look this good. THis is what I saw through the viewfinder. Thank you.

[Alfred Forns]

Great re post Ramon !!!! Sweet !!!

Marina the one thing that hurt the image here was the exp compensation. Minus one was listed and seems around +1 would have been the exposure !!! With a great deal of under exposure is difficult to process.

btw with the right exp the bird would have been looks fine but the bg might have been blown out ... best choice !! Congrats on finding this beauty !!!

..... btw how were the pigs over at Myakka?

[Gus Cobos]

Ramon, you beat me to the draw...:D your repost rocks...well done...:cool:

[Marina Scarr]

btw how were the pigs over at Myakka?

On Monday I saw two pig families. One had 2 piglets which were no more than 2 weeks old. The other 3 were about 3-4 weeks. They are very visible right now.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

What an awesome subject Marina! Owls are my new "must haves" in bird photography world. Yours is typical to how we would find them in Australia at least. Under dark forest canopies. You did well as it was but
Ramón's repost is fabulous! The eyes are always painful to fix, but not impossible. I did a similar thing with a Powerful Owl image recently, I probably e-mailed you that already.

Don't be shy of ISO 800 and shoot to the right with your histogram that is. Even if it looks crap on the LCD screen the histogram will not lie. Just push to the right with as little clipping of whites as possible if at all.

Keep the image! :)