Snowy owl head shot

[allanrube]

I was shooting one cooperative owl on Tuesday afternoon. I was also trying my new 600 lens with the 1.4 and 1.7 tcs. One advantage of a long lens is that you can stand farther away from a bird in a tree and not have such a steep shooting angle. At one point, the owl flew off the tree he had been on for quite a while and landed on a truck roof (since no evidence of the truck I placed it here.)
I put on the 1.7 tc and was quite pleased with the detail. This is perhaps 85-90% of what I saw in the viewfinder.

D300 - 600mm with 1.7 tc. Shut VR off. 1/1600 at f/9 - auto iso at 200.

[Raymond Barlow]

fantastic details, and pretty cool set up you have.

[Alfred Forns]

I like it a lot Allan Lots of detail and love the bg, maybe a little turn to see the other eye better !!

btw converter wise I used the 2X on my 600VR with excellent results. For some reason its sharp with rather close images but degrades as you move out !! Not sure why would you want to shut down the VR... I did use the two positions accordingly !! Very fine image !!!

[Fabs Forns]

Lovely portrait full of detail Too bad we can't see the other eye in full.

[allanrube]

I liked the details in the semi-profile better than any full face ones I shot. Here is a full face. The sun wasn't quite behind me.
Oh, I agree on the tcs. They seem better to enlarge a close object than to reach a far one. Maybe atmospheric reasons.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I prefer the first one, but it would be even better if at least the far pupil was visible. Looks like some highlights recovery was done to the whites? They could go brighter IMO. Good details in the feathers, especially around the bill area.