Taken 2 years ago in Cape Coral, in a front yard burrow.
Nikon D200, with Tamron 200-500mm zoom, at 500 mm, f/16 at 1/60 sec, ISO 500, with flash (and likely Better Beamer). Minor Lightroom and CS4 tweaks, and used OnOne's Focal Point to help blur and darken the BG. Haven't a clue why I was at f/16, especially given a slow 1/60 sec. Cropped fairly tightly, just to show owl and his burrow, as other foreground dirt/background grasses were not too attractive.
An intense fellow who looks like he has been digging. Nice exposure.
For me the vignettting is a bit too much. As you say, unusual f stop choice, esp. when you want to blur out the background as much as possible. I might tone down the bright area on his right side..
Nice subject. I wish you would have shot it wide open and let the front of the bird and the eyes be focused. Nice sharp eyes and general compostion, but the blur as shown is hard to view. There are too many distractions that are not in or out of focus. Know you can't redo it, but next time.
Jory,
The dark corners are not turning me on, however the exposure is very close.
The owl is very sharp on my monitor. Excellent long lens technique.
Now about F16 and 1/60SS.
Perhaps you were attempting to get the foreground in focus as well as the owl. If that is the case, I go to MF, use the DOF preview button and roll my zone of focus forward until the owl is sharp, but at the back end of the ZOF.
Personally, on this type of image I like OOF backgrounds with the foreground in focus.
The foreground then becomes part of your subject rather than a distracting or detracting element.
I might have used f/16 to try to keep the bill (?beak) and eyes in focus, but I'm not sure that was necessary. Here's a repost, including more of the foreground, and less adjustment of bkg. There's a bit of bkg noise.
Burrowing Owl
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