Great Horned Owl

[Steve Canuel]

40D, 400DO + 2xTC, f8, 1/100s, +1/3 EC, ISO 1600, tripod mount, MLU, cable release, cropped all around to tighten comp.

[Kobus Tollig]

I like it well done. Different from the usual. I would have liked the eyes more open but this does work. Well done
I would have liked him more to the left cause he is leaning to the left

[Chris Kotze]

Great capture in it's natural environment. Nice soft light as well

[Mark Dumbleton]

Super image - Kobus does bring up a valid point regarding having the bird more to the left. Super framing with the OOF areas. Very well done! Love the lazy look of the bird!

[Randy Stout]

Steve:

Your framing and pine needles as OOF FG does add to the feel here. Lucky she doesn't fall out of the tree.

Sharp and well exposed. I might consider darkening the OOF FG just a bit so it doesn't compete with the bird quite so much.

re: crop - I do appreciate Kobus's point. The lean isn't severe enough that it bothers me, or would cause me to recrop. However,if you have extra, you might try repositioning the bird to the left of the frame and see what you think.

Cheers

Randy

[Grace Scalzo]

Steve, I really like how you used the foreground, been playing with that idea myself recently. I'm wondering if you might consider warming up the image just a few degrees?

[Ramon M. Casares]

I love it as it is, nice comp great soft light, detail, BG, low angle, bird atitude is nice, I would only suggest to give a tad more color temperature.
Congratulations!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the soft light and sleepy look. I might increase the color temperature a few degrees.

[Stu Bowie]

I would leave the comp as is Steve. Super lazy look with a half beady eye on you. I like the OOF FG too. Great image.

[Morkel Erasmus]

just love those droopy eyes. great comp and detail in this. no nits from me, although I would be interested to see what Kobus' suggestion does to the photo.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

What a dreamy look!

Love the environment of this image and the barely open eyes of the owl.

[Juan Aragonés]

Steve I like the overall result of this image and I agree with the above coments about warming the temperature. From a processing point of view, the OOF areas seems a bit overprocessed to my taste. Did you use Gaussian blur to increase the OOF feeling? if so, I would rework the image and apply the Gaussian blur with less intensity :-)

[Steve Canuel]

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions. Here's a repost using some of the suggestions above.

Juan, the FG branch was pointing straight towards me and is at least 3 meters long. I applied some G blur to the entire image (masking the owl) but the OOF look is not much different than the original.

[Juan Aragonés]

Steve, thanks for the aditional information :)

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Well thought out composition with the OOF pine needles. I love it. I think the gloomy conditions suit the subject and scene. I am OK with subject placement in the original. :)