Chubby Owl

[MarcusArmani]

Burrowing Owls Fly up and down the railroad tracks after the train goes by to see what goodies are stirred up.
This guy was almost full frame.
Canon 40D
400mm F/4 DO
F/7.1
1/2000th
ISO 400
Thanks for looking...

[allanrube]

Excellent capture - sharpness and exposure. The underside of the wing is obviously shaded but don't know how you could have avoided that.
Normally, I like smooth, uncluttered backgrounds, but there is something that bothers me in this image. It almost seems like a stop action capture of a bee in flight. I know I am not expressing myself well. It just seems to me the owl would be a lot smaller than I know it really is. Maybe I am all wet??

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Nice capture, angle and sharpness. I wish the wings were up or down and the birds flying towards you. I might raise the color temperature a bit and crop a bit off the top and run NR on the BG.

[Sinh Nhut Nguyen]

This is really nice, Marcus. I like the sharpness, detail and the big round eye. The crop works well for me too. I second on running NR on the BG.

Nate,

[David Fletcher]

Neat shot! Another vote for the nr on the bg. Fabulous sharpness!

[MarcusArmani]

Great Critiqes! here is a version with NR on the background. Now if someone could tell me how to remove that slight Halo? I have always had problems with this type of background and halos ..
Thanks...

[Axel Hildebrandt]

With a relatively uniform BG like this you can select the BG with the magic wand tool, if it is not a clean selection, use the quick selection tool to fix it. Then inverse the selection and go to select > modify > contract and choose 1-2 pixels. When you now sharpen you won't see a halo.

[Fabs Forns]

Great critique above, and good to catch one in flight. I whis the shadow across his body was not there.

[christopher galeski]

nice shot,nice BG,like the detail in the bird,if it was mine, I would clone the rings out,bands in your country.thanks.

[MarcusArmani]

With a relatively uniform BG like this you can select the BG with the magic wand tool, if it is not a clean selection, use the quick selection tool to fix it. Then inverse the selection and go to select > modify > contract and choose 1-2 pixels. When you now sharpen you won't see a halo.

Thanks Axel, I will give that a try as I have many photos with this type of bg....

[Morkel Erasmus]

great angle in this, and pin sharp. great advice from Axel to prevent halos.