Taken on yet another gray day in W. Washington. 1DIV, 500mmf4+1.4x telextender, 1/200, f7.1, ISO 1000, manual exposure. It was processed in CPP and CS4: cropped, branches and leaves cloned out, Smart Sharpen, eyes separately brightened and sharpened.
I envy you...I'm still looking for my first owl capture :)
I keep going back on that branch sticking in from the middle left.
Part of me says to clone it out, but the other part of me kind of likes
it because it follows the shape of the neck of that owl somewhat for
a frame.
Maybe try to remove the very top branches from the left and crop
a little off the top to reduce all the sky that seems to grab some of
the attention off the owls (while keeping that middle branch)?
Hi Hal Just making a guess but think the original is underexposed a bit? Check histogram but don't worry about the blown sky, look at the owls. Under conditions like these is not unusual to go plus two or more. We blow the bg but owls would be fine.
The way the image looks it seems you had to open up the shadows a bit !!!
Seems lie every nest area has a branch in the way. This is so pretty I might go all out and try removing the large one in front of bird, big undertaking but great PS exercise !!! I like it a lot and hope you get many more tries at these guys !!! ... btw some flash fill would help if you can get the flash to reach, probably set one to one and check distance/shutter speed !!!
Love the moss covered tree - and the eyes on the owl, Agree with AL'S points and would also keep a eye on the SS 1/200th is a little slow at that focal length - might have bumped the ISO further to increase the shutter speed - the MK IV should be good for it.
Looking forward to seeing more :)
Hi Hal, good advice given above. I would also suggest a crop from the top and branch removal on the left. The branch in front of the owlet is not an image killer but obviously would of preferred it not there. The green moss adds interest to the image...
Greetings. Mostly, only heard hoots, so it's great to see these. Great eye contact on the LHS owl. The owls seem a little blue to me. Tried to correct with a blue channel curve, dropping the blues in the midtones, quite a bit.
GH Owlets
Posting Permissions
