Short-eared Owl

[Joe Ford]

While usually fairly shy, this fellow allowed me to get very close, observe him finish his dinner of vole and relax for a few minutes prior to falling asleep.

Canon 1DMKiii, Canon 500 f4, 1.4 TC
Exposure manual 1/640, f6.3, ISO 400
On tripod

I think I probably should have increased the ISO a bit allowing for a much faster shutter speed. Even on a tripod asking 700mm of glass to behave well at 1/640 is pushing. But I did end up liking his expression in this shot better than those at a much faster shutter speed.

Thanks for looking.

[Alfred Forns]

Agree on your shutter speed assessment Joe but you did well holding steady !!!!

I like the pose and and clean bg Would work on the eyes to make them pop and lighten the area just around them The oof perch would like to see it darker right at the corner of the frame It will funnel you vision to the bird much better rather than attract attention !!

[Jim Poor]

A little work on the eye with saturation boost, a little burning of the edges and a conversion to sRGB.

[Joe Ford]

Jim, I really appreciate you taking the time to work with my image. The effect on the eyes was dramatic. Your conversion to sRGB resulted in a big "huh?" from me. So I did a little google research. I now know something new. I don't know if there is a tutorial on BPN on sRGB vs. Adobe RGB but I did find one on the web I could understand. I will sin no more.
http://www.earthboundlight.com/photo...gb-debate.html .

[Jim Poor]

Glad to help. For the longest time I didn't bother with conversion to sRGB because I thought my images looked just fine in my browser. I was using Safari, which is color managed, so it showed whatever color space I had correctly. Then I switched back to Firefox and started noticing differences.

The big tell for me now is when I pull an image in CS3 and it looks dramatically different (usually better) than what was on the site. I know right away it is in a different color space.

I picked up the eye thing from one of Arite's posts not long ago and I'm pretty much applying it to every image I do and most of the time it is a big improvement.

[Judy Lynn Malloch]

Really like the repost Jim and Lovely capture Joe !! Congratulations !

[Arthur Morris]

[quote=Joe Ford; I think I probably should have increased the ISO a bit allowing for a much faster shutter speed. Even on a tripod asking 700mm of glass to behave well at 1/640 is pushing. Thanks for looking.[/quote]

Joe, Joe, Joe. You are doing something wrong... Most good photographers can make consistently sharp images at 700mm effective focal length down to 1/60 sec. as long as the bird is still... The re-post is an improvement. Check out the section on Advanced Sharpness Techniques in ABP II and the stuff on sharpness in the original ABP (currently being reprinted in China)...

later and love, artie