Took this shot last March in Owl Woods near Rochester, NY. Was a cold, snowy day and we had to hike a ways in, so due to aching back no tripod. Shot was done hand-held. Did not notice the mouse until reviewing the shot in Aperture. Very little work done on Photo other than cropping in tight and doing some vibrancy adjustment.
Here is data on shot:
Camera Sony DSLR-A700 Lens: Sigma 70-200 f2.8 Exposure 0.017 sec (1/60) Aperture f/2.8 Focal Length 200 mm ISO Speed 800 Flash Off, Did not fire Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE Date and Time 2010:03:20 08:15:29 Metering Mode Multi-segment Light Source Cloudy Color Space sRGB White Balance Manual Digital Zoom Ratio 0 Focal Length In35mm Format 300 mm
Dick, Seems a bit tight in the frame but I understand with some of these owl shots the branches are usually all around. I think you did good considering this was HH. I like the eyes but feel they could be a bit sharper. I might tone down some of the bright sky areas in the BG. I've never gotten the opportunity to photograph one of these cuties so congrats to you for a job well done.
Interesting as presented. I don't mind the crop and I think the highlighted BG makes the owl pop out a little more. The diagonal branch bothers me some. TFS
Peter
Dick, this is both a beautiful image and a troubled one. The overexposed areas in the BG bother me and they are countering those underexposed black eyes. You've got a branch going straight up the front of his chest and an OOF branch that is detracting from his body pose.
That said, you have this beautifully detailed image of a bird we don't often get to see! What to do?
If this were mine, I'd do this:
I used the right side of the BG to clone over the left side and any overly bright areas. I did a contrast adjustment on just the eyes to try to bring out a little more detail (but I probably should have done it in RAW and recaptured some of the missing blacks.) I'd open a levels adjustment and bring up the midtones a bit so the details in the feathers really popped. I'd crop it tight to get rid of that OOF area in the LLC and I'd clone over the feathers where the thin branch runs through. I'd put the eyes near the ROT's position horizontally and let those big bad boys carry the image. Here's what I came up with as an alternate possibility...
Saw-whet
