Short-eared Owl at Sunset

[Bill Dix]

I've been watching these guys off and on for several years, but never had the lens to reach them; and they always seemed to appear just after the light had faded. Tuesday night, with snow on the ground for uplight, two Short-ears appeared 15 minutes before the sun hit the horizon. Thus the reddish coloration -- this is the way the camera "saw" it in Auto WB; I thought about reducing the red to make it look more like the typical Short-eared color, but decided to leave it. Very large crop, and no match for Steve's beauty of a post yesterday; but I was pleased not to come away empty handed. C&C appreciated.

D90 | 500VR | ISO 800 | 1/1250s @ f/5.6 | -1.0 EV

[Randy Stout]

Bill:

Congrats on catching this beauty, and appreciate the details.

Great downstroke wing position, nice fill from the snow, wonderful eye contact.

Yes, some loss of IQ, but still a very effective shot.

BG very effective here.

Cheers

Randy

[Stu Bowie]

Bill, Im amazed how these guys give you such good eye contact. I like the flying posture, and well placed in the frame.

[Alan Murphy]

Love the light and eye contact. Maybe another round of sharpening on the bird.

[Steve Large]

Hi Bill,
Very nice lighting going on here and still seems like good detail to me. I see you managed to capture him looking right at you which can be hard to time at best. I like your background and I am glad that you got to bag a good shot with these guys like you were hoping for.

Take care,

Steve

[Doug Brown]

I like the twilight look to the image, the great eye contact, and the nice wing position. Image detail could be better, likely due to the heavy crop. Maybe a little more sharpening.

[Bhushan Dalvi]

Bill, nice capture with wonderful eye contact. I like the down wing position too. I would do another round of sharpening on just the face.TFS.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Bill, this is awesome...loved the wingposition, HA and the contrast. If you sharpen the bird a bit more, then it will definitely look better. I am thinking a USM round of 100/0.3/1 (on the bird without edges) will do the trick.

[Pieter de Waal]

Hi Bill , great capture and eye contact with awesome light - glad you left it that way. Oither points have been made .

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Love the light. Dark smooth BG is also excellent and good eye contact, like it.

[Bill Dix]

Thank you all for looking. I appreciate the comments and suggestions. I was afraid to oversharpen, given the marginal IQ from the large crop; but I'll try another round of USM on the bird as suggested.

[Nate Chappell]

Sweet shot Bill, I agree on a touch more sharpening. Beautiful light and eye contact:cool:

[denise ippolito]

Bill, Beautiful light and a super pose! Congrats!!:)