Burrowing owl in flight

[Tin Man Lee]

Hi, I am a new member from Thousand Oaks, CA. Have been really into bird photography especially BIF these past two years. I am a student of Jim Neiger. So far I have taken two of his workshops and am going to the third one soon, and have become a big fan of handheld techniques. Here is a photo I took few days ago at Salton Sea. Hope to improve and learn from you. C&C welcome! Nice to meet you all!

Thanks!
Tin Man (it's really my real name)

Taken by Canon 1DMkIV, 500 F4 IS, ISO 640, f/6.3, 1/3200s, handheld.
Cropped away 25% background, sharpened on the bird, NR on background, increased saturation on the eye.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent first post, love the BG and details, well done! it is just a tad tight in the frame

[Tin Man Lee]

Hi Arash,
Thanks for your comments. Where do you think I should leave more space? Top or bottom?
BTW I learned a lot from your many posts and love your photos.
Tin Man

excellent first post, love the BG and details, well done! it is just a tad tight in the frame

[arash_hazeghi]

I think t improves f you leave more room on top and bottom so there is a bit more space between the wing tips and the border. very nice work!

[Kiran Poonacha]

Welcome to BPN... Beautiful image Tin, nice pose, details and agree to our Hawkmans suggestion

Nicely done, waiting to see more of your work..

Regards,

Kiran

[Allen Sparks]

Beautiful shot...very well caught. Congrats! Agree with more room. Love the background as well as the frozen bird.

[Ofer Levy]

An impressive image! I also think the bird is a bit big in the frame.

[Doug Brown]

Welcome Tin! I assume that's your first name, because we prefer real names on BPN. This is an impressive first post! A super-challenging subject captured quite well, against an attractive non-sky BG no less. I do agree with Arash's suggestion about the crop. Look forward to more of your fine images!

[John Guastella]

Excellent first post. On my monitor (a MacBook Pro), the bird seems soft (but not excessively so). Perhaps a tad more sharpening is in order? The BG is nice, but the light patches in front of the bird and in the ULC are a bit of a distraction. You might consider darkening them a bit.

Great top-side perspective, and the big yellow eye makes the image very compelling.

John

[Bob Malbon]

Welcome! With that eye as clear as it is this capture works for me! Bob

[Arthur Morris]

Tin Man, Welcome and thanks a ton for your membership support. Have you seen Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion?

Arash nailed this one. He is a big asset here. For me this one needs more room all around. Do note, however, that any sharp flight image of a Burrowing Owl is impressive.

A steeper bank would have been something to dream about.

[DanWalters]

Like the position of the owl and the mottled background. Great eye contact as well.

[Tin Man Lee]

I got that a lot, one time a cop looked at my driver license and asked if that's my real name. My parents had no idea of Wizard of Oz btw. It just happened that my chinese name pronounced the same way! Talk about coincidence.

Thanks for your comments! I have quite a lot of space available to the left and bottom but need to add canvas to the top.

I didn't know my tracking technique was that bad until I tried to track the burrowing owls. I failed more than 90% of the time.

For sharpening, do you guys use unsharp mask or smart sharpening? I just did a selective sharpening of 200% 0.3 radius on the bird before resize, then after resizing to 1024, I selectively smart sharpen again at 80% 0.1 radius. Maybe I should be more aggressive and try to feel it myself on the screen?