Even a blind hog finds an acorn some times

[Stan Cunningham]

I've been chasing these guys for a month and finally got lucky. It's an elf owl and weighs all of an ounce, little bit larger than a finch and the smallest member of the owl family.
They live in tree or saguaro cavities. When the female is incubating the male hunts and brings her food throughout the evening. I was lucky and this guy perched before he brought her the giant desert scorpion for her dinner. Much more impressive for a photo than the moth he brought earlier.
I had help with me, and he held the light so I could focus and move in closer.
Canon 7D, 500 F4
Shutter P at 1/320, F4. ISO 640 hand held, thanks to IS
580 EX flash -1 2/3 stops
Post processing was cropping, adding some vibrance, and increasing brightness on just the bird just a tad.

I got about 6 or so before he flew to the nest, and all good IQ. I can crop them so it's just the owl, but I left this one larger as to show he's looking at the nest and some of the perch. But if most of you think just a close up of the owl is good, I can go with that, at least with several of the other shots.

Thanks and look forward to your C and C's

[Troy Lim]

Stan, nice catch. It appears a bit soft.
Admire your determination.

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Stan, Congrats on getting this species. I like this crop and the scorpion is really cool - I noticed it right away. I wonder if you could have used a narrower aperture and gained more DOF as some parts of the owl do look a little soft but not too bad. nice image overall.

[Stan Cunningham]

Wow, you guys have better eyes than I at this small format, so I worked on another similar image. If this looks soft it's in the conversion as I can count feather barbs at 1:1 in lightroom all over except the feet.
Allen, I can't do much if I have to move which I do with these guys, so at 1/320 Tv priority I take what it gives me so the feet do lose out. A tripod with A would be better in some situations, night time is tough as you know.
I used Auto curves on this image and liked it more than the first as well as the better sharpness, and thanks for pointing that out.

[Svante Larsson]

The repost is a big improvement. Maybe a bit of nit-picking but I would try do darken the left eyes pupil (his right one) since it is very close of giving the impression of a steel eye.

[gail bisson]

I agree about the eye!
I love the scorpion and the upward gaze!
Gail

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Stan, you did a great job of going after a species and getting the shot! Patience is the first lesson to be learned in wildlife photography, and persistence is the second. Good work all around.

I do wonder about the sharpness, as I don't believe that your gear would make an image as soft as the first one posted here. You mention a few processing steps but don't say anything about sharpening. I'm assuming that you shoot RAW, as you mention conversion. RAW images need quite a bit of sharpening outside the camera, which is the right place to do it. For this one, I took the jpeg and did a rather aggressive round of sharpening to show the potential. I may have gone too far but it illustrates the point. I used USM at 300,0.3,1 (sorry about your signature - it didn't need the sharpening).

An issue I see with the second post is that auto curves has been a bit aggressive for my eye, I prefer the darker bg of the first post. In general, it is recommended that anything with the word "auto" in it should be avoided, as it usually does more harm than good. In my repost of the first image I used curves, but manually - to bring out the mid-tones and peaks just a bit while leaving the bg nice and dark.