Barn Owl in flight

[Austin Thomas]

Hi all,

My obsession for these birds continues. The only light we have had so far this weekend was at dawn today when this image was created. There were two of these hunting the fields and one photographer in pursuit.

500mm, f6.3, 1/2000 +0.3 ISO400

Comments and feedback appreciated.

Austin

[Steve Ashton]

Hi Austin, nice image it works well for me if only he had turned to camera !! Well done!

Just checked your web site, we are almost next door to each other.... could be a good idea if we had a local get together like these us guys !!

[Robert O'Toole]

Love this one, the warm light is superb, focus, sharpenss and DOF are right on. Love the head down scanning posture.

Was the bird baited?

I would try and remove or blur the one sharp grass blade just to see how it looks, its a little distracting I think.

Robert

[Steve Maxson]

I really like the posture of the bird and the composition here, Austin. I agree with Robert that it might help to blur the grass stem in the lower left. Some of the whites on the bird's side look hot on my monitor.

[Austin Thomas]

Hi all, Thanks for your comments.

Steve, I'd be delighted to meet up sometime, I am very often out and about with the camera.

Robert, No bait. They are naturally hunting along the drainage ditches adjacent to the fields. I will try to soften or remove the blade of grass. I like it to indicate the environment the bird is choosing to hunt and accept it drags your eye down.

Steve, I don't think it is hot, but I'll re-calibrate my system just in case it has drifted.

Thanks

Austin

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Austin, Nicely done. I do not mind the head position as the bird is hunting. The white flanks do look quite bright... Juas checked, there are some whites at 255. Perhaps you can save them by starting over and converting it darker. If it were mine, the optimized image would--while retaining the lovely sense of habitat, look as above.

later and love, artie

[Austin Thomas]

Thanks Artie, for taking the time to improve my image.

It is a RAW conversion so I'll have another go and see if I can thin out and blur the foreground grasses.

Much appreciated,

Austin

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Artie, for taking the time to improve my image. It is a RAW conversion so I'll have another go and see if I can thin out and blur the foreground grasses. Much appreciated, Austin

YAW. We appreciate your being here and participating. What you need to do on while converting is attempt to save the overexposed white highlights. What program are you using to convert your RAW images?

I cropped from the bottom, got rid of the grasses on the right using a combo of the Clone Stamp and the Patch Tool, and used a Quick Mask to blur the sharp bit of grass with Gaussian blur. All of those techniques and 100s more are covered in detail in the latest update of Digital Basics.

later and love, artie

[Austin Thomas]

Hi Artie,

I use Adobe Bridge to convert, and enable the "highlight alert" feature for whites and blacks.
Do you use the colour picker to see if there are any 255s in the image? or is there a more efficient way as the histogram is flat before the end of the scales.
I am pretty used to Clone but not Patch so I'll give that a try. Thanks very much for your advice, I do take note. The credit is suitably toned down which was on your advice!

Thanks again,

Austin

[Arthur Morris]

I use Adobe Bridge to convert, and enable the "highlight alert" feature for whites and blacks. Do you use the colour picker to see if there are any 255s in the image? Austin

YAW. You cannot convert in Bridge (if you are using a PC you should be using Breezebrowser to view your iamges), you are surely using Adobe Camera Raw. I used that for about a year but quit because I did not like the color. IAC, when I did use it I always moved the highlight slider well inside the point where the warning disappeared or else I had overexposed pixels when I brought the image into Photoshop....

In Photoshop I simply use the eyedropper tool to check the RGB numbers and view the numbers in the Info dialogue box.

later and love, artie

[Austin Thomas]

Hi Artie,


You are right, Bridge automatically calls up Adobe Camera RAW. I use a MAC. Do you recommend a better converter for the MAC?

Thanks

Austin

[Arthur Morris]

You are right, Bridge automatically calls up Adobe Camera RAW. I use a MAC. Do you recommend a better converter for the MAC? Austin

When I state something, I am almost always right Many folks use ACR, some use Lightroom which is expensive but has a great Recovery tool. There is a learning curve with LR. Best to learn how to use ACR properly before moving on. Alfredo is a LR expert.

later and love, artie