Snowy Friend

[SteveYoung]

Hi all, I'm new to posting here and new to bird photography but I've enjoyed lurking this forum and checking out all the great photos. Hopefully it's cool for me to post up one of my attempts for criticism. Also, I hope you all aren't tired of snowy owls yet :)

Canon 40d
400mm
f11
1/800
ISO 500
Aperture Priority
Really Bad Tripod

A couple of pushy birders flushed this beautiful snowy right past me this last weekend. Cropped maybe 10-15%, futzed with curves and a tiny bit of unsharp, cloned out a distracting strand of grass in the fore.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Steve, welcome to BPN and Eager To Learn! I would say that you have a very good start in bird photography and look forward to seeing your images. Please jump in and comment on other images you see here, as we all learn from the comments of others.

Really nice job on the exposure, techs look great to me. You have nice color rendition (looks like late evening light, nice and warm), detail, wing position, and a nice clear eye. I feel that the bird is a little cramped on the left side, don't know if you have canvas there... I would suggest a curves adjustment to bring up the mid-tones just a bit, otherwise I say nicely done!

[SteveYoung]

Thanks Kerry, I appreciate the encouragement. I got this shot maybe 30-45 minutes after dawn. The light was spectacular. Unfortunately, the owl surprised me and I mis-framed a bit. I nearly clipped her wings. I'll play a bit more with curves there; always a bit worried about making the image too dark.

[Kerry Perkins]

Steve, I am suggesting that you make the image brighter, not darker.

[Don Nelson]

Welcome Steve!
You are invited to join a small group of serious bird photographers (and other not-so-serious as well) on the first Thursday evening of each month at 7:30pm.
We meet at the Tualatin River NWR off 99W in Tigard.
Hope to see you there!
Don

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Steve,

Welcome and thanks for posting.

This is an excellent first post, on my monitor there appears to be noise in the background. Did you run any NR and we never get tired of snowys. I agree with Kerry seem too tight for me in ULHC. Easy to add canvas and give more breathing room if you want, there is a thread in the education and tutorial forum that talks you through this process.

I like your kit, 400MM and a tripod you have good equipment and that helps. The composition is nice as well, maybe some off the bottom to keep the eye on the subject, the foreground (beautiful as it is) can be distracting, all subjective stuff. Here is a good exercise, take a blank piece of paper and cover the dark rock on the bottom of the frame and and tell me what you think.

[SteveYoung]

Thanks Jeff. Yeah, there is a bit of noise and I did run NR but I wasn't able to get a result I liked that maintained quality and completely removed the noise. I'm still figuring out how to use PS so I'm erring on the side of "as shot" and keeping my RAW files for when I get a little more skill. My partner got me a Photoshop For RAW class for christmas so I'm looking forward to starting that this Saturday. I'll take a look for that thread you mentioned about adding canvas.

Thanks for the invite, Don. Unfortunately, I've got a class Thursday nights so I wouldn't be able to make it. I might be interested in a few months though.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Steve,

Regarding NR and other post production techniques this is a deep subject with many solutions. I purchased APTATS2 several years back and love it. Published by Robert O'Tool and Author Morris, it contains 11 Photoshop tutorials. The entire CD is good, but there is a simple technique for NR and sharpening that I fund GREAT! It is called, selective noise reduction and sharpening - just a FYI.

ps - there is an APTATS1 as well. That means,..Advanced Photoshop Techniques and Tips Simplified.