Barred Owl Flight

[Jim Neiger]

Osceola County, FL - 1D4, 500mm, hand held from boat, 1/1250, F5.6, ISO 800, manual exposure

[arash_hazeghi]

This is one tough shot to get, excellent wing position and slight head turn makes it very special. Did you use calls or baiting to attract the owl?

[Ignacio Yufera]

Beautiful moment captured; I like the sharp, clean face and the mossy feel of the BG.
Is 1D4 the mark IV? Good noise performance at 800.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Jim, liked it a lot. The DOF is just what it should be. And the light too. Nice natural look....feels like I am watching with binocs.

[Steve Zamek]

This is a very compelling image. The background is busy, but the bird still stands out nicely. Did you blur the background at all in PP? The wing position, head turn and sharpness are absolutely perfect. Congrats.

[Deborah Hanson]

After working at trying to get the short-eared or snowy owls in flight, I'm very impressed with this photograph. I like the background, the sharpness of the bird, the wing position.
Really nice photo.

Deb

[Nancy A Elwood]

That owl just pops out Jim!! Unbelieveable sharpness!!! I love the wing spread!

[Steve Maxson]

Beautiful image of an owl wing with a head peeking out, Jim - I like it. Great sharpness and I like the way the bird pops out from the background. Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Stunning upper wing detail, amazing in fact. And the head turn is the icing on the cake. Arash, I am betting that this was created using audio. Captain Jimmy, correct me if I am wrong.

[Bryan Hix]

Fantastic sharpness in the face and I love the position of the wings.

[Stuart Bowie]

Brilliant capture Jim. Just love the wing position, and the owl pops from the BG so well. Congrats.

[Kiran Poonacha]

loved the image Jim, nice flight angle of the bird and good focus...

[Bill Wilbanks]

Outstanding Image Jim;
This one has it all, Sharpness, Wing Position, Head Turn, Etc.

[Jay Gould]

Teacher, you are a Master! Beautiful image; almost makes one want to return to Florida for more lessons!!

[Mike Vanecek]

That is amazing! What post processing did you need to apply (how much cropping, noise reduction, basic camera raw or more such as curves, etc.)? Is the printed result at 13x19 as good as this web presentation?

The sharpness and lack of noise at ISO 800 is fantastic? How much further could you push the ISO up and still obtain results as beautiful as this one?

Thank you for demonstrating what is possible.

[Jim Neiger]

Here is the unmodified shot. I did nothing but a generic conversion in LR and resized for web.



The processing I used for the image I posted was:
1. Crop
2. Adjust levels
3. Adjust saturation
4. Apply noise reduction to the bg
5. Resize to 1024 pixels on long side
6. Apply USM .5, 140, 0 to bird only
7. Flip image

[Michael Stern]

Amazing Photo...VERY well done...congrats...
Michael

[Kris Mortensen]

Was sound used?