Long-eared Owl again :)

[Phil-D]

I've been quite fortunate with these so far this year but I suppose if you keep going back, you have to strike lucky sometimes!

Walking past a small group of trees, there it was perched, posing lovely for a few shots, it was left totally undisturbed.

Poor light conditions, it was perched under the dark tree canopy but with a good clear bright bg

1/250th, f6.3 @ 6400 ISO, where far from perfect settings. I've had to lift the shadows which has created more noise but reduced as much as I think I can get away with.

I really like the pose, it heard something on the floor and its instinct to hunt kicked in, I was prying for it to drop to the grass and come back to the perch with a vole in its beark

I'm not normally a lover of portrait crops for wild birds but I've cloned one branch from the shot and the crop saved me doing more

As always, any crit welcome, especially on the ppi'ng, thanks for looking


Long-eared Owl by Phil D, on Flickr

 

[Kodiak Qc]

any crit welcome, especially on the ppi'ng

Just an idea…
Owls are night hunters and to see one in such brith light…

This suggestion, where I was not careful with the masking,
considered tonal taming only through 3 layer adjustments.
No contrast, sharpening, saturation etc added.

You could do better with the RAW!

 

[wezza13]

I've been quite fortunate with these so far this year but I suppose if you keep going back, you have to strike lucky sometimes!

Walking past a small group of trees, there it was perched, posing lovely for a few shots, it was left totally undisturbed.

Poor light conditions, it was perched under the dark tree canopy but with a good clear bright bg

1/250th, f6.3 @ 6400 ISO, where far from perfect settings. I've had to lift the shadows which has created more noise but reduced as much as I think I can get away with.

I really like the pose, it heard something on the floor and its instinct to hunt kicked in, I was prying for it to drop to the grass and come back to the perch with a vole in its beark

I'm not normally a lover of portrait crops for wild birds but I've cloned one branch from the shot and the crop saved me doing more

As always, any crit welcome, especially on the ppi'ng, thanks for looking


Long-eared Owl by Phil D, on Flickr

It's really nice, Phil.

The crop suits it well. Sure, the bg has a couple of elements that draw the eye but not too much.

Very good for the settings used

 

[Phil-D]

@Kodiak Qc

Thanks for the edit Daniel, I do appreciate it but its a bit too dark for me, the bg was in quite bright light, possibly somewhere in between maybe

Edit- Having another look at your edit has made me think I'll have another look at this Daniel, cheers

It's really nice, Phil.

The crop suits it well. Sure, the bg has a couple of elements that draw the eye but not too much.

Very good for the settings used

Thanks Wez, I was starting to think this was one of 'those' shots that wasn't going to get any feed back at all!!

 

[Kodiak Qc]

but its a bit too dark for me,

That suggestion does not mean to be right
but to show what is possible and, possibly,
inspire you!

 

[Phil-D]

possibly,
inspire you!

It must have done Daniel.........or did you miss the

Having another look at your edit has made me think I'll have another look at this Daniel, cheers

 

[Kodiak Qc]

…or did you miss…

Yes I did…

I was to worried to have the wrong message
across again and wanted to make sure!

 

[sk66]

Nice picture!
The bright BG makes the owl seem a bit underexposed to me. And there is a bit of a temp imbalance due to the owl being in shade.

 

[Stuart Philpott]

Tell ya something buddy that struck me like a sledgehammer when I saw this last night. The ruddy light in blighty is fantastic huh!! This is iso 6400 I just popped up something humble at 5000 and we are just weeks away from the solstice the longest day when I guess the sun is at it's highest so we should have our strongest light. Is it anywonder alot of togs sod off somewhere else t take piccies

Again lovely image bro,I feel if you could tone down the bkg just a bit it might help. also did you shot this in portrait mate or crop to that. Phil I don't really share your unease with portrait for birds,but think that this really works. Mate I love ya work and what you are doing with the LEOS so I am biased but this works buddy i'm not blowing smoke but Ifeel that maybe you need to be shooting these in portrait more if this type of chance comes up again it has to help the IQ,i'm labouring this side because if ya don't really care for portrait you might have shot in landscape as at shot time you wouldn't be envisiging this in this format.if he sat tight and you have time you might just grab a couple in the other orientation mate,less cropping should give better IQ...corse ya probably thought all this anyway WDYT

Think circumstances given, you have done ace here mate these isos seem nuts to me ,but a real need in blighty for a tog to learn how to use 'em if he want to shoot nature,love the intensity of the stare mate and the ears up keep pushing buddy

stu

 

[pooley]

Phil,

As you asked for PP crit, heres a couple of pointers from me.

First off, excellent capture again, good field craft, and good details given the ISO. As already mentioned, the bright BG isn't ideal, so I opened up a curves layers, clicked on the hand icon from the curves box and put it on the brightest part of the BG towards the top right. I then dragged the mouse down. If you look in the curves box when you do this, it should look something like this.

Edit - forgot to say I then masked the bird so this step was for the BG only.



I then did a couple more small curves adjustments, one to slightly lighten the right 3/4 of the bird (as we look) and one to slightly darken the left edge. These were only small adjustments and the layers stack ended up looking like this -



The final outcome is this, albeit you could have it much nicer with the original file

View attachment 102496

Masking is a bit rough but you get the general idea.

Liking these shots, keep them coming!

Mike

 

[Stuart Philpott]

Phil,

As you asked for PP crit, heres a couple of pointers from me.

First off, excellent capture again, good field craft, and good details given the ISO. As already mentioned, the bright BG isn't ideal, so I opened up a curves layers, clicked on the hand icon from the curves box and put it on the brightest part of the BG towards the top right. I then dragged the mouse down. If you look in the curves box when you do this, it should look something like this.

View attachment 102489

I then did a couple more small curves adjustments, one to slightly lighten the right 3/4 of the bird (as we look) and one to slightly darken the left edge. These were only small adjustments and the layers stack ended up looking like this -

View attachment 102495

The final outcome is this, albeit you could have it much nicer with the original file

View attachment 102496

Masking is a bit rough but you get the general idea.

Liking these shots, keep them coming!

Mike

Mike fab post amazing to see for me,sorry to interupt Phil hope ya don't mind but had to comment, I think the result is wonderful a real eye opener
thanks both

Stu

 

[Phil-D]

Nice picture!
The bright BG makes the owl seem a bit underexposed to me. And there is a bit of a temp imbalance due to the owl being in shade.

Thanks Steven, it was a tricky shot to expose for, possibly a stop and a third over on the meter trying to get detail from the bird but still keep a little detail in the bg.

Noted on the WB, will take a look when I do a re-edit, cheers

Tell ya something buddy that struck me like a sledgehammer when I saw this last night. The ruddy light in blighty is fantastic huh!! This is iso 6400 I just popped up something humble at 5000 and we are just weeks away from the solstice the longest day when I guess the sun is at it's highest so we should have our strongest light. Is it anywonder alot of togs sod off somewhere else t take piccies

Again lovely image bro,I feel if you could tone down the bkg just a bit it might help. also did you shot this in portrait mate or crop to that. Phil I don't really share your unease with portrait for birds,but think that this really works. Mate I love ya work and what you are doing with the LEOS so I am biased but this works buddy i'm not blowing smoke but Ifeel that maybe you need to be shooting these in portrait more if this type of chance comes up again it has to help the IQ,i'm labouring this side because if ya don't really care for portrait you might have shot in landscape as at shot time you wouldn't be envisiging this in this format.if he sat tight and you have time you might just grab a couple in the other orientation mate,less cropping should give better IQ...corse ya probably thought all this anyway WDYT

Think circumstances given, you have done ace here mate these isos seem nuts to me ,but a real need in blighty for a tog to learn how to use 'em if he want to shoot nature,love the intensity of the stare mate and the ears up keep pushing buddy

stu

Many thanks Stu. I don't think I can complain about the light much with these birds, according to must stuff I've read on the internet, they're totally nocturnal, at least these haven't realised that!

Biggest problem with this shot was such a contrasting bg to where the bird was perched. The amount of times I look for a clear bg then when I do get a clean'ish one, its too bright and the birds in shade,typical!

Yes Stu, I did shoot this in portrait, although it is cropped. Its not much but I set the composition with the bird to the left of the shot with it looking to the right. I possibly underexposed the bird a tad too, no detail lost but lifting the shadows did create more noise, cheers mate

As you asked for PP crit, heres a couple of pointers from me.

Mike, thanks for the edit, it improves the shot no end.

I was undecided how far to bring down the bg, it was very bright, this was the main reason for asking about the pp'ing. Think I'm going to print this, don't think it'll stand owt big but just a small one to hang by the monitor

Thanks again for the detail explanation, what I'll do is work two raw files, one for the bg, one for the bird, see how I get on, cheers