Burrowing Owl

Gallery: AvianPosted July 2, 2010222 views10 comments

Burrowing Owls are some of my favorite birds. I just love their eyes and the funny poses they take on while looking at you. This juvenile is from a colony near Ft. Lauderdale at Brian Piccolo Park with burrows interspersed among the baseball and soccer fields. They are very approachable on account of all the activity constantly going on. If anyone is headed to South Florida for vacation, this is the place for Burrowing Owls. As always, any comments and suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for looking.

Canon EOS 40D
Canon 100-400L IS @ 400 MM
F5.6, 1/500 sec, ISO 500

Comments

10 comments

Comment posted by denise ippolito on July 2, 2010 at 9:04 PM

BPP is a great spot. I love the sweet pose and the sharp details. I might run some NR on the BG if it were mine.

Registered on December 17, 2009, 202 Posts, 1529 Comments

Comment posted by Ron Dudley on July 2, 2010 at 9:14 PM

You've caught an endearing pose with that cocked head Joe but the background noise is quite apparent.

Registered on March 30, 2007, 437 Posts, 10915 Comments

Comment posted by Kirk Greene on July 2, 2010 at 9:21 PM

As mentioned the pose is cool but the BG noise a bit much. Worth processing w/ noise reduction. Thanks for the info on BPP..I had never heard of that area before.

Registered on May 12, 2004, 191 Posts, 1578 Comments

Comment posted by Joe James on July 2, 2010 at 9:26 PM

Thanks for the advice on the BG noise. It was about to thunderstorm so was getting awfully dark and I haven't has much luck with low light on this camera/lens combination although I love the 100-400L in just about every other situation it seems to have a lot of trouble in low light.

Registered on November 20, 2009, 89 Posts, 808 Comments

Comment posted by Joe James on July 2, 2010 at 9:42 PM

Tried some NR in PS though I'm definitely an amateur at PS....any thoughts?

Registered on November 20, 2009, 89 Posts, 808 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 2, 2010 at 11:46 PM

Excellent detail, Joe, and a classic half-comical burrowing owl pose. I think the word cute was invented for these birds. The noise is considerably lower in your repost, Joe, but it looks like you might have lost some detail in the bird. For the PhotoShop noise reduction you almost have to select just the bg to run it. Some of the after market packages are more sophisticated and forgiving.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by mark cillo on July 2, 2010 at 11:48 PM

Great image with an awesome pose. The image w/ noise reduction is an improvement for the BG but you want to use layers and brushes to remove the filter from the actual bird in order to keep the as much detail as possible

Registered on July 27, 2008, 143 Posts, 1483 Comments

Comment posted by Daniel & Loana on July 3, 2010 at 7:55 AM

Very nice pose and great details! Congrats

D&L

Registered on October 7, 2008, 166 Posts, 3044 Comments

Comment posted by Michael Lotito on July 4, 2010 at 5:12 AM

The cocked head gives the owl personality in this shot! Nice capture indeed.

Registered on June 26, 2009, 181 Posts, 1558 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on July 4, 2010 at 5:13 PM

Joseph,

The repost is an improvement for the noise in the background. You do need to select the background and use a layer to avoid using NR on the bird and to get better results on the NR.

I like the pose with the tilted head, how the dilation of the pupils show the low light conditions and how well f5.6 worked in this case. I may have used some positive ev comp to help brighten the image at the time of creation.

Registered on June 25, 2007, 491 Posts, 12566 Comments