Burrowing Owl Landing

I love the colour palette and composition here . Was this really shot at iso 5,600 or is that a typo? The foreground bush doesn't distract me at all - in fact it adds to the image for me. If anything, I might remove the vertical stalks at each edge of the frame. Looking forward to seeing more!

I am not distracted by the foreground and like the sharp body and head of the owl with the soft wings showing motion.

The beetle in the claw is just awesome - a really nice first posting. Was the ISO really @ 5600? I know the D3s is great at handling noise but this would be really amazing if true.

Thanks all for the comments and welcome !
Rich-- I sold my motorcycle and bought good photo equipment -- I've done a fair bit of astrophotography and under water photography and didn't want to skimp on gear for the wildlife !!

Luke--- Yes, this was really shot at ISO 5600, the D3S is awesome, I have shot at higher ISOs... even 12800, but that requires a bit of noise suppression.

Best,
Dan

Dan, welcome to NPN and Avian. Nice, nice first post. I don't think the FG bush is distracting; I think it adds to your composition. One suggestion might be to work with color channels to select the bird or the background to make some curves adjustments.

Nice shot. Keep them coming.

Carol

Welcome to NPN, a great place to learn and grow. Amazing detail for that ISO but that is what the D3s is known for. The foreground bush is a little distracting but not enough to take away from the image for me however you may consider cleaning up bottom right corner (dark twig). Great job in getting this difficult flight shot, way to go.

This is so good that I can even identify the beetle to genus, Nicrophorus, also known as burying beetles. I find remains of these beetles in burrowing owl pellets quite often, but I've never seen one catch and eat one. Very cool photo!!!

The larger version shows pretty heavy detail loss but given that this really indeed was @ 5600 it's still quite impressive. I'm betting without the crop it would look a little cleaner

Welcome to NPN. I am a big fan of Burrowing Owls and take a lot of shots of them here in AZ.

I like this composition, and the beetle is a very nice touch. I like the extended wing for the action it adds to the image.

I see no reason to clone out the foreground bush, but I'm not a person who encourages removing content by cloning.

The results for ISO 5600 are impressive, but as Luke points out this high ISO has cost a lot of detail in the image as can be seen in the larger version. That's really a shame as I can see no reason for using ISO 5600 in this situation. I know that high ISO can be seductive for the freedom it gives, but do your own controlled tests of a stationary subject over a range of ISO values and compare the results to understand the tradeoff.

Thanks all for the great comments
Richard and Luke-- with regard to the 5600 ISO (and maybe I can learn something here)-- I was shooting this bird while it was flying and this image is right when it landed.. its been my experience (albeit limited ) that 1/2000 is about right for this situation, so I've been using manual exposure at 1/2000, wide open at f/6.3 with the camera set on auto-iso. Is it your advice to slow down the shutter speed ?
Thanks,
Dan

Dan,

1/2000 is certainly a good speed for flight shots, but you can bring it down to 1/1250s or 1/1000 of a second and still get sharp flight images (or with some blur in the wings). You state you keep it wide up @ 6.3 but your aperture is listed @ 6.7.

I'm also curious about the +1 EC. The owl is a pretty neutral subject (not dark and not terribly light). By dropping the SS down to say 1/1250s and eliminating the +1 EV you could have dropped the ISO down to 1600 (not sure what it is exactly mathematically but I'm close). Leaving a bit more room around the image (cropping less) would have all gone a long way to improving this image.

Sometimes you have to make concessions to get a shot in certain lighting. A lower SS would have created more blur but it's a shot that otherwise would be impossible. For an example, you can checkout my gallery and look @ my latest black skimmer photo. That was @ ISO 1250 which would have been impossible on my previous D60. The same goes for the Osprey shot where I had to compromise some sharpness in order to get the image @ all.

Hope that helps.

What I like best about this photo is the different pose...normally we see shots of them on the ground sitting upright. Welcome to NPN and the addicting world of bird photography! Sharon

I'll second Luke's advice. I had the same thought about the +1 EC: when I shoot Burrowing Owls I am more likely to go slightly negative (perhaps -1/3rd ev) to keep from blowing out the highlights on the eyebrows. Couple that with removing the 1.7x so you could work wide open at f/4 you could drop the ISO to something like 800-1000. You'd need to get closer to the owl to compensate for the loss of the 1.7x, so course.

But we are second-guessing here, and who can say what we might have done given this same opportunity. Photography of wild birds in natural settings is always a matter of tradeoffs, and no one who wasn't there with you can say you didn't make wise decisions in this situation. The loss of fine detail might limit how large of a print you can make from this shot, but at least you came away with a solid composition of nice action.

Sweet image Dan, love that spread wing pose.


darrenmckenna.com

Excellent first post, Dan. Welcome to NPN. The landing pose is great and the insect in the right talon adds a neat point of interest. Personally, I like the foreground bush in this image. I'm not sure you needed 1/2000 shutter speed. The wings look blurred, but I think its focus rather than shutter speed. The high iso did produce some noise, but remarkably little. Given the angle of the owl this feels just a bit unbalanced to me. If it were mine, I think I'd shave a bit off the right side. A very neat image.

Great first post Dan!!! Looking forward to seeing more.

Ken Archer

Thanks so much to all of your gentle comments... The constructive critique and compliments have been great.. I am just starting this endeavor so I appreciate every viewpoint... I'm realizing that its the "finer points" that really make a photo.. a stop or two does make a difference (ie +1 EV ,1/2000).. I was shooting flying vultures/hawks before I started shooting the owls and didnt remember to back off the EV

Fortunately or not, where I live (Boulder, Co) is very conservative in protection of wildlife, so for this photo I was up against a fence.. no closer shots were possible. Hopefully with experience and practice I will be able to get closer to the subjects, but right now the TC1.7 is pretty necessary, especially with all the fences/private-property.

Actually, this owl was one of a pair that I had been observing for a few weeks .. now there are babies! I have some photos but not yet up to the standards for posting.. unfortunate because they are cute beyond belief.

That's a great first post and welcome Dan. I'd guess that with this species you probably needed that kind of shutter speed for flight shots, they aren't slow flyers. One part of the composition that pulls my attention just a touch is the branch in the lower right so I might have cropped a little closer to lose that, but it's a minor distraction. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Dan,

Welcome to NPN's Avian Critique gallery. From your experience underwater and with Astrophotography you seem like you are serious about wanting to learn more about avian photography and this is a great place to learn. I've found I have gained as much knowledge by giving critiques as getting them because with careful evaluation of other people's images you fine tune your own "eye" and develop new techniques & skills.

I must agree with Luke and Rich D. that ISO 5600 has caused some loss of detail, especially in the larger version. I turn off auto ISO, use aperture priority and then make adjustments to the ISO manually or the aperture to get the shutter speed I think is needed.

I like the pose, the motion blur of the wings, the beetle in the talon and the serious but almost comical look the bird appears to have.

I agree with you, the chicks of the species are adorable.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.