Eagle Owl

Gallery: AvianPosted September 9, 2010159 views10 comments

This Eagle Owl was very well-hidden inside the bush, very difficult to spot but it was making noisy sounds, which attracted me to him.
Turning out a decent output was another task, thanks to low and difficult light. If you could suggest any tips, I would be grateful.

Thankyou so much for your kind attentin & views!
Canon 7D, 500mm, 1.4x, ISO 400, 1/100 sec. at F 8.
Jagdeep Rajput

Comments

10 comments

Comment posted by Chris Ross on September 9, 2010 at 9:10 AM

Nice image Jagdeep, good to get the mouth open, I'm thinking could be a little brighter overall, perhaps bring up exposure in Raw a bit and combine with this raw development which has quite a reasonable BG without the bright sky sections blowing out.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 403 Posts, 2729 Comments

Comment posted by Ákos Lumnitzer on September 9, 2010 at 9:26 AM

Wonderful bird Jagdeep! I like the pose. If your ethics (or local law) allow then some fill flash may have helped in all that darkness. In any case, I like it as is. It's a night bird, so dark presentation suits IMHO. Well done mate.

Registered on April 24, 2004, 25 Posts, 510 Comments

Comment posted by Buck Ward on September 9, 2010 at 10:10 AM

It's a beautiful owl. Nice catch. It's obvious that it's in difficult light but you did a great job. To improve it you might experiment with darkening the background to subdue the highlights, and/or perhaps you might try dodging the dappled spots on the birds breast to try to even the illumination. But really, you did well as it is.

Registered on December 8, 2003, 96 Posts, 1917 Comments

Comment posted by Nick Bristol on September 9, 2010 at 5:22 PM

Incredible sharpness. Very nice capture under difficult light. I really like this.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Registered on February 1, 2004, 752 Posts, 14140 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on September 9, 2010 at 9:46 PM

He certainly gave you a great pose Jagdeep

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on September 10, 2010 at 7:30 PM

what a wonderful bird, Jagdeep. quite a comical pose for an owl. I might try brightening the whole image a little, but I like this as is.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Rob Drummond on September 11, 2010 at 1:56 AM

Nice one Jagdeep - what an impressive bird. i like the dappled light and if you want a little more brightness you can increase the exposure a little in RAW or lighten the mid-tones a little.

cheers
Rob

Registered on November 8, 2003, 617 Posts, 8267 Comments

Comment posted by Mia McPherson on September 11, 2010 at 2:13 PM

Jagdeep,

The eagle owl gave you a nice pose and has an even nicer expression. The larger image shows some nice detail in the feathers. I would work on the URC, there are some repetitive cloning marks there that do pull my eyes away from the beauty of the bird. You don't mention any exposure compensation in your techs, did you try any positive steps when you were creating this image? Going up perhaps even +0.3 wpuld have made the bird lighter, then you could have toned down the background in postprocessing. I'd much rather darken some thing light slightly than try to bring darks up too much because that increases noise.

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

Comment posted by Jagdeep Rajput on September 12, 2010 at 2:36 AM

Thanks friends for your input.
Mia, I couldn't afford to go on plus side on exposure, as the background was very bright, I had to process owl n background serperately but I was afraid of making owl too bright.
Jagdeep Rajput

Registered on April 29, 2008, 686 Posts, 2857 Comments

Comment posted by May Haga on September 13, 2010 at 1:33 PM

Amazing eyes and "ears". Very nice.
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments