Buffy Fish-Owl
by Ashley Vincent
Canon EOS 7D, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM + 2x TC @ 400mm, Aperture Priority, f/5.6 (1/10 sec), ISO 3200, Handheld, JPG from RAW, Cropped About 50% from Full Frame
Next three images I have lined up to show you - starting with this one of a Buffy Fish-Owl - were all taken at night on a small long-tailed boat on the Kinabatangan River at Sukau, Sabah, which is the northernmost state of Malaysia on the island of Borneo, on my first trip there last November.
So much was completely new to me back then: learning how to use a proper camera by plunging myself in at the deep end with hardly any previous experience other than years of using point-and-shoots for family shots and about a month with a 40D back in 2008, and of course this was my first time in a rainforest scenario as well as trying to shoot handheld from a small boat on a river … so in view of all that, why wouldn't I try some photography in pitch darkness with only the aid of my guide's flash light? - LOL ;^p
To my great good fortune, I had an excellent guide and boatsman during my time in Sukau, and he set me up countless times with opportunities even if, due to my lack of skill and experience, I wasn't always able to make the best of them.
I'm actually off again for five days to Sukau next month and my guide there last time, with whom I'm pleased to say I've developed and maintained a good friendship, will be my guide there this time as well.
Anyhow, back to this image: As you can see from the shooting data above, this is a fairly substantial crop, other than that, I must confess to having removed a fair number of surrounding twigs that I felt lent nothing to the overall appeal of this image, besides, it was good practice for me using the cloning tool, if only for the fact that an otherwise completely black background makes it relatively easy ;^p
Thoughts, opinions, suggests and/or recommendations are, as always, much appreciated, thanks in advance :^)
Ashley
P.S. Note to Jenaya: If you happen to see this I want you to know that your images of Owls are still top of my Owl favourites list, however, the one you see here will also always hold a special place in my heart, as it was the first photo I'd ever captured of any sort of Owl ;^)
Comments
12 commentsI must say we have yet to plunge into any nighttime photography of owls, though I'm sure that will come in due time.
To the image at hand: This is a really nice shot of an exotic (to us) owl. I love his stare (glare?), and the lighting, while artificial isn't offensive to me. The branch he is perched on has great interest in colour and texture, and you've done a great job of keeping everything clean and simple. I'm also impressed by the sharpness and detail.
I can't think of much by way of suggestions except if this were my image I'd be tempted to see what it would look like with some of the cloned-out branches in the image but burned down substantially so there is just a soft reminder that he is in a tree...again, I have no idea of what the branches and twigs looked like here, but if they were background branches that could be softened (gaussian blur maybe) and then toned down (darkened) just right, it might add some dimension and visual interest without competing with the subject. Just a thought.
Great job!
Very cool image! I love the pose, and his colours look really cool. Congrats on your first Owl image!
In line with your suggestion John, I'm about to attach the cropped original showing all the elements I cloned out ... even though it may well destroy anyone else's pleasure of seeing the image as I originally posted it, because when comparing the two it clearly shows how badly I messed up the cloning around the top of the subject's head ;^.
The only way I seemed to be able to completely eliminate all evidence of those twigs seemingly shooting out of the subject's head was to cover them up by cloning parts of the feathers and building out the head more ... thankfully I stopped myself in time before it became a full cone making it look like a alien in an Owl's clothing, but when looking at the two versions I have to laugh if only out of embarrassment at what a terrible hash I made of this - LOL :^p
Although I accept many, if not most, will hate this image now, I would please ask you to bear in mind that this was one of the first images I worked on using a clone tool, and having worked on it for more than an hour I was more than ready to move onto something else and practice on that for a while, hope you can forgive me ;^)
Yep, there's probably any number of ways I could improve on this image - given my posting of the original now above ;^p - although I'll probably hold off on completely reworking this for now, as I have so many more images in line that I also need to developing, though fortunately with far less need of the cloning tool ;^p
Did you use a flash for this image?
When I take my trip to Malaysia, I'm going to be after you for the name and contact info for your guide. Sounds like you have found a great one.
Dan: I'm pretty sure I tried to sharpen it, but as I recall the line was thin between making any discernible difference and making it appear far too unnatural had me backing off the idea.
Jim: Irrespective of the calm water and stability of the boat, I'm kind of surprised I managed to keep such a steady hand myself, seeing as I clearly remember my heart was pounding like a triphammer for the thrill of the encounter ;^p
Happy to provide you info about any of my trips and refer you to my excellent guide, I'll send you an email in reference to this momentarily.
I must have taken at least 10-15 shots of this striking character but this was my immediate favourite for that intense-lloking stare, and fortunately it was the shot that came out sharper than all the others, so I was quite in a number of respects :^)