Prince + REPOST
by John Launstein
I had a half-dozen images picked out as contenders for my first post in the Avian gallery, but thought I should probably continue my daughter Jenaya's penchant for owls. This also happens to be one of my most recent images, photographed last week while on a road trip to Saskatchewan, Canada with one of my other nature-fanatic daughters, Marlise. Jenaya wasn't too impressed that on day one of the trip we managed to find 7 Short-Eared and 5 Great Horned owls without her, especially ones that were so cooperative!
I'm not sure that this is the best of the bunch, but this short-eared struck such a regal pose for me in such beautiful, end-of-the-day light that I thought I'd start here. I love the intensity in its eyes and stunning markings. In truth, despite the title, I'm not sure if this is a male or female...I think it might have been a little larger than a few of the others so this is likely a "Princess of the Fields" instead!
There wasn't much to do in processing, but I did a semi-opaque clone over some branches above the owl's head to keep the competing elements to a minimum, reduced the noise a little to allow for a tighter crop, and did the usual in terms of selective dodging, burning and sharpening.
Nikon D7000
Nikkor 300mm f/4 AF-S w TC-14EII
ISO 200
1/1600sec @ f/5.6
beanbag from truck window
cropped to approximately 50% of original
Comments
16 commentsPhil.
Exceptional first post. Welcome aboard to Avian Gallery. Love the look and the light that you mention as well as the wintery feel to this image. I even like the post and the barbed wire. OOF brush in the back ground actually adds to the image. Very nice John. Looking forward to seeing more of you and your daughters work.
Always a favorite subject. I like the composition and the elements of the setting. As presented it doesn't convey an "end of day" feel to me so I agree with the suggestion to increase saturation a little to bring out more of the warmth of the light and the yellow of the eyes.
I'm surprised you felt a need for noise reduction on this: the D700 at ISO 200 shouldn't be producing anything objectionable even at 50% of full frame. Did you calculate that crop amount or just eyeball it? It is easy to misjudge the amount of a crop.
Overall a very nice image and I'd be happy to have taken it.
Richard and Govind, it's interesting you suggested bumping the saturation as my hand (mouse?) hovered over the saturation slider for a bit thinking about it, but never actually applied any wanting to maintain the overall muted tones and somewhat wintery light/feel.
There are two reasons you might not be "seeing" the evening light: (1) I'm sadly not working with a calibrated monitor, but through various tests believe we're pretty close...calibration coming however; (2) the light was diffused through a wonderful layer of mixed clouds, mostly cirrus, that really created a pleasing environment to photograph it.
Richard, I completely agree re noise. I even chose the D7000 as my second body specifically because of its promised noise-handling qualities! Apparently I missed on the exposure slightly, or there is some other reason, but the image appeared a little noisy even with a modest crop. It's possible I'm closer to 40% of original here, but again, I normally don't have much issue with noise with this camera under ISO 1000 or better!
Anyway, thank you again...I'll re-open the file when I have a chance and see what it looks like with a little more saturation.
With appreciation...
The pose, detail, perch and BG are all very nice.
Sandy
Many thanks once again for your suggestions for improvement!
Thanks for reposting. I'd go for something in-between these two versions.
I love the pose of the short-eared owl, eye contact, the wispy appearance of the background, weatherworn post and the comp you used. I also like the wintery mood this image conveys to me.
I agree with Rich D that a WB somewhere between your two versions might look the best. I believe that your owl is a male because of the light feathers in the facial disc and the the light buffy chest. The females I have seen are darker brown.
I checked your exif information and see that you used -0.3 EV, I'm not sure why you would select that given the end-of-day light as it would tend to make the darks of the owl darker. If you under exposed that could have caused the noise, especially after a 40% crop and if you lightened the image in post processing that would increase the noise more. I tend to lean towards the lighter (right) side of the histogram for exposures because it is easier to bring lights/whites down and retain image quality than to brighten underexposed images and increase the noise.
They are such beautiful owls.
Mia - you caught me!
To be honest, I'm still catching onto this new digital world. I shot professionally for over a decade back in the film days, and of course then would have compensated the other way in these scenarios, but after losing highlight detail on several important images early on when I made the jump to digital last year, I've trended toward slight underexposure to ensure that doesn't catch me again...and this time created a worse situation. I used to shoot exclusively in manual, but again have found I can trust my camera to make the right decisions often enough that I've started to shoot in aperature priority a little more than manual now. But as soon as I looked at these files I knew I needed to have increased the exposure by .5 to .7, and did so in ACR, increasing the noise visibility as you suggested. Whew! Got a bit to go before this becomes as natural as it used to be!
Thank you again for the suggestions!
Wonderful subject.
Sandy