SEO IN EVENING LIGHT

I like the creamy bg and color. Intense look on owl is very nice and comp is wonderful. Something is about to be captured! Sharon

Great eyes in this one, Graham. I like the light a lot and the foreground grasses really provide a great sense of habitat.

excellent, nice golden light, sharpness and wings in motion made the shot outstanding!!!

Wonderful image. Great light, the owl in a great pose and I do like the reeds, giving some idea about the surroundings. Well done, Cheers , Hans

Gorgeous light! The sharp body and blurred wings works perfectly here.
Love the BG and OOF grasses..
Sandy

Stunning image. My personal preference would have been for a faster shutter speed to freeze the wings. Great capture, regardless.

Nice colors and great position for the owl.

Cracking shot Graham, great pose you've captured

Oscar

Perfect timing for this flight pose. And a against a smooth BG that contrasts with the focus and concentration of the owl. The wings have just the right amount of motion blur for me. I have not knowingly seen images shot with the Sigma 300 - 800 before. Nice

Wonderful composition with the background and foreground grasses. I like the intense look and flying pose of the owl, excellent shot.

Great pose and very warm colors. I really like the expression on the owl's face and the habitat included in this image.

Graham: I LOVE this image. WOW!!

The combination of gorgeous evening light and the pose, intensity and positioning of the owl is just phenomenal. I'm totally on the fence about whether I would like this better with slightly less wing blur, as frankly I think either treatment would work well...I like this as presented. I really like the look and "feel" of the grass below him as well...stunning.

If I could suggest ANY nit or room for improvement, it does appear that the dark markings/feathers on the owl are extremely deep. I'm not at all sure this can or should be tweaked, especially because I'm not seeing there is much detail to draw out anyway, but if it were mine I would play a little with that and see how it looks with less dark contrast...there's probably a dozen or more different processing approaches to handle that whether in selective levels, curves or exposure adjustments, so I'll leave that to you! And again, I totally love this as presented so there's hardly any need to bother and the contrast is striking, making the image even more powerful I suspect. Still, if you were thinking of entering this in any of the major competitions, etc., I'm guessing this might be worth exploring.

Congrats on an amazing and truly special image.

Love the color and of course the intensity on the face. Nice image.

Love the expression of the face. The grass and background are beautiful. Nice capture Graham !

Love this shot! The OOF wings make it seem like he is floating down as if he is wearing a parachute. The background is great and the plants in the foreground are just enough to give it perspective. This is a winner.

I really love the room you've given the owl and the intensity of its gaze as well as the wing blur. I think John has a good point about the contrast. How has your experience with the Sigma 300-800 been?

Hi James, thanks for your comment. As for the sigma 300-800 I wouldn't want to be without it. Although the general concensus is that prime lenses produce better images when this lens gets it right I would be surprised if anyone could tell the difference.One slight drawback is that the autofocus is not as fast as a prime and is not as good at flight shots. However for reasonably static images this lens is excellent and the most useful thing about the zoom is that it allows you to find the subject at 300mm and then quickly readjust to the focal length required. I can't stress enough how useful that is. The main down of course is the weight but you tend to adapt to this. Graham