In coming!!!
by Stephen Kaluski
Firstly, thanks to those who commented on the previous image. I will try Kurt to also post other responses on other threads, it's just time driven at present.
OK, still away so posting remotely again, but this is the youngster from the last image, full grown up and a family of his own. The backdrop is the old willow tree trunk, landing on an old and decaying post. From nest to post is less than three seconds, so you have to be quick, however planning and a bit of lady luck does help. The angle, flight direction and approach varies every time and there for NO two images are the same. Yes, having the tail fully in view would have been better, but the overall display may not be as good.
Steve
Subject: Little owlet in flight, landing (Athene noctua)
Location: UK
Camera: Canon 1DX
Lens: 200-400mm f/4 Gitzo tripod/Uniqball head
Exposure: 1/4000s at f/5.6 ISO3200 EV+1
Original format: Landscape
NOT Baited
Comments
7 commentsHaving the tail concealed is not a big deal for this shot. The wings, dark mottled BG, and facial expression are very nice
Whenever I have those conditions, I typically (depending on what I am trying to achieve) boost the saturation, contrast and warm the white balance up a little to compensate. I know you know your way around your processing tools...so I wasn't sure this was a look you were trying to preserve or not. I personally think those things would make the image pop a bit more.
Firstly, as I said, the location is light limited, partly down to the day weatherise/time of day and secondly, the shade of the overhanging branches, hence the techs.
Kurt, I use LR and the first area I deal with is obtaining a 50/50/50 mid grey offering a good platform to work from. Shooting RAW also means you can forget 'picture styles' as this applies to JPEG and certainly do not have Standard set where the Saturation is elevated, likewise a hint of sharpening is added. I stay clear of adding any Contrast as I want to maintain Midtone where the detail is contained, I much prefer using Curves, Channels, Mid tone adj and Alpha channels, as this I feel is far kinder to the image. There will be obviously some tweaks in Exp panel & HSL, primarily with HSL removing the slight bias Canon add in, likewise Nikon, but different colours. Overall for me this gives a far better balance before exporting to PS for the more refined tweaks. This then gets to a more realistic colour rendition and more 'faithful' to the scene for me, how far you then take it, i.e. adding more saturation etc is a personal choice and as you say, what you wish to convey in the final image. Hope this helps and BTW, I never desaturate the image
Not sure how Little owls compare to Burrowing owls, however I am sure there are some links, but for example the eyes are quite pale in LO, not the bright yellow you can often seen in either over saturated images, or where images do not have the right colour profile embedded.
cheers
Steve