Burrowing Owl

Nice image. I'm glad you posted and asked the whole group about the sharpness as I've been wondering since first seeing this.

Amazing image of this bird. Lovely light. Great eyes.

Excellent shot. What is interesting to me is that one eye pupil is larger than the other one. I like the detail, comp and look the owl is giving. I have noticed the same feather softness in photographing Gambel's Quail.

Great to get this Owl perched like this! Love it! I don't have any suggestions regarding the softness, other than slight motion blur at 1/320, but then.........

Terrific pose and clarity around the eye. Nice setting and background too.

The softness is very slight, Ron. I might not have seen it if you hadn't mentioned it. My guess is that it is respiration. The softest bits seem to be where the motion from breathing would be greatest.

Nor does it seriously detract from an excellent photo.

By the way, for those who haven't been around owls much, the different pupil sizes is normal; the bird's can independently control each pupil.

Great owl shot Ron!

I think you've hit the nail on the head Ron - some feathers just refuse to show fine detail. We have a couple of cuckoos where it's almost impossible to get feather definition around the head. But having said that I think the detail on the wing is fine. Lovely light and setting.

cheers
Rob

Nice one Ron, like the soft warm lighting, it may be that there is little tonal variation in the feather parts and there is no shadow being cast to provide any variation.

Sweet shot Ron. Love the comp with the nice habitat. BG is great too. Nice sharpness on the bird. Can't help you with the wing blurr, your explaination seems reasonable.

I really like the pose and perch for this image. Of course the background just sends it over the top. Interesting about the softness. Doesn't bother me. Great image. I'll check back to read what others have to say about the reasons for the softness.

Hi Ron,
It looks good here but I'm not looking at the original. For some reason I have the same problem with perched hummingbirds. After awhile I just stopped worrying about. The background is wonderful here with good details in the bird. Very nice image with good direction lighting.
Ronnie

Ron,
beautiful image with great pose, perch and background.

Excellent, Ron. I really like the depth in the right eye.

Ron, I like the pose and the way the branches of the perch frame the owl on both sides. The brown blur across the blue BG adds an interesting affect, which I find appealing. In spite of the nits you mentioned this is another stunning image.

Handsome image as posted, Ron. Regarding your question about detail in some areas of the wing: Normally I would think motion blur. However, you mention seeing the same characteristic at 1/1600 s. So, maybe we are just looking at a lack of contrast in smooth, fine structured feather areas. I tried testing that idea by loading your image into the "tonal contrast" plug-in (part of the Nik Color Efex software) and pushing the adjustments to maximum in order to draw out any contrast variation. I can certainly see much more detail. However, it wrecks the appearance of the image. Therefore, I think at this "scale of scrutiny" that you have just the right amount of contrast and feather detail. It is possible to increase it with processing to show much more detail but I don't think that the bird would look right even if you are careful to concentrate only on the smooth areas. I believe that we should just accept the difference in detail that is visible as being a natural view of this bird and appreciate this beautiful image. My only nit is that I'd like a better view of the feet (I think I'm developing a foot fetish as a result of my NPN activity.)

Looks like he was already for the photo shoot! Awesome work!

Really nice image Ron. I love seeing these owls perched up like this. I did not know about the different pupil sizes, and is clearly visible here. It would have been nice to get it without the shadow on the wing & foot, but we take what we are given. I find this an extremely pleasing image with the BG and lighting.
As for your question, I think you summed it up when you said "due to the well known "softness" of owl wing feathers for silent flight". I do think that the angle, light, and of course subject all play into the softness as well. Great Capture

Ron,

We had great fun with this bird and the blues of the Great Salt Lake in the background are gorgeous. I tend to think the softness in the wing of the bird is due to the softnes of the owls feathers, if it were movement it wouldn't be in all of our images of this one owl. I know it wasn't your gear because my images had the same result.

Love the pose, the light in the owl's eyes and the sagebrush the owl is perched on.

Sweet shot Ron, I've noticed this softness in Burrowing Owl flight shots and always thought it was either motion blur or inadequate depth of field, now I'll have a different take on it .

This is stunning Ron. I would love to view this species. Excellent textures and overall comp.

Getting one on sage was a good find. The only elevated perches I get are fenceposts. Nice shot.