Short-eared Owl II

Gallery: AvianPosted May 1, 2012301 views10 comments

Olympus E-5, 300mm x 2.0TC, handheld
f11, 1/500, ISO800

The same bird I posted earlier, this time in flight with his prize, and about 90 seconds before the Northern Harrier stole it. The photo has some problems. My question is whether it is good enough to be worth the effort of cloning out the fence post in background?

Full frame (overfull frame). Usual sharpening drill.

C & C, please. Thanks for looking.

Comments

10 comments

Comment posted by Verdon on May 1, 2012 at 1:51 AM

great action shot!

Registered on June 10, 2011, 147 Posts, 1444 Comments

Comment posted by keith mitchell on May 1, 2012 at 2:59 AM

Hi Jim.
I would say that there are enough good points to this image to cancel out the not so good bits,i would clone that poost out and maybe crop it a bit more.Owl with a Vole in its talons certainly worth having.

Keith..

Registered on July 12, 2008, 127 Posts, 1735 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on May 1, 2012 at 9:33 AM

Hi Jim. The face is nice and sharp, and good exposure. I like the background a lot too. I have a lot of images of raptors with cut off wings on takeoff. I keep them, but I don't spend my precious in the field time working on cloning posts, my opinion.

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on May 1, 2012 at 10:55 AM

Hi Jim: Wow, too bad that stinking post is right where it is. I guess I'd spend some time to see about cloning it out. I think it might be worth the effort. Nice timing to get the owl lifting with the vole.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by David Haynes on May 1, 2012 at 11:23 PM

Jim,
All I can say is that if this were mine I would spend the time to clone out the post. I might play around with the composition as well. Maybe go to vertical crop. Not sure though. Definitely a nice capture. Did you get any shots of the Harrier stealing the prey???? Would love to see that one.

Registered on February 20, 2010, 110 Posts, 1511 Comments

Comment posted by Charles Gangas on May 2, 2012 at 12:46 AM

The face is sharp and the bird has prey. If this were mine I'd definitely spend the time to work the image.

Registered on August 12, 2009, 544 Posts, 2414 Comments

Comment posted by Marsel van Oosten on May 2, 2012 at 3:46 AM

I'd clone out the post and crop a bit from the top. Don't mind the blur at all - just add some selective sharpening to the head.

Registered on March 9, 2004, 285 Posts, 2277 Comments

Comment posted by David Hemmings on May 3, 2012 at 9:19 PM

This is a stunningly beautiful capture Jim! I love the comp and the blurred wing, excellent work

Registered on May 26, 2006, 178 Posts, 1680 Comments

Comment posted by Catherine Reilly on May 3, 2012 at 9:51 PM

If it were me, I'd spend the time and effort on it, because it would be such a rare shot for me. For you, though, who shoots avian so much and likely would have other opportunities, I think it's sub-par to your usual. I do like the look of action, though. Also, a vertical shot would've been ideal, but understand it's not that easy to think of, in all the excitement, when so much is happening.

Registered on August 16, 2006, 603 Posts, 9192 Comments

Comment posted by May Haga on May 8, 2012 at 8:05 PM

Neat shot Jim.
May

Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments