A Snowy Evening

Gallery: AvianPosted March 2, 2014143 views6 comments

Thanks to the irruption of "Snowies" this year, I was finally able to get the chance to photograph these awesome owls. This was taken at last light with a few minor adjustments made in Lightroom.

This is my first post as a new member, so I'm hoping for honest feedback to help improve my photos. I have really enjoyed looking at the photos on this website for the past few years and it has inspired me to become better!

Canon 7D
Sigma 150-500 OS
1/350 at f5.6
ISO 800
Resting on car window for stability

Comments

6 comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on March 3, 2014 at 8:41 AM

Hi Jason:

Welcome to NPN. I like what you've done with the composition on this image. The placement of the Owl is very nice and captured from a nice low angle.

A couple of issues. The image looks too dark. It can easily stand up to a levels adjustment and setting the white point in at least 20-30 points. I'm also not fond of the power poles in the background. Not that you could change anything during shooting to remove them, but I'd look at removing them in post processing.

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

Comment posted by Rick Cloran on March 3, 2014 at 3:13 PM

Jason, Welcome to NPN. Keith touched on the main points of question. Some of it will depend on what you want out of the image. If you want to retain a last light feel, the image may stay a little darker. It would still be worth setting a black and white point to lessen the blue cast. Our minds tend to automatically correct colors to what we understand they should be, but the camera captures them as they are. We try to find a happy median between being true to the light at the time of capture and what we perceive as good color.

Registered on April 6, 2004, 119 Posts, 1989 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on March 3, 2014 at 5:07 PM

Welcome, Jason. Always great to photograph these birds. I really like the pose and the snowy stubble it's in. It looks to me as if it could use a bit more brightness and it's rather soft in the larger version. Large birds like this mean you're working from a larger distance so any vibration or shake will result in image blur even if the focus is perfect. Some kind of cushion on the window helps dampen vibrations a lot and it's almost mandatory to shut off the engine (at least on my vehicles). A nice first post. Keep them coming.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Rick Turner on March 3, 2014 at 5:56 PM

Lots of good advice so far so let me say welcome aboard.

Looking forward to more

Registered on February 18, 2012, 534 Posts, 2755 Comments

Comment posted by John Tobias on March 4, 2014 at 12:57 PM

Welcome to NPN. Nice post. Good advice I received here was to stay with F-8 whenever possible with this Sigma 150-500, it seems to be the sweet spot. Agree with taking out the power poles. Thanks for sharing.

Registered on September 12, 2009, 2120 Posts, 6455 Comments

Comment posted by Louis Pattis on March 4, 2014 at 5:58 PM

Welcome Jason, I am right behind you and will one of these days start to post images. Knock this power poles over and try a few different crops. I love snow owls.

Registered on March 30, 2012, 0 Posts, 164 Comments