5-11-14 Apple Valley, California
Nikon D4 600mm 1.4TC 850mm ISO400 1/2500 f/32 white balance sun
Photographed from my car. Processed in Lightroom, Photoshop CC, NIK and TK. This is a fairly large crop since I did not want to get too close to their burrow. This pair of owls were very shy and in two hours popped out of the hole for about 60-90 seconds. The balance of the time they watched me from the burrow with their heads poking up like Kilroy.
Comments welcome
Comments
7 commentsI love the one legged pose
The large crop may be hampered the sharpness/detail, but it is still good enough for me
Beautiful bird. Gotta love those guys. Wondering about why you chose F/32? I think the foreground and the background would have been beautifully blurred out if you had chosen something like F/5.6 (wide open with TC on) which would have given you plenty of depth of field since you were already a long way away. Just curious is all.
Frustrating waiting all that time for them to come out just for a few seconds but it paid off with a good pose. Light looks a little bit harsh and high in the sky since there is lots of shadow in the eyes. Try first light in the morning or last light in the evening and you will have no shadow at all in those eyes and the black pupil will be huge. Great opportunity to go back for some more images. By the way, I love the three dimensional look with the OOF foreground and background and a sharp middle.