Two Cute

I just got back from a few days camping and photographing eagles near Seabeck on Hood Canal.  The day before I left my wife and I saw a couple of fledgling Barn Owls (OOPS!!!! Swallows. Our Barn Owls haven't been very cooperative this year.) on a fence a hundred yards from our gate while we were on our morning walk.  I grabbed my camera and they were still there along with their parents.  This ended up being a composite of two images.  I thought I was at right angles to the fence, but when I looked at the images, there weren't any with both fledglings in focus.  However, they didn't move much, so I merged two each of which had one of the birds in focus and spliced the hot wire they were perched on (it's not hot and hasn't been for years, but the owners leave it up).  Turns out I ran into another pair where I was photographing eagles, so we'll see how those images come out when I get that far in my processing.

7Dii, 500mm f4 ISL + 1.4TC, hand held, f/6.3, 1/500, iso 1000, aperture priority, pattern metering, no compensation.  Processed in LR5 & CS6.  After merging and straightening, I ended up cropping to 16.1 MP for the final image.  I also had to adjust exposure on one of the images to match the other even though they'd been taken with the same settings only moments apart.  I also did a little burning on the wire.  Taken at 6:57 am on June 28th.

Your comments and criticisms are very much appreciated.

Thanks,