Barred Owl

Gallery: AvianPosted June 2, 2018147 views5 comments

This is the first time I have seen an owl in the wild. I actually heard him before seeing him. I waited and saw him fly into a lighted area in the trees and took a few photos. Traffic coming down the farm road scared him after a few seconds.
I think this is slightly soft due to aperture of 6.3. I was trying to keep ISO low to avoid noise. I also removed some distracting branches in the back ground.

Canon T5i Sigma 150-600C from the car
Iso 800
Shutter 1-1/000
F 6.3
+1-2/3 exposure compensation.
Comments are welcome. I have a lot to learn.

Thank you for looking.

Brian

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on June 2, 2018 at 2:49 PM

Congrats on seeing and photographing your first wild owl Brian. A good exposure, I agree with you that it's a bit soft. There's something odd going on with the perch on the far right, maybe the result of your cloning. This seems obvious but not everyone does it so I will add: be sure to turn off the car motor when shooting from the car, if it's still on the vibration makes for soft images. devil

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on June 2, 2018 at 2:49 PM

Nice pose from this fellow.
Yes, it is pretty soft. One tip when shooting from a car: turn the engine off, unless you have a totally silent hybrid. Even the slightest movement from the car can screw things up.

Sandy

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on June 2, 2018 at 4:29 PM

Brian:

Always exciting to get an owl in the viewfinder. Glad you had the opportunity. Yes, soft. Don't really know why but I doubt it was solely shooting at f/6.3 on your Sigma lens. You've received some good advice on shooting from a car.

Something odd with the branch on the right.

I did some work on this image with some tools in Photoshop to help with softness. It clearly isn't as good as getting it right in camera, but worth a try when you have an image that doesn't come along all the time. Also the eyes look too light so I did a bit of work on those eyes as well.

Here's the image. You should be able to click on this one and see a larger version (1500 px).

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

Comment posted by Brian Murphy on June 2, 2018 at 8:34 PM

Thank you so very much for the advice, I need all the help I can get. But this is what I love about this site. Constructive, professional criticism.
I did not see the oddity in the branch until just now Keith. To be honest I am not sure but as Nate said it might be a distraction I tried to clone out.
Keep the advice coming because I sure need it.
Thanks,
Brian

Registered on November 15, 2015, 35 Posts, 50 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on June 2, 2018 at 11:13 PM

Nice catch, Brian. It does seem slightly soft, but the sharpest area is the face and that's where it should be. I don't know what the noise levels in the T5i are. You might want to experiment with higher values and noise reduction software, just to see how far you can push it. If you could have gone to f/8 it might have improved considerably. Also, if you use a good big beanbag on the window and shut off the engine, you can end up with a surprisingly stable platform in a car and drop the shutter speed considerably. This is a good image regardless of all the above.

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