Posted by Mark sellings on January 3, 2007 at 7:16 AM
Barn Owl
North Devon, UK
20D, 400mm, 1/40@5.6, ISO100, hand-held, crop 20% left, 10% top, +7% sat boost
Hi all,
Thought it was about time I posted something - one from a trip to North Devon in the summer - glorious late summer evening watching a barn owl hunting around a field. This was one of my favourites - reminds me of the 'Wild South America' book cover shot - particularly like the colours and feel it is close to capturing the 'ghostly' nature of these beautiful birds.
Certainly captures the ghostly nature extremely well! While this type of shot doesn't really work for me personally, I applaud your efforts to try something different - something I should really do more often...
Hi Mark, I think I much agree with Pete here. No doubt this can find a commercial use, but it doesn't work well for me. But I really like the colours and I would love to see a non blurred version.
Just the kind of shot I am constantly trying, although not with barn owls.
I've tried various ways of doing this and find that a well defined background with very blurred subject works quite well, a very streaked background with a well defined subject works well to, but have yet to achieve one with both a streaky background and subject that I have been happy with.
I do agree with Phil about the angle the bird is flying at.
Certainly good to be testing different ways of doing things
Posted by Mark sellings on January 5, 2007 at 5:09 AM
Thanks for the comments guys - I thought this wouldn't tick many boxes for most people but wanted to try something different from the usual sharp bird against dull sky shot as I already have plenty of those!
Is anyone else suffering from a kind of visual fatigue where 90% of shots seem the same and I find I just don't get excited about most nature photography shots anymore? Not having a moan, just that I've been finding it hard to get inspiration lately - must just be the winter blues...
roll on spring
Posted by Rob Howard on January 6, 2007 at 7:55 AM
Hi Mark,
Nice image which I like, something different and interesting.
Regarding inspiration why not just go out for walks around your patch with just a pair of bino's and a note pad make a note of what you see and where it is/what it is doing and note it down, then get idea's from your notes to getting images of those species.
Discussion
6 repliesNorth Devon, UK
20D, 400mm, 1/40@5.6, ISO100, hand-held, crop 20% left, 10% top, +7% sat boost
Hi all,
Thought it was about time I posted something - one from a trip to North Devon in the summer - glorious late summer evening watching a barn owl hunting around a field. This was one of my favourites - reminds me of the 'Wild South America' book cover shot - particularly like the colours and feel it is close to capturing the 'ghostly' nature of these beautiful birds.
All comments welcome as always,
Mark
Certainly captures the ghostly nature extremely well! While this type of shot doesn't really work for me personally, I applaud your efforts to try something different - something I should really do more often...
I've tried various ways of doing this and find that a well defined background with very blurred subject works quite well, a very streaked background with a well defined subject works well to, but have yet to achieve one with both a streaky background and subject that I have been happy with.
I do agree with Phil about the angle the bird is flying at.
Certainly good to be testing different ways of doing things
Is anyone else suffering from a kind of visual fatigue where 90% of shots seem the same and I find I just don't get excited about most nature photography shots anymore? Not having a moan, just that I've been finding it hard to get inspiration lately - must just be the winter blues...
roll on spring
Nice image which I like, something different and interesting.
Regarding inspiration why not just go out for walks around your patch with just a pair of bino's and a note pad make a note of what you see and where it is/what it is doing and note it down, then get idea's from your notes to getting images of those species.
HTH
Regards
Rob