Elf Owl

[bajadreamer]

This is a shot of an Elf Owl that was taken in SE Arizona at Battiste B&B. There is a pair of Elf Owls that have successfully nested every year for over 15 years (or their offspring has). These owls have had over 10,000 photos taken of them over that time. The point is, they do not seem to be bothered by flash or light. This shot had a fairly good light fall off behind the bird, but I still darkened the BG and slightly brought up the exposure on the owl. There is a small crop from the R (to remove a reflective leaf) and I cloned out a leaf behind the head. Would you attempt to do anything with the OOF portion of the perch? Would be tough I would think.

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[Callie]

Gorgeous owlet. We have a similar looking Pearly, only 170 mm

 

[DRwyoming]

I really like the image as it is. The dark background more or less encircling the bird really helps it pop. Not sure you really need to do much but I might try a bit of vignette and maybe some selective blur in the vignette region to further tune down the background near the frame edges. It certainly doesn't need to go jet black like the background behind the bird but maybe tune it down both in detail and brightness a bit to see what that does.

Great capture!

 

[ssheipel]

I really like the image as it is. The dark background more or less encircling the bird really helps it pop. Not sure you really need to do much but I might try a bit of vignette and maybe some selective blur in the vignette region to further tune down the background near the frame edges. It certainly doesn't need to go jet black like the background behind the bird but maybe tune it down both in detail and brightness a bit to see what that does.

Great capture!

I agree. Love this shot, as is, both technically, and thematically -- feels like it's nighttime and well that's associated with owls! Your capture is truly nice. Sharp like knife on the eyes; and the detail, generally! And I am enjoying the feathers on the ankles. Do birds have ankles? LOL

 

[DRwyoming]

I agree. Love this shot, as is, both technically, and thematically -- feels like it's nighttime and well that's associated with owls! Your capture is truly nice. Sharp like knife on the eyes; and the detail, generally! And I am enjoying the feathers on the ankles. Do birds have ankles? LOL

Thanks for the kind words and yeah, owls and low light often go together and can be a big challenge. I was pretty happy with that Great Horned Owl image but it's one in a string of captures that probably only yielded about 25% sharp enough for my tastes. But that with a D2 series camera where high ISO shooting wasn't a good idea. I'd love to take that again with my D850 or D5 where I could have safely used a lot more shutter speed and associated higher ISO.