Owls... Share Your Owl Photos

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Boy do i love owls the images on this page are to die for! we have owls in the UK but are they rare and if you are caught photographing at or near the nest in breeding season its a jail term ! same goes for king fishers. These images blow me away you guys sure know how to capture a stunning images. Wild Owl Pictures are on my bucket list. The other thing is
most of our nature reserves over here have stonking great fences round them with no entry signs everywhere!
 
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Barred Owl.

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This is one of the regulars, a Great Horned Owl in the eves of a picnic area also on top of my flickr lol
Nikon D850, 200.0-500.0 mm f/5.6
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Hi Stevie, I am also based in the UK. There are actually quite a few good opportunities in the UK, particularly Barn Owls and Short eared Owls. There are also a few good private hides for Little Owls. The fence posts along the main road into Welney WWT, are a good example. I have seen 9 different Barn Owls along that road, within 20 minutes!
 
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Wow, when you can count the eyelashes on an owl. That's pretty amazing.

Build it and they will come (or at least their cousins will come) :)
 
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DRwyoming said:
Great images Michel!

For starters I'd print and hang the Barn Owl with the black background just as it is. Realistically as I prep an image for printing I'd probably go into LR or PS and see if there are small changes that improve the look but a lot of times that means trying things only to discard the changes. For instance I might try a small tweak of the Clarity slider in LR to see if it enhances feather detail without looking garish or over contrasty. Similarly in a shot like that I might experiment a bit with the color Temperature and Tint or the Vibrance slider but I'm not sure I'd really change anything without seeing the impact of those small adjustments. And as always I'll sharpen at final output size prior to printing but again it might be only a bit of sharpening.

For the other images I'd say a couple might need a bit of contrast enhancement which could be an S Curve or perhaps a bit of Clarity or DeHaze (both gentler versions of Contrast adjustment) that particularly applies to the owls in the cave which tend to recede back into the similar colors of the rock behind them. And of course in all the images I'd check for critical sharpness at the eyes zoomed in on the full sized image and possibly apply some selective sharpening or decide that I couldn't print large if the fundamental sharpness just isn't there but that's hard to assess from web sized images.

I think all of these could work but you might struggle a bit with some of the busier backgrounds. Again hard to say without getting into post and seeing what you can do but tangled or bright backgrounds can be tricky though there are approaches like selective blurs or some burning down of bright backgrounds that can help. Again it might limit how large you want to print individual images or whether you opt for something like a triptych or montage instead of individual portraits.

I love the expression on the lower right hand corner owl leaning a bit but the background on that might prove difficult to deal with.

These are some beautiful birds you captured but in the end which you print and how you process them prior to printing are very personal choices and different photogs will see things differently. But to my eyes at least the bottom owl on the black background will be the easiest to prep for a really nice wall hanging assuming the critical sharpness is where you want it when viewing the full sized image.

Great shots!
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Thank you so much for the detailed recommendations. I will play with some of them. I hadn't considered using dehaze or separating the three owls better from the background.
 
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MichelA said:
I love owls also. The below are taken in Israel, 4 of the 8-9 species around.
Would appreciate your constructive criticism. Think about it this way - what would you change so that you would enjoy hanging them on your wall.

Gear: D7200 + Tamron 150-600mm G2 except for tree owl: Nikon 18-140mm

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Little owl, central Israel

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Eurasian eagle owl (left), long-eared owl (right), both southern Israel

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I was only able to find barn owls at night. Difficult to photograph.
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Tremendous Shots! That shot of the barn owl is so good it almost looks like a statue.
 
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DRwyoming said:
I'm fascinated by owls of every shape and size and love it when I can find one in the wild to photograph. Sometimes I find them by noticing small birds mobbing them and follow the racket, sometimes I spot likely owl nests throughout the year, especially if there's signs of recent white wash and owl pellets on the ground and sometimes I cruise around likely owl habitat in late winter on cross country skis and notice where owls are nesting for the year. But I sure love capturing images of owls any time of year.

Here's a Burrowing Owl shot by the roadside in Central Washington who was kind enough to pose for me for a while in soft evening light.

600mm f/4 with TC-14 @850mm, f/5.6, 1/200", ISO 160

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So what Owls are other folks seeing and capturing on their sensors?
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Beautiful photo, it's those Eyes! Wow...
 
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Hut said:
This is one of the regulars, a Great Horned Owl in the eves of a picnic area also on top of my flickr lol
Nikon D850, 200.0-500.0 mm f/5.6View attachment 1988
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Sorry to interrupt but after seeing all these photos I need to ask. Attention Pros, what settings would be your first choice here. The eyes are sharp, a little soft in the middle and the wing/tail feathers come back into focus?
Bright midday light in the shade about 50 fifty feel away f/5.6 1/1000" ISO(auto) 1400 @500mm handheld
 
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Hut said:
Sorry to interrupt but after seeing all these photos I need to ask. Attention Pros, what settings would be your first choice here. The eyes are sharp, a little soft in the middle and the wing/tail feathers come back into focus?
Bright midday light in the shade about 50 fifty feel away f/5.6 1/1000" ISO(auto) 1400 @500mm handheld
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You might have stopped down, perhaps half a stop or so to keep those breast and face feathers a bit sharper. Your shutter speed seems fine for a posing owl. Realistically I think the image works fine with the sharp eyes, but yeah when zooming in you can see that some of the feathers aren't as razor sharp as the eyes. That's not a deal breaker to me but if you want a bit more in focus I'd stop down a tad. and perhaps double check your AF Fine tune to make sure that lens and body combo isn't slightly back focusing which could leave the eyes sharp but allow the feathers up front to go soft.
 
DRwyoming said:
You might have stopped down, perhaps half a stop or so to keep those breast and face feathers a bit sharper. Your shutter speed seems fine for a posing owl. Realistically I think the image works fine with the sharp eyes, but yeah when zooming in you can see that some of the feathers aren't as razor sharp as the eyes. That's not a deal breaker to me but if you want a bit more in focus I'd stop down a tad. and perhaps double check your AF Fine tune to make sure that lens and body combo isn't slightly back focusing which could leave the eyes sharp but allow the feathers up front to go soft.
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Thank You I will have to do some research and test the AF.
TBH, I have never done that on this lens and camera. I tried with my old set up but I struggled to get it right, it seemed to be all over with the Tamron/D500.
I appreciate the advice
 
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Hut said:
Thank You I will have to do some research and test the AF.
TBH, I have never done that on this lens and camera. I tried with my old set up but I struggled to get it right, it seemed to be all over with the Tamron/D500.
I appreciate the advice
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Yeah, AF Fine Tune can be frustrating with some lens and body combos. I'd give it a shot being very careful with your setup and testing multiple times to ensure consistent results. It wouldn't take a ton of back focus to give you just what you're seeing, sharp eyes that fall into the DOF range at 50 feet but soft features just in front of those eyes.
 
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