Owl Stare selective
Nov, 2015Views
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Zenith Award
Staff Winter Selection 2015
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Absolute Masterpiece
Outstanding Creativity
Peer Award
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Superior Skill
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MrsHedgyhog
June 19, 2016
Thanks, no colour boost either, this is an amazing bird i have met on a couple of occasions, only wish he would sit still for longer!
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken at an Open Day at Eaton Hall, the Duke of Westminster's Estate. It open for charity on a few days a year and often has a local Bird of Prey display/centre. This was one of the owls bought to show.Time
Some where in the morning on a not particularly bright April dayLighting
The Birds are often under a bright green cover, but on this occasion the bird was more in the daylight. the lighting is au natural no flash.Equipment
Sony A57 with 70-300mm Sony long zoom. Taken at around 200mm, ISO-200, f5.6 1/40th hand held. Aperture was held as open as possible to isolate the bird against the background.Inspiration
This was one of many birds but had a presence that i wanted to try and catch, especially the eyes and feather on the face.Editing
The original colour was edited to make the eyes a little brighter and increase the feather definition. However the background grass was just a bit distracted so the conversion to black and white with amber eye captured the focus much better than the colour version.In my camera bag
Oh dear, the difficult questions! It depends on how I feel, I am lucky enough to now have a Sony A7 full frame so that is usually there, but I alternate between the Sony A57 often with a Sigma 10-20mm wide zoom, and a Panasonic G1 M4/3 with Olympus lenses (less weight!). The kit is then rounded out with a manual Minolta 50mm macro or a manual 70-210 Minolta zoom, I like the old glass, it gives a subtle quality to images that is different from the modern digital pieces. I also like that is slows me down and makes me think more about the settings that the auto everything approach.Feedback
Watch your depth of field, i am pretty confident hand holding and was lucky that the bird was relatively still, but keep in mind that the slower the shutter speed the more likely you are to loose sharpness. Also dont be afraid to play with processing, this is a much clearer image of what i wanted than the full colour version.
