There is a large old Blue Gum tree about 50 metres from the observatory,over the last couple of months,I have known there is a family of Boobook Owls.The lorikeets and all the other birds certainly let you know something is amiss,I have been to the tree many times and seldom seen or photographed the owls.
They are very good at hiding.Today,however-I was really treated-3 owls! An adult and two chicks.The lighting was not favourable,and the subjects at not the best position.I was just thankful to see,and have some opportunity to photograph.So here is one of many hundred I took today,I'll spend more time on PP on some of the betters at another time.
Hope this is of interest.Thanks for looking-Chris.
Nice work Chris – what a photogenic family portrait!
Looks like a tough shoot with the subjects in the shadows and shooting into the light. You’ve managed to open up the shadows quite well, so you can see the eyes along with texture in their feathers, yet prevented the skies from blowing out.
Great image, well rewarded with the effort you put in ....the gaze of the adult has a striking resemblance to the look my wife gives me when setting the scope up, watching the cricket or grabbing a second beer
Great image, well rewarded with the effort you put in ....the gaze of the adult has a striking resemblance to the look my wife gives me when setting the scope up, watching the cricket or grabbing a second beer
Yes,Beren-thought the same thing myself after looking at these!
Thanks Dennis for your thoughts,was very challanging to image these in given
lighting conditions.Here is another from the afternoon.Both these have been worked in CS5-curves,levels and some colour balance.Not sure what the best camera settings are in these situations.
Hope you don’t mind, but I saved a copy of your photo in msg#1 and ran it through my standard workflow to lighten the shadows. Although it now looks like a little fill in flash was used, I think that it does bring out more texture in the birds.
Hope you don’t mind, but I saved a copy of your photo in msg#1 and ran it through my standard workflow to lighten the shadows. Although it now looks like a little fill in flash was used, I think that it does bring out more texture in the birds.
Cheers
Dennis
WOW!,that's a 100% improvement-and on a low res!,you are a master PP'er!
You,mention-'standard work flow',is this a set of commands you have stored in your CS5/topaz workshop?That you apply to most of your nature images?
I might send you the full size JPEG file of this image to run through.Thanks for coming back and taking the time on this low res.The results are very pleasing.
Chris - those are some fantastic shots! I like your exposure in #1 since you have a good balance between shadows and highlights... looks very natural for the time of day it was captured on my monitor.
By the way, one little trick that I like to use in Photoshop (mainly for printing, works for on-screen too) is boost local contrast using Unsharp Mask with settings such as 15%, 15 px, 0 for your small web-sized photo. It gives a bit of a 3D effect to shots with good bokeh - works especially well when printing.
Topaz Detail – Micro Contrast Enhancement on a new layer, set to 25%
Topaz Adjust – Photo Pop on a new layer, set to 30%
The above effects were applied only to the birds, not the background foliage and skies. It is a manual process, especially masking the birds, which I only did roughly, in this instance.
I haven’t used the Topaz Labs Plug Ins in a batch mode so I can’t comment on if that works or not.
Super shot Chris. Quite fortunate to be so close to some beautiful wildlife
Thanks Adam,Carl,Dave and Dennis.
Yes,it was quite amazing to see the three Southern Boobook Owls sitting on that branch.I have never seen anything quite like that in all my time out in the field.Really was a special.I have the RAW file so will spend some time processing this with layer masks etc.
Its episodes like this that really make it all worth while owning the best camera/lens I can afford,that is dedicated to wildlife.Not likely to get three owls line up again in a hurry!
Great image, well rewarded with the effort you put in ....the gaze of the adult has a striking resemblance to the look my wife gives me when setting the scope up, watching the cricket or grabbing a second beer 
