Hunter & prey

[Otavio]

Hi. A very big owl with it's "dinner". As I consider it an unique oportunity, I decided to share it. Hope you like it. Kindest regards...

[ggt]

It is very cool, disgusting, but very cool!

Are his eyes supposed to be red?

I'm glad you posted!

[Otavio]

Hi Gretchen. Thanks for viewing. Regarding his eyes, they are black (both). What is causing his left eye to appear as red in the picture could be some kind of reflection. I checked that by looking to other picture that I shot (not posted) where both eyes are black.
Regards...

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Gretchen, Otavio,

The red eye(s) are because the flash fired, perhaps intentionally for fill - unfortunately, for birds such as this (big pupils and at quite close range), it just gives you another thing to fix in PP - how do I know - well I tried it once too

Hi Otavio,

These are very good captures, perhaps a little over exposed, which has lost some detail in the white plumage.

It was a unique experience indeed, I have never seen a wild owl when I have had a camera in my hand, let alone one with dinner - but that's one of the attractions of wildlife shooting, you never know how lucky you'll get 'today'. I went for several years never thinking I'd shoot a heron with a fish, then it happened 10 feet in front of me, when up until then (and since!), heron's were on the opposite side of the river, 100 feet away.


May I suggest that for better results, you never post an image that is more than 900 to 1000px tall on any forum? (width is OK to 1600px as long as height is the ruling factor)

There are several reasons I suggest this;
If you downsize more* before the final sharpen and upload:
a) it will both reduce noise and increase sharpness/DoF in the finally posted image (arguably that's 3 good reasons)
b) most LCD screens are 1050 or 1080 tall these days, a few 1200, even less 1600, so many people cannot see these at 100% or 1:1 pixel wise with what you sharpened, when the browser downsizes it for them, it softens it, or they see it full size but lose the composition you spent time deciding upon when you cropped because they have to scroll up and down.

* I believe you downsized these to 1600px on width or height for these two, but if you had downsized to say, 900px then sharpened, there would be less noise and sharper image features (because a lower threshold is possible on USM sharpening without it making the noise worse.

I hope that's helpful, have a read of post #6 in this thread for more information; HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?

All the best,

[ggt]

Trina shared her technique for fixing glowing/red eyes on the "Fixing glowing Dog Eyes" thread. She was nice enough to post step-by-step instructions. Her PP looks wonderful --better than what I was doing.

[DReid]

Great capture.

[Otavio]

Thanks for the feedback, Dave.

[Otavio]

Gretchen, I will check Trina's technique. Thanks for mentioning it.

[jeeperman]

Nice capture Otavio. I agree with Dave on the exposure. Did you catch this in the wild? I ask because the white rat looks much like what I fed my lizards. Not often you find white rats in the wild. Not around here anyhow. This would for me make it just a bit more special.

[Otavio]

Sort of Paul. This photo was taken at a huge bird park where animals are free in big limited areas (not usual cages). I was lucky to be there at the right moment they offered him the "dinner". Regards...