Barred owls

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With all the current debate about digital manipulation, I was torn over whether or not to digitally remove the redeye in the upper owl. Since it was obviously a twilight shot taken with flash, I left it in. Did I do the right thing? These owls were calling back and forth to each other right at dusk - the lower one is in a typical "hooting" posture.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), October 19, 1998

Answers

Maybe if the flash could have been positioned off-camera to the right the light would be more interesting. Also if we could see the front owls eyes. Sorry but things look too unnatural. Composition is interesting.

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), October 19, 1998.

I think you did the right thing by not manipulating the image. Unfortunately that means that the picture is also technically flawed due to the red eye.

Even if you had taken the red eye out, I would have to agree with the first post about the composition.

Since this forum looks for suggestions on improving pictures let me offer this.

1. Owls are noctunal, so a black background looks natural. Wait until dark, or set the camera to auto to use the flash as the main light source, letting the background go dark.

2. If your going to use flash during the day/dusk, then the background must be properly balanced with the light from the flash. You don't give us tech specs, but I'm guessing that you were trying to balance the flash with the background here. Better flash exposure compensation would help.

Good luck

-- Matt Swope (vswope@voyager.net), October 19, 1998.


Peter, you did an excellent job for what you had to work with. The red eye is not a problem for me considering what we have here: two owls in the same tree in the wild. Wow! What a great shot. Here's the best way to take perfect pictures, though, Peter: go to a zoo and take pictures of owls that are tied to their posts. Then you'll be sure to nail exposure and you can set up umbrellas off camera. Until then, keep up the excellent nature photography. :)

-- Joe Cheatwood (cheatwoo@ufl.edu), October 19, 1998.

Careful, Joe. Your sarcasm is showing. You're too young to be cynical. But thanks for the comments, and thanks to Mike and Matt as well. With all due respect, Matt, all owls are not nocturnal, so expecting them to be seen against a black background is placing unnatural constraints on what would make the photograph look "natural". Believe it or not, some owls are diurnal (hawk owl, burrowing owl) and barred owls are quite active in early morning and late afternoon. These two were in fact doing some kind of courtship when I took the picture. I suppose I could have waited until later, but they probably wouldn't have still been there, and focusing in the dark is a trick I haven't mastered. And no, I wasn't trying to do balanced fill flash - the natural light was far too low to get a decent exposure without using shutter speeds in the 1 second range. This was handheld with a 400 mm lens, so I was just trying to get the birds properly exposed using the flash. But thanks for your response all the same.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), October 19, 1998.

Unless these particular owls naturally have glowing red eyes, why not use digital tools to correct a technical problem? I don't see any difference between a using a camera function red eye reduction to doing it digitally. In this picture the red eye artifact actually calls attention to the out of focus owl. Otherwise this owl would be rather obscure. As always, good job of getting close to the subjects. Does your sigma have some sort of built-in animal attractor?

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), October 19, 1998.


Fix the redeye. I don't think thats what was intended by the no manipulation rule.

-- al (nissar@idt.net), October 20, 1998.

I've taken many owl pictures both during the daytime and at night; so I know your problems. With the the composition you captured, I wouln't hesitate to do little manipulation to make it just the way you want it.

-- Mabel Huber (rurpho@tele-net.net), October 20, 1998.

I think the red eyes are "cool" in this case. Just wish the bird where in focus too.

-- (andreas@physio.unr.edu), October 25, 1998.

Dear Peter, Fix the red eye! It takes attention from the owl in the foreground. This is a great photo, but I think that the excessively white colour of the flash detracts, and makes it artifical, since the sky is an "late-evening" sort of colour. Would it have been better to have warmed the colour of the flash with a filter? Also do you think that the flash has over-exposed somewhat? Just a suggestions. David

-- David Bertioli (david@cenargen.embrapa.br), November 25, 1998.

Don't 'fix' the redeye. As someone else points out, it draws attention to the second owl which might be a bit obscure otherwise. I'd print the photo with softer contrast in the highlights using a contrast mask or the levels control in PShop. Finally, it'd be nice if both owls were looking either towards the viewer, or towards each other. One can't have everything, though.

Good job. I'd love to hav this fine a bird photo in my files.

-- Alexey Merz (Alexey@webcom.com), December 21, 1998.



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