Tawny Owl

I was taking some bird pictures.  Usually there is more than enough if not too much light when I am taking outdoor shots.  Today was the opposite, not a lot of light.  Overcast skies can help really bring out the darker and richer colors that are available though.  Here is a Tawny Owl:

ISO 800 f/1.8 1/1000 50mm

I shot this with a bracketed exposure and then edited first in Photomatix.  I kept the version that was called “natural” because in this case I was trying to make a more representational image.  When I imported it into Aperture I boosted the saturation and definition and then sharpened the image.  It has also been cropped.  The original image was taken with a high shutter speed and a tripod, in the hopes of stopping any motion as much as possible.

Cheers!