Weekly Travel Theme: Birds

Birds. There is a travel theme challenge that I am not going to miss.  One place I love to go and take photographs is World Bird Sanctuary.  Last spring I did a series of ten HDR images that features birds from the sanctuary.  Here is a Tawny Owl:

ISO 400 300mm 0ev f/5.6 1/250

When I was creating this image, I was interested in accentuating two things.  The first was that this bird had a bath not long before I took this picture and I loved the fact that not all his feather were dry.  Also, I have photographed this bird many times and usually it looks as if he does not have his eyes all the way open.  In order to accomplish these two things, I zoomed in as close as a could to the owls face, and left my depth of field so shallow that not even all the feather are in focus.

I created this image using Photomatix which is software that can help you create HDR images.  So, in order to create the HDR image I combined three exposures of this same photo which I had captured using the exposure bracketing feature of my camera.  HDR can create a lot of really artistic looking effects but for the purpose of this photo, I was just looking to capture as much detail as possible.

I also created a 5×7 card out of this photo:

I have written about several other of the birds I created in the series.  They are a Bald Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Eastern Screech Owl, Long-crested Eagle, Eurasian-Eagle Owl, and a Barn Owl.

What do you think of my very clean owl? Isn’t  it lovely how many shades of brown and gold he has in his feathers?  Your comments are welcome below.

Cheers!

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!

 

 

Tawny Owl in Black and White

I have entered this photo in competition:

ISO 100 f/3.5 1/50 50mm

This was originally shot in color, then converted to black and white.  I cropped it and sharpened it a bit.  It was pretty sharp to start with because I had used a 50mm lens and am not really all that far away from the owl.

It is available for purchase here.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

Merge is the theme for the WordPress weekly photo challenge.  Here is my take on merge:

ISO 100 125mm f/5.6 1/8

This Tawny Owl merging with her enviornment.  A good way to live to fly another day!

Cheers!

Tawny Owl (so beautiful)

ISO 100 50mm f/3.5 1/50

This owl was injured as a chick and has never lived in the wild.  Blends nicely with the background here doesn’t it? This shot was taken with the 50mm lens I have borrowed.  It chose to use it  because there was not a lot of light and I wanted to freeze the motion of the bird as much as possible.

ISO 100 50mm f/2 1/100

This second photo was also taken using the 50mm lens.

ISO 100 125mm f/5.6 1/8

For this photo I switched to my 28-135mm lens.  What I ended up liking about this shot was the sudden light that was on the owl’s face.  I used my tripod for all these shots.

Cheers!