Latheron Show - Owls

[johndh]

Great show yesterday. Took a few pics, my favourites are these owls:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3028/2662616908_ba9a7963ac_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3013/2661793409_7f14ea2c56_o.jpg



http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3027/2662618792_d42d06f0fd_o.jpg

[golach]

Johndh, great pics, that owl in pics 2 & 3 was not amused, but still a beautiful bird.

[Kenn]

Whooooooo what great pictures especially the eagle owl.

[cazmanian_minx]

Cracking shots - wish I could have gone, but I was helping out down at Scrabster for the RNLI.

[helenwyler]

Fabulous shots johndh! Thanks.

The intricacy of the feathering is stunning. Picture 2 is like my conscience giving me a stern stare :eek:.

[Liz]

Fantastic photos!

Ta for sharing them with us.

[Sporran]

Superb close ups, johndh! :cool: I've always been fascinated by owls. Those yellow eyes are rather mesmerizing! :eek:

[porshiepoo]

Those are better than the photos I take of them regularly. lol.

Thanks Johndh, the owls actually belong to my OH and daughters. :)
The Eagle Owl looks as though it's Izzy, the Barn Owl is called Barny :eek:

What camera do you use?????????????

[johndh]

Thanks for all your comments folks.

porshiepoo,

I use a nikon D80 dslr, with the standard 18-135 zoom lens

The shots were taken manually, lens at full stretch 1/125 sec f14 iso 200 all in RAW format.

The work flow in photoshop and acr goes something like this:

ACR: zero sharpening, zero noise reduction. Curves and levels adjusted to give no clipping on highlight or shadow. colour profile set to prophoto

PH: 1. Levels and curves to get the best contrast and shadow detail

2. Unsharp mask set to amount 20% and threshold to 190 px. To boost contrast.

3. covert from rgb to lab colour, using curves, I set channel a and b to -95 +95 to saturate the colour.

4. covert back to rgb. Make a duplicate layer, set the mode to overlay. Filter high pass at 2 px. This sharpens the image slightly and removes the high pass filter blur that digi camera introduce.

Merge the layers and crop. Covert the colour profile to sRGB or it will look pants on the internet.

Thats about it really, the last shot took a little more work to bring out the detail in the owls eye.

Cheers

John

[North Light]

johndh,

Great photographs and lovely processing.

[porshiepoo]

Thanks for all your comments folks.

porshiepoo,

I use a nikon D80 dslr, with the standard 18-135 zoom lens

The shots were taken manually, lens at full stretch 1/125 sec f14 iso 200 all in RAW format.

The work flow in photoshop and acr goes something like this:

ACR: zero sharpening, zero noise reduction. Curves and levels adjusted to give no clipping on highlight or shadow. colour profile set to prophoto

PH: 1. Levels and curves to get the best contrast and shadow detail

2. Unsharp mask set to amount 20% and threshold to 190 px. To boost contrast.

3. covert from rgb to lab colour, using curves, I set channel a and b to -95 +95 to saturate the colour.

4. covert back to rgb. Make a duplicate layer, set the mode to overlay. Filter high pass at 2 px. This sharpens the image slightly and removes the high pass filter blur that digi camera introduce.

Merge the layers and crop. Covert the colour profile to sRGB or it will look pants on the internet.

Thats about it really, the last shot took a little more work to bring out the detail in the owls eye.

Cheers

John

Brilliant! I've never tried RAW. Too lazy I think. lol.
I have an Olympus E500 digital SLR and I really should have a go at RAW format. What kind of software is required for the format change? I have PS CS2, does this do it?

[johndh]

CS2 should be fine, in fact I would'nt use anything else. The raw files are converted using a plugin called Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). The plugin comes as standard with CS2, but it is a free download from adobe.com if you don't have it, or if you need the latest version.

[Kevin Milkins]

Thanks for all your comments folks.

porshiepoo,

I use a nikon D80 dslr, with the standard 18-135 zoom lens

The shots were taken manually, lens at full stretch 1/125 sec f14 iso 200 all in RAW format.

The work flow in photoshop and acr goes something like this:

ACR: zero sharpening, zero noise reduction. Curves and levels adjusted to give no clipping on highlight or shadow. colour profile set to prophoto

PH: 1. Levels and curves to get the best contrast and shadow detail

2. Unsharp mask set to amount 20% and threshold to 190 px. To boost contrast.

3. covert from rgb to lab colour, using curves, I set channel a and b to -95 +95 to saturate the colour.

4. covert back to rgb. Make a duplicate layer, set the mode to overlay. Filter high pass at 2 px. This sharpens the image slightly and removes the high pass filter blur that digi camera introduce.

Merge the layers and crop. Covert the colour profile to sRGB or it will look pants on the internet.

Thats about it really, the last shot took a little more work to bring out the detail in the owls eye.

Cheers

John

Right .
I will just pop out and try that.
Do you have to say look at the birdy?:confused:lol:

Great pics Johndh and thanks for posting them.