Great Horned Owl Update!

[mountaindew]

UPDATED!

Today during my lunch break, I went out to the Great Horned owl's nest. This time the eggs have hatched. I could hear them crying out while I waited for about 10 minutes for the mother to come back.

This time there isn't any PP on these pictures..just crop and post. (didn't have time)

My favorite is the 2nd one where she spreads her wings! I'm glad I decided to check out that nest! I wasn't feeling all that great (coming down with a head cold) Had a great lunch break!

[Royce Aardahl]

SWEET!!

[dukhnt]

Those are some pretty neat pictures.

[finnbay]

I do like that second one too, MD. Neat shots! Keep 'em coming!

[Steve Foss]

Marc, nice shots.

Since there was no post-processing, I believe you have a lens problem. The 100-400 is well known for resisting chromatic aberration, but this is the second series of shots of that setting that shows purple fringing on a lot of the branches.

As we've discussed, that's something that can really pop out depending on a person's pp regimen, but since there was no pp done on these shots it seems to be a lens issue. I'd ship it off to Canon on warranty, assuming it falls within the one-year warranty period. They should be able to fix it up just fine for free.

[mountaindew]

Thanks guys!

Steve, you know what? I THOUGHT it looked a bit fringing!

I decided to go through my camera, look it over. Even tried my other canon glass, f2.8 70-200mm. And it did pretty much the same thing!

That led me to believe there's some settings in the menu. So I went through double checking the settings. I found on the brightness/contrast, saturation, etc settings were way off... think I played with it before a while ago (weeks ago) and forgot to bring it back to normal. What I did was reset to default settings. And tried it again on the 70-200mm. And it looked pretty good. Didn't tried the 400 yet. Because it got dark. Will wait till tommorow and try it again and see how that looks.

I'm hoping that's what's causing purple fringing. I kept kicking myself in the a** for not turning the settings back to normal! I feel pretty stupid.

Oh well. We'll find out for sure tommorow and see. I'll take a shot of the same tree tommorow with the same kind of lighting conditions.

Thanks again though!

[Steve Foss]

Marc, glad this got you looking at your settings!

One question, and then some comments: Are you shooting RAW or jpeg?

High picture style settings (in camera contrast, sharpness and saturation adjustments) will definitely accentuate the appearance of purple fringing, since it's the in-camera equivalent of adding contrast, sharpness and saturation in post processing.

But the picture style settings only affect jpeg captures, not RAW. If these were shot RAW, you have a lens problem. If they were shot jpeg, toning down the picture style settings could easily solve your problem.

While I don't shoot jpeg often anymore, when I do I make sure my in-camera saturation, contrast and sharpening settings are at their lowest. I don't want the camera to think for itself and potentially add too much to a photo and potentially ruin it when all those functions are more effectively manipulated in photoshop.

For someone who shoots jpeg all the time and wants to keep post processing to a minimum, some slightly more vivid picture style settings can be a very good idea.

[Dave S]

Incredible sequence Marc.

I too like the second pic the best. It seems the subject has a thing about coming in from the same side of the nest. Is it possible to move your position 90 degrees to the other side (your right) of the tree? The second shot, but in a full frontal spread like that would be absolutely amazing. Keep this location a secret so this family of owls don't get a flood of traffic.

Thanks for posting.

[mountaindew]

Steve, That's it! Both..shooting in both RAW and jpeg.

See, what I use for the web are jpeg, and for printing, RAW. I looked at my library archives and opened both RAW and Jpeg, compared them both. whoa! Big difference!

Reason I use the jpeg for web, cause it's faster to open, process, and so on forth, and RAW I use for printing and takes a bit longer to process/edit them,

I never really bothered looking close enough or paid attention to both RAW and Jpeg of the same picture till now. DUH-OH! I mean, it looked a little bit, I mean a LITTLE BIT difference in the thumbnail size on the library as you see them, but then opening it to full size with both RAW and JPEG..(sigh) yep, there's a big difference.

I wanted to post another same pic, but from the RAW format and convert to JPG so you can see the difference. But I have tuck my kids in a few minutes and will do it tommorow!

Lep77mm - Thanks man! You know, I thought about doing that, but from where the nest is..it's almost impossible, because that's where the long steep slant hill is impossible to climb. And where I'm at, between the tree where the nest is and me is the road, and there's alot of traffic. I parked my car off the shoulder of the road and almost parked halfway up the hill. And Behind the tree is the other side of the slant hill.

In other words, the road, me, and the trees, all in a valley, that goes to Henderson. I'll give you a clue, west on CR 19 from Henderson. That ring a bell?

I will post another picture in RAW that I have

[jwhjr]

Thanks for posting these shots, great work!

[Dave S]

I know the "End of the World" is out there, but south of 19. I know there are some other areas with steep hills around Henderson with the river valley. Even just outside of town.

Either way, keep up the good work.

[mountaindew]

Alright...let's see here..Here's the RAW converted to jpg. No PP on it. Can you see the difference?

What do you think, Steve?

[Steve Foss]

There's a clear difference to my eye.

I believe you still have some slight CA issues (most noticeable in the lower left-hand corner), but it's very minor, and by doing pp on the owl alone you'll avoid accentuating the small amount of purple fringing.

You might also play around with the RAW image in the CS3 preview screen (zooming in on the lower left-hand corner) and see if the CA correction measures will work.

[mountaindew]

10-4 Steve! Thanks for your help!

[DMN]

Mountaindew

I like your owl shots, they are very interesting birds up closse.

DMN

[mountaindew]

Thanks DMN. Will check out the nest today at lunch break. It's really nice outside today! 50's here!

[mountaindew]

Another small update..went out there during lunch, and boy..the lighting conditions were no good... Backlight was pretty bad. Should have went around noon, but I went out for a late lunch break, around 2. And that's no good!

No mommy owl..BUT looks like the there's something in the nest! An owlet popped it's head out.

Both pic shots where BLAHHHH! All I did was brighten it up with shadow/highlights..and that's it.

First pic is the full frame..

And a close up of the same pic of the owlet...

[Steve Foss]

Cool, now they'll be REALLY busy going back and forth feeding Jr.

[JR777]

Your getting quite allot of photo work done while going to or during work. Very impressive! Nice Great Horn shots

[mountaindew]

Moderators or anyone..

My mother made this quick video of the owl and her nest. I was wondering if it's ok to post a link here that directs to youtube? It's just a little short clip showing the owl and her owlets!

Let me know. Thanks!

[GoFish4]

MD, I know there is several video's on the "ice fishing" forum so I don't think it is a problem. I am not trying to talk for the moderators just and FYI. I have seen them from youtube and photobucket on that forum.

[mountaindew]

Thanks. Don't want to get in trouble.... I'd better wait and see what the moderators say first....

[Steve Foss]

You bet. Post the linky.

[mountaindew]

Ok! Thanks!

Actually, I'll post 2 of them links to you tube. It's the same nest that I took along with my mother. I'd go with her on my lunch break. (she's about 2 blocks away from where I work) which is NICE! She's very active on birding watching!

Nothing fancy, but a clip of the owl from her, she's 71 years old, and that's pretty good! Pretty lousy quality on you tube...if you want a better quality let me know. We can send out a link to a much better quality in a quicktime format!

I went out there today during my lunch break and got some better shots...this time it's with the 2X Extender..would have to load onto my computer. I haven't had the time to do it today. BUSY with work!! Will post it sometime maybe tonight or tommorow.

Thanks Steve!

[mountaindew]

Another UPDATE!

Sorry for not posting earlier. Was busy all day yesterday to a birthday party. It's raining outside now. I've got time now.

These shots were taken Friday during my lunch break....and with the 2x Extender. However, The all looked dark, underexposed on the front, because of the sun on top. So I used the highlights/shadow to bring out the light in front. That caused the fringing on the branches. Bad...I know. But wanted to bring out the owls more to have a better view of it. I know I can fix this in photoshop, but I wanted to post it online fast and didn't want to spend too much time PP on these pictures. All were cropped about 60% and sharpened...

And the owlet...She's getting big already!