For lovers of Owls....

[Susan S.]

<http://www.pbase.com/image/19121143/original>

Apart from sharpening the owl is untouched - straight out tof the camera. The other images in the zoo_pictures gallery are very heavily worked on in Elements - I had to remove lens flare, purple fringing and in one case convert to black and white.

Susan S

[Pete D]

Wow, Susan, even non Owl lovers will like this. I'll leave your link here
in case someone skipped it.

[url]http://www.pbase.com/image/19121143/original[/url]

Pete

[Mark Reibman]

Beautiful shot. Was that a talking owl? It looks like your G3 is working well.

[Beth Haney]

Hmmm. That is a beautiful photo, but I'm not sure I was ready to look that guy in the eye like that! :) Now where's Owl luvr? This one should thrill him.

[Jodi Frye]

Beth, ya the OWL is flying off looking for some warm fem feathers ( as per an earlier owl post );)

Susan, beautiful ! barn owl ??

[Susan S.]

Beth - there's no way I'd have been that close if there hadn't been a nice set of bars between me and him - and I really was that close (if you look at the owl's eye you can see my silhoutte reflected!) As the caption says I had to put the camera into macro mode to focus - less than nine inches owl-lens distance.

Jodi - it looks a lot like it, but it's actually a masked owl - a bit bigger and a fair bit darker than a barn owl.

susan S

[Rod Brown]

Great owl photo!!! Reminds me of the injured snowy owl that I had in my classroom for many years.

Rod

[Leen Koper]

This reminds me of a seminar I staged several years ago.
I was explaining in a wooded area and with my arm I rested on the remains of a hollow tree You should have seen the faces of the delegates when I moved my arm away from the tree and an owl came out like a rocket.....
Just cannot remember my own face.

Leen

[Byron Gale]

Susan,

Thank you for sharing the picture of the owl... I love the fine details visible in the feathers.

And you're right, I see you reflected in the bird's eye.

Marvelous!

Byron

[owl_luvr]

I'm envious, Leen! Then again, a wildlife preservation organization was giving an outdoors, public 'seminar' on owls, so of course I had to attend it! :) As I recall, there were six species of owls next to the person presenting this talk. Eventually, she asked for volunteers to whom she was going to teach the different speceies' hoot. The volunteer would then 'teach' it to the audience. Of course, I couldn't pass up an opporunity like that, so I raised my hand...ummm...wingtip. I did the Great Horned Owl hoot, both male and female (using my falsetto & surprising the heck out of everyone with it). The male owl, about six inches away from me, kept turning its head towards me when I did this female GHO hoot.

Back On-Topic: If someone had had a camera, it would've made a great picture (because of the owl, not my ugly mug).

Owl

P. S The GHO *looks* huge to most people, but it's mostly due to its feathers and from a distance. Up-close, while by no means a small owl, its size was a little disappointing, but heck, I was realizing a dream of mine. :) For more owl info, this is my favorite site: <http://www.owlpages.com>.

[Susan S.]

Lauara - thanks - it's a Canon G3.