Story of the Image
Some sightings can only happen once in a lifetime, and when it does, we better be prepared for it. This owl is so rare and shy it will take all the experience in the world to get a decent image of it. To put it into perspective, I was with three other photographers, and I was the only one with half-decent images. I am beyond jubilant!
Location:
An area as big as two football fields in a remote part of northern Peru is the only place in the world to find this bird, that should tell you how rare this guy is! To reach this place we took a flight from Lima to a small town called Tarapoto and drove for about 5 hours non stop. The hike in the forest took us around 40 mins.
Composing the shot:
To be honest I was not thinking of composing the image as I was always in doubt if I will see the bird in the first place.
We were shooting off a small cliff and the space was limited, so I couldn’t use a tripod. Shooting at night without a tripod is practically impossible so I used the following technique:
- Fastest aperture on my camera – f4
- The highest possible ISO my camera could manage without creating a very grainy image – ISO 5000
- A small flashlight
- Very steady hands 😊
Lighting:
A small handheld flashlight
Perfecting in Post-Processing:
This is how my image straight out of my camera looked like:
As always, the first plan is to take care of the RAW file and process the image to get it as close as possible to the final one.
I increased the exposure and shadows to bring out some of those dark areas and add a little bit of color to the image. I also dropped the yellows to fix the warmth created by the flashlight.
The real magic happens in the color correction palette, especially in photos taken in the dark. During the color correction process I have full control of how I want the image to turn out. So for example with the below settings I was able to turn a warm image into a much cooler image
Look at the before and after images:
Before:
After:
Next, I opened the RAW file to edit in Photoshop and cropped it.
Next, I added brightness and contrast to the image:
Then, A bit of color correction to get closer to actual light when I took the image
Once this was done my image was ready for resizing and sharpness as the last steps. I resized the file to my desired online posting size of 1800 pixels on the longer side and then ran smart sharpen at 50% to get my desired file. At this time I started using a new app to sharpen my images called Topaz Sharpen AI. It is an industry-leading app that specializes in sharpening images
The process to convert files to sRGB and save remains the same as always.
Detailed view:
Next, convert to profile for saving.
Final Image:
About the Bird
At five inches long, it is the smallest owl in the world, next to Elf Owl of North America and Mexico. This endangered bird lives in the humid cloud forests in Andes of North Peru with dense undergrowth. The long wispy facial feathers extend over its ear to resemble ear tufts, gives its name. It also has distinctive reddish-orange eyes lined with light eyebrows, bare legs and feet, short and stubby wings and tail. This elusive bird can be heard more often than seen, one can spot it by its abrupt husky call ‘woh’! They are also found mist-nesting and their scientific name Xenoglaux loweryi means ‘strange’ or ‘foreign’ bird.
