Short eared owl in Flight

[Dipankar Mazumdar]

caught the Bird in the fields around Sultanpur lake, Haryana.

[Udai Bisht]

Hi Dipankar. Liked the first shot. Although not much of the bird is seen due to the distance and the angle of shot, I liked the eyes. In fact, it is the eyes that immediately catch attention. Your angle of shot provides a nice perspective with the shrubs covering the lower part of the frame. It feels like I’m hiding in those bushes to catch a glimpse of this magnificent bird. I would've preferred if the bird was a bit more to right of the frame with enough space towards the left to fly into.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Dipankar,
I found the following details from your image. ISO 100, f7.1, 1/500, 82.8 mm equivalent to 504mm in 35mm format. Incase, you find it difficult to get the image details, check the tips page for the firefox plug in. I think you can check the details in vista as well. Ranbir to confirm.

There is a windows plugin for raw files.

I would have loved some more details in the image. How big a crop is it?

It is difficult to get a good image when the bird is flying directly towards you and wings are horizontal. However, a slightly angled wing on our left (its right wing) makes it better. This kind of images work when you are getting more or less full frame image with the eye sharp.

I like the composition, as it shows the habitat and indicates a stealth approach. The image needed some more brightness. When your subject is small in the frame and the sky occupies a major portion, the meter of your camera is likely to be fooled into believing that the overall image is bright and hence the exposure time decided by the camera is less. Hence, you get a darker image.

[Ranbir Mahapatra]

Yes, Windows Vista has built in feature for displaying the EXIF data for images. Its usually displayed as a ribbon towards the bottom of the screen. You can also right click and check the properties...open the 'Images' tab; scroll down, you can view various details in the "image" section and the "camera" section.

Windows XP with Service pack 2 also provides EXIF data in the properties - details section.

Recently, Microsoft launched a new free image editing application, called "windows live photo gallery". You can download that along with Windows Live Essential package.