It's Better To Make Something Imperfectly Than Nothing Perfectly - Creating Wildlife Photographs 

Just a few of the thing I admire. The unbridled enthusiasm you display when locating your subject. The patience you have when waiting for the "right" shot. The respect you show to all your subjects. The quality and composition of your photographs. Thanks for sharing

Great video. We enjoyed our day together last week. If there are any of you considering going with Steve just do it. You will LEARN and we got some great images to torture our friends with.

Watching your enthusiasm in the field is better than a kid in a candy shop. Thank you also for sharing your thought process when tweeking your images.

When patience is a virtue. Absolutely awesome

I specialize in making imperfect photos and have for years! Love the owl. I would feel so lucky to get a shot of one.

Your excitement and enthusiasm are indeed infectious! Beautiful, beautiful images.

I can't help but smile watching you have so much fun when you come across a great grey owl and your images are absolutely fantastic. Thanks for sharing the experience with us.

Steve,You are wonderfully kind to share your vast knowledge and experience with a hobbyist. I learn and enjoy everyone of your videos. Thank you so very much!

The two images are really beautiful.

Really appreciate the combination of field and processing. Love to see the other 80% to move to a print ready image from time to time too. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Thanks!

Wabi Sabi art sometimes carries more meaning than perfection.

Really enjoy your post process explanations. Quick and easy versus sitting for hours in front of the computer. Just spent the past few days in Jackson for a wedding but did get out to Schwabacker's Landing one morning for some sunrise shots.

Abosutly stunning photos Steve, I especially like the second one !

Steve, This was one of your best shots I liked. Fantastic images , specially the owl on tree stump. I would have taken that shot vertically also, in fact I was thinking the same thing when watching your video and then you showed the final image. It turned out perfect, a Great Wall hanger. I loved your expressions when you knew you had a great shot, that is so much fun when that happens. Keep up the great work!

Sure it was your chair...Great video and thanks for sharing. Always look forward to your videos.

So well done!! Home run!! Incredible images and video. Thank you for sharing

Thanks i always like seeing how others edit their shots! Love the GG!!

I enjoyed seeing your editing process

You are really a professional!

Very helpful to me Steve. Particularly the use of the masking tool which I have not yet used. I will be more comfortable experimenting with it now. Thanks, Art

Love it, Steve. Thank you!

Awesome video! Really is nice to see it from start to finish. See you in a couple weeks.

Keep these coming - love this format!

I really appreciate your excitement about critter photography. It makes me smile! Your would fit right in with my friends and I in Idaho. Thanks for the pist processing training. Please keep sharing. I am learnibg a lot.

Gorgeous photos 5+!!

You have so much fun out there chasing owls 😀 Really love seeing your editing thoughts. Thank you!

Love to learn from your shooting strategy and editing thoughts.

Damn, you having lots of luck with that owl. He/she seems really comfortable around you. It landed right in front of you on great perch.

You’re consistently awesome, Steve. Thanks for taking us on another adventure and teaching us how it’s done. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Better to have a good image than no image at all.

great thanks for that! Very clear and articulate!

It's always fun watching you and a Phantom! What an awesome experience to have one perch so close. Really appreciate the edit session! After watching you again, I really think I'm wasting a lot of time moving sliders just because they are there.

Awesome video! Thanks for sharing your editing process!!

Great tutorial. Thank you.

Nicely Done Love your work

I don't know what to say except please keep making these. Such a joy to watch!

Amazing

Great Video! I love your excitement at the beginning. Watching your choices in post makes me feel more confident in the choices I make editing my own photography or would if I had better software. Thanks for sharing with us and looking forward to your next adventure!

Awesome video, thanks!! I'd be a bit leary truckin' through the woods with that lens over my shoulder like that... Obviously, it doesn't seem like a concern for you and honestly, probably not me either until you turn quickly and smacking it against a tree! Just maybe it's that you're aware of your surroundings which is definitely something one must always be aware of!! On the other hand, I guess it's better than having everything tucked in the zipper of a backpack decreasing your chances of getting the perfect shot!

great fun !

Everytime i hear the intro music "ya it makes me wonder" I know I am about to watch a great video. Love it, Steve. Thanks for sharing.

Love your videos and your humor. 😂

The enthusiasm in the field is quite contagiuos. Loved it!

In the last 70 yrs if I’ve learned anything it’s that perfection is an illusion. What I try for is to be better than the last thing I did. There is always room for improvement but I’ve discovered that once I got what I thought was perfection I lost interest in that endeavor. So anymore I strive to be a little better or do something a little different than the last thing I did.

I like the minimalist approach to editing.👍

Really appreciate you showing your edit process! Great vid as always 👍

Very informative! Thank you

🤣🤣 OMG you are so funny to watch when you are photographing grey owls. You remind me of a kid in a candy store, so giddy. I do enjoy your channel very much and your animal shots are spectacular. Looking forward to the next adventure.

Great video Steve!

Brilliant, love watching you photograph the Great Grey Owl. They are stunning and we don’t get them over the pond in the U.K

Great video Steve 👍

Thanks for showing your editing techniques. I loved seeing that. I'm like you, I would rather be out shooting than editing so quick and smart edits are great to see. Please continue sharing your editing process.

I love your simple aproach to solve a complex problem. Thumbs Up!!

Thanks for posting this Steve, I enjoyed watching your editing as I typically spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling .

Thank you Steve. Picked up a few pointers In Lightroom! And, I love your owls!

Loved this video! Your joy while shooting is the best. Really appreciated the editing portion at the end - great to see your process. Keep it up!

love you and your videos! :)

Very cool to see how you actually get yourself into position to get the pic...AND wait for the right opportunity. The resulting pics... Wow!

Love the format of these videos, Steve. Thanks for sharing your in-the-field and your post-processing techniques. I appreciate it!

Love the workflow Steve. What a beautiful image of the owl. That first shot is a banger.

Really excellent combination of fieldcraft and editing in in a way that keeps us all enthused to experience and improve!

Great video Steve! Please keep the photo edits coming.

Great video Steve. I gotta say every time I watch one of your videos, I come away having learned something I can apply to my own photography. Thanks for the great content.

I recently discovered your videos and really enjoy them. I particularly like the videos where you take the viewer through the start to finish process. I love my time in the field but sometimes find the computer time tedious. Watching you and your thought process editing is very helpful. Keep the videos coming.

Your photos are amazing,love owls & I wish we had the great,gray,owl in Ohio!Thank u for sharing yours with us!

I love your videos!!! I’ve started watching them on my big TV vs. my phone so I don’t miss any detail. Love the editing process too. Keep it coming! Barb

Love these tutorials Steve. Keep them coming and those are great images.

Outstanding, Steve. Very informative. This one I’ll watch again.

Another great video with the perfect mix of field work and editing. In dynamic situations not having time to change camera settings in order to get the shot resonates strongly because it happens so much its great to hear you have the same approach. Thanks!

Terrific vlog. Editing tips were helpful.

Brilliant images and excellent editing tips too Steve

That was a fun video, enjoyed the story of the catch and I appreciate you sharing your process to process!

Great video! Love everything you post. I struggle to understand why you'd be in aperture priority and choosing your iso vs full manual with auto iso and just adjust your exposure compensation. Unless the bird is really close or your lens is soft wide open there's no need to adjust aperture, just keep it wide open. Shutter speed is way more important, so keeping the lens wide open and only having to worry about shutter speed and then adjusting your exposure comp seems like an easier way to get the shot without using an iso and shutter speed that wasn't necessary and too high in both instances. I know things happen fast in the field but just wanted to offer my 2 cents. Thanks for all the videos and look forward to more.

What a beautiful bird and images! Besides, it’s always interesting to see the camouflage on the lens, you wearing a yellow shirt and blue cap 🧢. I have no clue how owls react on colours. But all kind of blues are alarm signal colours for game like deer, venison and so. To them, it’s like bright neon-green-or-yellow-or-orange to us.

Another awesome video!! I do like your new format of starting with on field vlog and then with your computer editing! I do wish there was more of the on field portion 👍👍👍

Thanks for sharing Steve! It is easy to see that you really love what you are doing. Your enthusiasm is awesome to see. Photographing an owl is on my bucket list. It’s been pretty difficult here in central New York. Thanks for the processing tips.

very nice video. As an very beginner wildlife photographer myself, and even more beginner wildlife photography processor, I found it very useful. greetings from Brazil, we are waiting for you to come pay us a visit and photograph our jaguars.

Always brilliant

Great video, I loved the format and learned a few things! Keep them coming!

Awesome Steve. Love to watch and learn your post processing thoughts.

Recently found your channel. Loving the content. Thanks for the explanation of how you process your images. Maybe sometime do a video on how you process for prints. Want to eventually print some of my photos and would appreciate your ideas on getting the best image for printing.

Love the format of this video and the recent similar one! Entertaining with the field portion and educational with the office portion… and still relatively short overall. Keep up the good work!

It looked like you were having a hard time carrying your monopod and vblog camera at the same time, you should mount the vlog camera on the bottom of the monopod facing you when carrying the monopod on your shoulder 😉

Absolutely Awesome!!! Great job! I do like how you only do a little editing!

Excellent video Steve. What kind of ballhead were you using it looks lite and compact?

Very good. Thank you! If I could give two likes, I would.

I like this hybrid style of video. From field to screen. I’m not familiar with the Z9 - can you program a custom recall button like the A1? Granted that’s usually auto ISO unless you set it which can be dicey as scenery changes. But I think that would solve your issue mentioned at the 9:15 mark. I have my AEL button set to 1/400th so if my subject stops, I slide the thumb to that button. If it starts to go/move then I release the thumb and my forefinger is on the shutter which is set for action. It’s very handy and It worked with two GGOs this past winter. Sadly they leave here in the spring and go north. Maybe I need to go West. Lol

Awesome video Steve. It is always nice to see other peoples workflow. I do have one question though. What is the Sony ZV-1 on top of your Nikon for? I recently bought one for vlogging so just curious what you are using it for in the field?

Great equipment! Are you often shooting @ 400 / 2.8 with birds? Do you need to crop a lot afterwards?

Excellent video! It was interesting to see how you process photos. Please keep this format. One question, why did you use masking on first photo to remove bright spot instead of totally removing it with content aware?

awesome shots! is there a reason that you wouldn't use auto ISO in those variable light conditions?

Good stuff, Steve! I share the desire to rather be out in the wilderness than sitting at the computer, even though my day job is being a software engineer... Question about the exposure topic. I acknowledge that you only had a few seconds and were vlogging at the same time. But it seems you used A with exposure compensation and fixed ISO. Why not use Auto ISO with M, so let ISO float instead of the shutter speed? With that, lowering the shutter speed is just a quick flick of the thumb with no buttons pressed, and ISO goes down at the same time automatically. The way I work I would have set my shutter speed to 1/3200 or something similar suitable for flight, thus already landing on a lower ISO once I had dialed in -2EV exp comp, then snapped a few frames, look at the shutter speed, see it's higher than required, flick the rear dial, take more frames. I find that's a very quick to work in changing light. But you're very experienced, so I'm sure you know all this in principle; I'd like to know your reasoning why you choose to do it differently. Second comment: the Z9 has this dual gain sensor that switches at ISO 500. Short story is that ISO 250, 320 and 400 have more noise and less DR than 500, so 500 is often my base ISO once I know 64-200 won't cut it anyway. Third comment: I find judging white balance is easier to do after getting the brightness right. Colors tend to look different and saturation decreased when brightness is increased, so I usually do that first, then set WB. And now I'll shut up :)

Great video Steve, Q: The Nikon Z9 has any custom WB preset or has the default WB? Cause that came out of the camera almost perfect . I envy you that 400mm 2.8 (in a good way😅) . Cheers from Argentina 🇦🇷…

been between parks 10 days now and no GGO in sight. Would love to know what to look for as far as location. Tons of fields here. Thanks for the processing info.

Desmond DMH-1 or 2? LEOFOTO VH-10S Monopod Two Way Tilt Head Arca/RRS Compatible w Large Comfort Knob. I see now this is the one you use.

great video as usual Steve, do you prefer the monopod now or the tripod . thanks from Canada.

Which monopod are you using in this video? Looking like a very light one. I am searching for this but I am unsure, which will carry enough but is really light.

I noticed you don't zoom in at all unlike myself and a lot of people on RU-vid. Is there a reason for that?

I wish my wife would look at my like Steve looks at Owl's

Could you please list what is on your monopod?

Ok that’s enough owl videos, let’s see something else please!