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Beast meets a barn owl, with a camera for a change


beast66606

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Fantastic shots - thank you for sharing.

 

/reminiscence mode on/

I remember as a child being driven to my grannies house in East Oakley. As we approached the road bridge alongside Battledown flyover, we would often see barn owls out hunting. Since I moved away from Basingstoke in 1990 I don’t think I’ve seen a wild one, and these pictures brought back many happy memories, not only of the owls but of family and places now all long past...

/reminiscence mode off/

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  • RMweb Gold

Driving to work this morning, about 1 mile (as the owl flies) from the location where I photographed the first owl, I saw a familiar pair of white wings flying alongside the hedgerow, I followed him/her for a good 400-500 yards and as I did I noticed the small black object in his beak, breakfast !, I thought about trying to get in front for a picture but realised I probably wouldn't be able to get enough distance to get out and get the camera, and the owl would probably turn away. I noticed a tree and the owl seemed to be heading for it, "land, land, land" I wished but sadly it didn't, even better it went straight into the trunk, I've found it's nest ! I waited around for a while hoping it would reappear but I guess the vole was enough to keep it going. Hopefully this is one of a pair and chicks will arrive soon, then the adults will be a lot busier hunting around the extremeties, and I will waiting, camera in hand !

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  • RMweb Gold

Looking forward to the pictures, Beast. I trust nobody else knows the exact location of the nest?

 

(Deleted double paste from word processor)

 

Not sure to be honest, it's only yards from the lane, but this is sleepy Suffolk, I guess plenty of people see the owls but don't notice where they roost.

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  • RMweb Gold

I thought owls had better eyesight than that . :O

 

Agreed, one would imagine the elephant would be easy to spot, even in the dull morning light...

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  • 5 months later...
  • RMweb Gold

Those who have noticed my status update will be aware that I've been having close encounters of the barn owl kind again for the last week or two.

 

My "Sibton" owl - the first photo - has been in his/her tree twice, watching me until I got of the car and then flying off, tonight I followed it but it kept ahead of me - eventually I let it go, it was obviously camera shy

 

This was the best of a very poor set of photos

 

post-6662-0-24233600-1349898574.jpg

 

The good news is I've discovered another owl - that makes at least 4 on my journey to/from work

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  • RMweb Gold

even better it went straight into the trunk

 

So how come you didn't stop the car, open the trunk and take a picture Dave??????

 

BTW having read your title I'm still looking for the picture of a barn owl with a camera. I expect he would be using a twoo hundred millimetre lens also? Guess you now know where the twit went, eh?

 

On a more sensible note, just to prove I can do it, I believe that there are many instances of owls getting hurt flying parallel to roads searching the hedgerows fo food and gettnig clipped by motor vehicles for their trouble http://www.wildowl.co.uk/preventingcasualties.html

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  • RMweb Gold

Are you pre-focussing or manual focussing Dave? Also what focal length lens? Lovely collection of photos with the bird spot-on against an unsharp backdrop.

 

Hi Coach,

 

Auto focus, 300mm lens, 1/1000s @ f4.5, iso 2500

 

hth

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi Coach,

 

Auto focus, 300mm lens, 1/1000s @ f4.5, iso 2500

 

hth

 

Amazed you got that close for a 300mm lens (is it cropped??) and amazed at the quality you got at 2500 iso. What make of lens were you using? OK, just amazed.......

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Why such a high ISO? I did wonder about the noise and now I see why.

 

1/250th would probably still be fast enough to 'stop' the bird - and would be doable at 800 ISO - even worth doing 1/500th and post-processing the stop under-exposure.

 

Also one stop narrower aperture would help.

 

I like the shots and appreciate the tricky situation but the noise does desperately spoil the shots for me. Which camera is it?

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  • RMweb Gold

Canon 5d Mark 3, 300mm fixed Canon L lens.

 

The high shutter speed was to freeze her (I think it's a she) in mid flight, when using the 300mm it's tricky enough getting the bird in the frame, without worrying about blur.

 

They are crops from the jpg images, saved as low quality jpgs, the raw would be substantially better quality -I'm happy enough with them

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Why such a high ISO? I did wonder about the noise and now I see why.

1/250th would probably still be fast enough to 'stop' the bird - and would be doable at 800 ISO - even worth doing 1/500th and post-processing the stop under-exposure.

Also one stop narrower aperture would help.

I like the shots and appreciate the tricky situation but the noise does desperately spoil the shots for me. Which camera is it?

 

I presume that Dave didn't have much time to grab his camera and get his shots, and I think that the settings he used were probably the best to make sure that he got usable pictures. If it is possible to go back to what's likely to be a regular hunting area for the bird better prepared, I'm sure he'd follow Katier's thoughtful advice, but I'm not one for pixel peeping and I'm glad he shared those images with us.

 

Gordon

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I'm not one for pixel peeping and I'm glad he shared those images with us.

 

Oh me too, and indeed I love a couple of the later ones which have some frontal aspect to the owl. But (although I don't pixel-peep) I just found the noise off putting and, honestly, surprised such a top-end camera generates so much at what is - these days - a fairly 'safe' ISO setting (the MkIII is rated to 102400 ISO in an optional mode, 51200 normal).

 

Did you shoot them RAW and post process or just straight to JPEG Beast?

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