Snowy Owl

In this post I will go through, in detail, my though processes and actions when a good opportunity is available.  I aim to demonstrate how a well thought out plan may pay off.  When this shot presented itself I was driving a back road which had little traffic.  The owl was on my left side (drivers side) when I first saw it roadside so I drove well past it  - almost 3/4 mile, made sure no vehicles were around, turned around and drove well past it again, and turned around again.  After rolling the window down well away from the owl I placed a beanbag over the door frame and pushed the 600m IS lens into it and leveled the lens by loosening the collar and twisting the piece that attaches the lens to a tripod.  I rested that piece against the beanbag so my view through the viewfinder was level, then I tightened the collar.  This is very important for stability at low shutter speeds (such as 1/320 sec used here), eliminating a  possible twisting motion of the lens. I metered the snow with the van running, well before the owl. Then I added +1 compensation and set the resulting shutter speed and aperture manually.  I saw the composition of the photo as I approached, adjusted the focusing point accordingly, and made sure to stop and turn the engine off at the right spot so the scene pictured would be captured.  From a different angle the resulting composition would not be the same. If I restarted the engine the owl would fly away. Without looking at the owl I cradled my lens and put a lot of downward pressure on the lens while smashing it to my face somewhat.  I took as many shots as I could while stabilizing the lens the best I could.  I knew the camera would have a difficult time "seeing" the owl because it was so close in color and lighting to the background.  That is the reason for taking many shots.  Few would come out.  I took 20 shots, 3 came out perfectly sharp with the owl actually looking my way.

The beanbag I used is similar to this one:  SkimmerSack II Beanbag

In a future posts I will go over my camera set-up for bird photography of still subjects and flight subjects.  Its important to have all settings correct.




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WOW I'd give you 4 thumbs up for this post if I had 4 thumbs!!

I just love that curious look the owl has.   So were you about 3/4 mile away from this owl?  

I'll give you 5 thumbs up! This is rarely seen capture! 

That owl is wondering 'what the heck you looking at?'.

I've noticed you have a lot of bird photos Paul.  What regions are these taken from?

Nice how you detail the process, we also go + 1 1/2 even +2 sometimes when metering on white, the Nikon has extraordinary DR and it´s much cleaner to reduce highlights than claw detail from shadow. I like the bluey cast to the snow, it give a cold wintry mood to the image - a big thumbs up!

V Clown. I drove from about 3/4 mile away to a spot close enough to the owl and with the composition seen.

NickSano, I live in Michigan's Eastern Upper Peninsula. The Owl photo was taken there, and most of my best bird photography is from that area, as I have lived there for the last 11 years. This area is very good for bird photography, especially songbirds.

I explain why here: paulrossibirds.wordpress.com/workshops/

I have also done a few trips (about 12) to many areas of the continental U.S. and a few in Canada.

GJ-Vernon. The blue cast to the snow resulted from the overcast conditions late in the day. This is one of those shots that I had to process with the memory of that cast fresh in my mind. I tried to duplicate the conditions present at the time of capture.

You did very well Paul

Very strong shot here.  

GJ-Vernon, Upon thinking back to 2008 (when I got the image) I remembered not metering up to +1 1/3 because I wanted to keep shutter speed as high as possible while getting enough depth of field on the subject, because I was shooting out of my van window and not on a tripod.. I could not increase the ISO up from 400 with that camera without unacceptable noise. With better lighting conditions available I would have metered at +1 1/3.