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Hardcore
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Great Horned Owl under Northern Lights


I was out shooting northern lights the other night. Someone wasn\'t happy I was sharing his hunting territory. I have heard him screaming for the past 2 weeks at night. Thought it was a screech owl until I saw him I abandoned my landscape setup and ran back to the house to grab my 300mm F.8 in hope I could somehow photograph this owl under the northern lights. When I returned he was still on his same perch about 40 yards away. I snapped a photo but there were no lights in the background. At that moment he flew. I thought he\'d fly away but no, he flew and landed right next to me about 20 feet away. I was shocked. So I continued to photograph him for about an hour. At times we both just sat and watched the lights. Maybe he was just lonely and actually didn\'t want to chase me away.

At any rate, this was a very difficult bird to photograph. Viewfinder was completely black. Autofocus was hopeless for obvious reasons. I could see some slight contrast through the viewfinder though and was able to get close with manual focusing. I would then take a shot, chimp, take another shot, chimp until it was in focus. The problem was even at ISO 6400 & F2.8 the exposure was about 2 seconds. Lucky he held still long enough to get quite a few \"sharp enough\" shots considering the circumstances. I chose this route over a flash as I just don\'t like flashing owls and the results it gives. All natural lighting from the moon & northern lights.

I have also included a photo video of the photos I took along with an audio clip.

Thanks for looking,
Corey



Oct 03, 2015 at 09:47 AM
Hardcore
Offline
Upload & Sell: On
Great Horned Owl under Northern Lights


I was out shooting northern lights the other night. Someone wasn\'t happy I was sharing his hunting territory. I have heard him screaming for the past 2 weeks at night. Thought it was a screech owl until I saw him I abandoned my landscape setup and ran back to the house to grab my 300mm F.8 in hope I could somehow photograph this owl under the northern lights. When I returned he was still on his same perch about 40 yards away. I snapped a photo but there were no lights in the background. At that moment he flew. I thought he\'d fly away but no, he flew and landed right next to me about 20 feet away. I was shocked. So I continued to photograph him for about an hour. At times we both just sat and watched the lights. Maybe he was just lonely and actually didn\'t want to chase me away.

At any rate, this was a very difficult bird to photograph. Viewfinder was completely black. Autofocus was hopeless for obvious reasons. I could see some slight contrast through the viewfinder though and was able to get close with manual focusing. I would then take a shot, chimp, take another shot, chimp until it was in focus. The problem was even at ISO 6400 & F2.8 the exposure was about 2 seconds. Lucky he held still long enough to get quite a few \"sharp enough\" shots considering the circumstances. I chose this route over a flash as I just don\'t like flashing owls and the results it gives. All natural lighting from the moon & northern lights.

I have also included a photo video of the photos I took along with an audio clip.



Oct 03, 2015 at 09:42 AM





  Previous versions of Hardcore's message #13226076 « Great Horned Owl under Northern Lights »

 




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