stanj wrote:
Ta Promh, Cambodia
Beautiful compositions Stan!
Imagine wandering out of triple canopy jungle only to see this on a smaller scale but there none-the-less.
Wonderful!
Dan
Your videos are so great Stan! The images come alive in front of my eyes! Thanks for your presentations!
Will be sorry to see this fine creature take a vacation.
Danpbphoto wrote:
Do they leave your area in the Winter?
I don't think they leave per se, but as they become better hunters they hunt more and more at night, plus the night by itself gets longer. As a result I have about 15 minutes in the morning and on a good day 20 minutes in the evening of intersection of activity and ISO 25k @ f2.8. Just 6 weeks ago it was twice as long. When I show up early in the morning I can see them with infrared and then at twilight with the naked eye, but 1/10s exposure isn't suitable for a flying owl.
stanj wrote:
I don't think they leave per se, but as they become better hunters they hunt more and more at night, plus the night by itself gets longer. As a result I have about 15 minutes in the morning and on a good day 20 minutes in the evening of intersection of activity and ISO 25k @ f2.8. Just 6 weeks ago it was twice as long. When I show up early in the morning I can see them with infrared and then at twilight with the naked eye, but 1/10s exposure isn't suitable for a flying owl.
Thank you for the info. Wish I could "wake up" to this dilemma Stan!!
Again OUTSTANDING and THANKS for posting!
Dan
stanj wrote:
I don't think they leave per se, but as they become better hunters they hunt more and more at night, plus the night by itself gets longer. As a result I have about 15 minutes in the morning and on a good day 20 minutes in the evening of intersection of activity and ISO 25k @ f2.8. Just 6 weeks ago it was twice as long. When I show up early in the morning I can see them with infrared and then at twilight with the naked eye, but 1/10s exposure isn't suitable for a flying owl.
How do you know where to set-up in the morning relative to where you spot them with your IR?
Are you fully locked in on your settings or do you let ISO float? It's impressive to see the bird start in the dark and then fly into bright background without seeing any fluctuation on the bird and not blowing the highlights in the background.
I've been enjoying your GIF's. They are mesmerizing.
I actually chuckle wondering why you just don't switch over to video. The frame rate on that R1 is just nuts! It's hard to tell those are individual frames. Thank god for a super deep buffer eh!
lighthound wrote:
How do you know where to set-up in the morning relative to where you spot them with your IR?
I've been enjoying your GIF's. They are mesmerizing.
I actually chuckle wondering why you just don't switch over to video. The frame rate on that R1 is just nuts! It's hard to tell those are individual frames. Thank god for a super deep buffer eh!
All good questions. With all of "my" owls (doesn't mean with _all_ owls) it's centered around knowing their nesting place, which means knowing where they live in April. Once you know that, you're good for the rest of the season, which has different length for different species. So with these barn owls right now, you know that they hunt almost exclusively at night, spilling into twilight. You know they hunt in the flat field / marsh around you, so you just set up there and hope that one will fly near you You can strategically position yourself between their roosting place and the field and hope you'll capture one carrying a vole "home." of course we're not talking about singular tree but rather a half mile long tree line, so your chance to get one head on is ... limited. And then of course you need to get it. I guess the guy in the photo below is getting lucky, albeit backlit.
I got the infrared to find Barred Owls in the thick forest where they live, especially if they fly you're doomed to lose them because the forest is so thick and the camouflage is great, but if you know where in general it disappeared then IR will help you greatly. Helps with Great Horned as well because they camouflage even better. I don't really need it for Barn Owls or Shorties because the open field makes it easy.
I shoot stills because I don't do video I am looking for stills, and if I can make them into a movie then that's great. I have the R1 set to 30fps which gives me close to infinite buffer. I always lift the shutter when I see the AF drift, which happens very often in these conditions, and that helps with the buffer. The gifs then play at 10fps. Buffer is never an issue with Great Horned or Barred owls, because if you catch those flying for 5s you pop the champagne, but Barn Owls or Shorties you can run out of buffer easy.
Canon EOS R1RF400mm F2.8 L IS USM lens400mmf/2.81/800s16000 ISO0.0 EV
stanj wrote:
All good questions. With all of "my" owls (doesn't mean with _all_ owls) it's centered around knowing their nesting place, which means knowing where they live in April. Once you know that, you're good for the rest of the season, which has different length for different species. So with these barn owls right now, you know that they hunt almost exclusively at night, spilling into twilight. You know they hunt in the flat field / marsh around you, so you just set up there and hope that one will fly near you You can strategically position yourself between their roosting place and the field and hope you'll capture one carrying a vole "home." of course we're not talking about singular tree but rather a half mile long tree line, so your chance to get one head on is ... limited. And then of course you need to get it. I guess the guy in the photo below is getting lucky, albeit backlit.
I got the infrared to find Barred Owls in the thick forest where they live, especially if they fly you're doomed to lose them because the forest is so thick and the camouflage is great, but if you know where in general it disappeared then IR will help you greatly. Helps with Great Horned as well because they camouflage even better. I don't really need it for Barn Owls or Shorties because the open field makes it easy.
I shoot stills because I don't do video I am looking for stills, and if I can make them into a movie then that's great. I have the R1 set to 30fps which gives me close to infinite buffer. I always lift the shutter when I see the AF drift, which happens very often in these conditions, and that helps with the buffer. The gifs then play at 10fps. Buffer is never an issue with Great Horned or Barred owls, because if you catch those flying for 5s you pop the champagne, but Barn Owls or Shorties you can run out of buffer easy....Show more →
Thanks for the info Stan!
Man... you don't know how lucky you are to have Barn owls around like that.
A few years ago I had finally found a pair about 1.5 hrs away. They were nesting in a very old (200+ year) massive oak tree.
I got a few shots of them inside the hole but never outside the nest. And wouldn't you know it, about 1 month after I found them we got a bad storm and after 200 plus years the tree toppled to the ground. I'm guessing the owls survived but no idea where they moved to.
lighthound wrote:
Man... you don't know how lucky you are to have Barn owls around like that.
"Around" is a relative term: these are 1h each way with no traffic, which means 2h on the way back in the morning rush hour. But hey I'm retired now
I have Great Horned literally in my back yard, they wake me up every morning. The problem is that they have wings and people have fences that I can't jump, so even for GHOs I have to drive quite far to find some in a wide open park / forest where I can run after them. I also have Western Screech in my back yard, but actually seeing them - let alone photographing them - is basically impossible because they're super shy as the neighborhood GHOs would have them for snack.
stanj wrote:
"Around" is a relative term: these are 1h each way with no traffic, which means 2h on the way back in the morning rush hour. But hey I'm retired now
I have Great Horned literally in my back yard, they wake me up every morning. The problem is that they have wings and people have fences that I can't jump, so even for GHOs I have to drive quite far to find some in a wide open park / forest where I can run after them. I also have Western Screech in my back yard, but actually seeing them - let alone photographing them - is basically impossible because they're super shy as the neighborhood GHOs would have them for snack....Show more →
I too have enjoyed your Barn owls. Hate to see them come to an end. It's rare to hear about one here, I have never been lucky enough to photograph one. I love owls and spend a lot of time and effort trying to get them in my sights. Great Horned,Barred, and screech owls are the usual suspects here. Thanks again for sharing your images.
