My photo tour group and I had amazing photo sessions today here in Canada. The lighting was exceptional, and we learned to gauge how the snowy owls would turn and angle their wings. In the late afternoon, on high speed continuous shooting we got too many wonderful images to count. When the sun is low, and the owls fly toward the light, their yellow eyes glow beautifully. One of the challenges is to include their entire wingspan. Because a flyby happens so quickly, it's hard to judge how much focal length to use. Zooming back means the birds will be small in the frame. Shooting tight means the crop may very well cut off the wing tips. With one beat of the wings, the 6-foot wing span can easily extend beyond the frame. I told my group to compose the picture so the bird is in the lower part of the frame because this allows for the extension of the wings upward as well as a fast altitude gain. This worked very well because we all got incredible shots. My settings, again, were 1/3200, f/11, and auto ISO which in this case gave me 1600.
5 Comments
Jan 19, 2018, 10:58:03 AM
Jim - Steve, They would start flying from a significant distance -- hundreds of feet away. Then they would fly toward us and sometimes go right over our heads just 20 feet away.
Jan 19, 2018, 9:59:04 AM
Jim - For your second question, when they would start flying, yes, 400mm. As they got really close, I'd pull back to 100mm.
Jan 19, 2018, 6:12:35 AM
Steve D - Hi Jim
in general, how far from the birds were you??
Were you usually shooting at about a 400mm focal length?
Thanks
Steve
Jan 18, 2018, 10:23:12 PM
Jim - Thank you, Bill. It was a glorious afternoon.
Jan 18, 2018, 6:44:01 AM
Bill - Beautiful shot Jim. Glad it warmed up a bit for you.