Flight of the Barn Owl

V-Spec

V-Spec

V-Spec

Soldato
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Posts
3,698
Location
London
Out on the fens again today, turned a corner and there in the middle of the road was this guy, hovering above a ditch in the afternoon light, he then began moving his way towards me, pulled the car sideways across the verge and caught him as he flew past, by far the best shots of a barnie in flight I've managed to far, the light was just right.

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And of course the evening wouldn't have been complete without Mr Shortie popping in after hammering Voles, again on molehills and in the grass, nothing I don't already have, although I liked this shot as he was watching a glider flying above. Any photo comp judges please don't commend on this pic as i'm thinking of entering it into this months comp, unless I shoot anything better suited in the meantime!

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Wow check out the eye in that last one - luminous!!! I am exceptionally jealous that you have this wildlife around you! Great photos.
 
Some stunning shots there. The first and last stand out for me.

I saw that you're looking into getting a bushhawk. I'd be interested to see what you think of it, if you do get one - they appear to polarise opinions quite a bit.
 
SteveOBHave said:
Wow check out the eye in that last one - luminous!!! I am exceptionally jealous that you have this wildlife around you! Great photos.
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Cheers :)

To be honest you can find this sort of thing in most places in the UK, Lincolnshire does have a high concentration of Owls though, more than anywhere else in the UK, so i'm in a good postion :D

A.N.Other said:
I saw that you're looking into getting a bushhawk. I'd be interested to see what you think of it, if you do get one - they appear to polarise opinions quite a bit.
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I had a go on a Bushhawk the other week, cracking piece of kit and it suits me down to the ground as I've done a lot of Clay pigeon shooting and field target shooting, so anything with a gun stock style shoulder mount is great for me, I'm hopefully picking up a 400mm F5.6 end of this month (Bonus month :) ) and the Bushhawk pro pack at the same time, as I'm going to be seriously concentrating on the Seabirds at Bempton cliffs and the Farne islands/skomer/etc from April onwards, the seabirds such as Gannets and turns are very close and move very fast, so 400mm will be about perfect.

To be honest I can't believe the luck i've had with the Owls, this time 2-3 months ago, I was trolling the bird forums and bird sighting websites looking for high concentrations of Short eared owls, i've got text files full of locations all over my HDD, and in 2 weeks i've been lucky enough to find a couple of birds which have given me more shots than i'd have imagined, right on my doorstep.. I imagined it would take a year of solid effort to get those, but it just all happened at once, not to mention the barn owls.. The barn owls make me laugh because its as though someone has a big switch with "Barn owls on!" somewhere, and it gets flicked somewhere between 3pm and 5pm, because they just spawn onto the fens like something from Quake they just come from nowhere.. :D
 
SDK^ said:
Why are you bothering with a 400mm F5.6 - better weight?
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Yes - mainly the weight issue, but it works well with the 1.4x and has very fast AF, not bothered about IS because its going to be used handheld/bushhawk all the time anyway.
Also, I'd prefer a little less length than 600mm for flight shots as sometimes the birds move all over the place, (especially owls) which makes them very difficult to track when highly zoomed in.
I've seen so many good shots taken with it, and for the price I don't mind taking a few pennies out of the 600F4 fund to get one.
 
V-Spec said:
Yes - mainly the weight issue, but it works well with the 1.4x and has very fast AF, not bothered about IS because its going to be used handheld/bushhawk all the time anyway.
Also, I'd prefer a little less length than 600mm for flight shots as sometimes the birds move all over the place, (especially owls) which makes them very difficult to track when highly zoomed in.
I've seen so many good shots taken with it, and for the price I don't mind taking a few pennies out of the 600F4 fund to get one.
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what about the 400mm f/4 DO IS lens? the diffractive optics cut down on weight substantially :)

<edit> Eeep, it weighs 800g more than the 400mm f/5.6 USM...
 
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Aod said:
what about the 400mm f/4 DO IS lens? the diffractive optics cut down on weight substantially :)

<edit> Eeep, it weighs 800g more than the 400mm f/5.6 USM...
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Not that bothered about F4 with the flight shots I want it for, as a lot of the time the sky is involved so theres plenty of shutter speed, the 400mm F4 DO, doesn't have image quality to scream about either, and of course it costs a fortune as SDK has pointed out :)
 
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