Western Screech Owl

The main targets for my summer Arizona trip were owls. Walker and I worked long and hard every night, dealt with intense heat, hiking up mountains, getting too close to rattle snakes (both of us got warnings from the rattle snakes :eek3:) and swarms of bugs. But we were rewarded with photos of 6 species of owls. This Western Screech Owl was one of about 10 that we encountered on the same night. It was 104 degrees at around midnight when this photo was taken. Hats off to Walker who has amazing hearing (unlike me these days) and an uncanny ability to find birds in the dark. He is truly the owl whisperer. From somewhere near Phoenix. Cropped to vertical.

Canon 1dx mark ii and Canon 600 f4 ii. ISO 800, SS 1/100, F8. Tripod mounted. Used an off camera flash (600 ex RT ii) set to ETTL. No Flash Exposure Compensation used so flash set to 0.

Hey Isaac,
What a gorgeous creature, and you did a fine job of off camera flash. Would you explain why you chose off camera? Also, kudos to you and Walker for that midnight endeavor... Heat of 104 and rattlers in the dark would be enough for me to sleep in... The details and intense stare are wonderful against the black BG, just wonderful Isaac, congrats.

Thanks Ann. Flash work, like everything else takes practice and cooperative subjects to fine tune your settings. Typically owls and other night birds are very tame and approachable at night. Many of the birds we walked away from after we took a few pics and they did not flush at all. A really good starting point if doing night flash work is to be at ISO 800. Set you shutter speed to 1/60-1/100 and F8 as you will probably be close to the birds. I use ETTL and high speed sync so I can set the shutter speed above 1/250 and get the exposure just right. Keep in mind that if shooting at night you will most likely not need high speed sync as your shutter speed won't need to go much above 1/100. But it is easier to just set and forget for me. I rarely if ever use manual flash settings that you would need if you were say shooting an extremely backlit bird and wanted the camera to not meter for the sky and therefore under expose the bird. That is vital for flash work as otherwise the shots will look overly flashed and fake. The flash bracket helps to lift the flash up and off center so that you have less red eye or steel eye on the birds at night. It makes for a more realistic look to a flashed shot and also reduces shadows from the flash being directly behind your lens. For any flash work it is really essential to have one. I use the bracket that goes with my 4th Generation designs head. You must then buy an off camera shoe cord as well to connect the camera to the flash. Sadly all of that stuff was also stolen and needs to be replaced. :e3

Perfect flash work resulted in an excellent image.

with love, artie

Great work Isaac, those owls never stood a chance. Hopefully we can find some of their northern cousins in the winter.

Winner. Perfect lighting and curious look. The eyes pop and the feet look great! Some people hate flashed nocturnal birds, but I love the black BGs!

Eyes and pose and details look great. I like the perch and bit of green in the BG. Bummer to hear your stuff got nicked! TFS

Thanks everyone. Owls are special birds and getting opportunities to view them up close and photograph them is probably my favorite part of photography.

Thanks Alex. Unfortunately while on a family vacation in Spain I had my car broken into and all of my gear stolen. All of it. If you follow Arties blog I am the mod who didn't have a back up and lost all my shots. 1dx2, 600 f4 ii, 100-400 ii, extenders, flash, cfast cards, batteries, etc all gone. I was fully insured so not the end of the world, but still a bummer. Worst part was losing all of my photos from the trip including some full frame Lammergeier shots :e3 Now the real issue is do I switch to Nikon or be cameraless for a while and wait for delivery of the new Canon 600 f4 iii. Lots of decisions...

Lovely flash work here Isaac! And excellent fieldwork as well!
I love the owl and the visible foot.
Eyes look great and who doesn't love the killer black BG.
I find the OOF branch exiting the RHS of the frame a bit distracting. I am guessing you could not move to your right? Perhaps a rattlesnake in the way!!??:Whoa!:
Gail

Great stare. Nicely lit. Thanks for the flash info. Good work putting up with the conditions and having the fortitude to get the shot. Sorry about your gear.

Thanks again every one.

Bill let me know if you have any other info you need re flash and I am over the gear being gone. No one hurt, and as I said I was fully insured so I will get new gear out of the ordeal. Could've been much worse.

Gail, unfortunately there was no way to step to the right. These birds were in a thick and thorny forest. Many of the birds that we found we just walked away from as the backgrounds were far from ideal or the shooting angle too steep. For this bird there was only one hole through the forest to get this pic. No way to step even an inch to my right or left as the view of the bird would have been obscured. Even to get this shot we had to contort ourselves just to get the angle where the bird was mostly in the open and the background was good. Walker and I took turns photographing this bird as there was really only one window were the shots were worth keeping, but I agree with you that the out of focus perch is not ideal. Of course now I have a reason to go back and try and improve on the image! I would also caution that unlike many/most songbirds photography where with a reasonable amount of effort you can coax a bird onto a perch or shoot them from a blind, that is not the case with owls at night. What you see (if you can find them) is what you get which makes the level of difficulty of these kinds of shots much harder.

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Originally Posted by Isaac Grant

Thanks everyone. Owls are special birds and getting opportunities to view them up close and photograph them is probably my favorite part of photography.

Thanks Alex. Unfortunately while on a family vacation in Spain I had my car broken into and all of my gear stolen. All of it. If you follow Arties blog I am the mod who didn't have a back up and lost all my shots. 1dx2, 600 f4 ii, 100-400 ii, extenders, flash, cfast cards, batteries, etc all gone. I was fully insured so not the end of the world, but still a bummer. Worst part was losing all of my photos from the trip including some full frame Lammergeier shots :e3 Now the real issue is do I switch to Nikon or be cameraless for a while and wait for delivery of the new Canon 600 f4 iii. Lots of decisions...

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Man that is such a shame! As you wrote in the above though, seems like you're having a good perspective. The D850 is certainly tempting but crazy how light the new Canon 600 f4 is