The male only delievered food in night time, and between 1 am (not photographabl time) til 4.40 am, in day time it was only the female who hunted for the kids. This is approx. 2 am, mid-June, not so far from the northern polar circle, so even if you have light all-around the clock, it is ISO 1600, 1/20 or 1/30 of a second. Canon 1 Ds Mark II, EF 300/2,8 at 2,8.
Mothers eye, the tree and a kid is sharp. I think this will be a full page in my next book, Birds with an attitude. Great Gray Owls are tough, they don't care about people. It's hard to downsize an image like this.
I was sitting in a tree, about 50 feet away, in a very small hide. (Huuuh, I hate heights, in the second morning it started blowing and I got seasick).
Very nice result. I do not mind if some areas in the image are not sharp because it adds action to the image and, as you pointed out, the mother´s eyes are sharp, plus the chick and the tree, and that are key spots on this image. I think that if you got sharp eyes on the departing male but blurred eyes on the mother and the chick the result would be unpleasant bcause the main subject in this image is not the male but the female feeding the chick. You have a good eye Brutus. The vertical comp works fine to me because allow the observer to see the huge nest. Thanks for posting and fantastic work (you are posting excellent and very refreshing images)
I have to agree with Juan on this shot and it sure is a nice bit of action captured I like the vertical crop to this because it keeps my eye focused on the direction the action is taking Excellent Shot!
Brutus
I like the action.....and the whole story. I, too agree with Juan in that what need to be sharp in the image is....and what's not, adds to the feel of action. The darkness of the image gives me a feel for the environment......I wouldn't expect to see them any other way. One thing that I might do would be to try to remove some of the noise from the green BG. Congrats on a wonderful family image.
Great Gray Owls in mid-night up north
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