Advice for photographing barn owls.

[squizza]

Hi ladies and gentlemen

So..I have signed up for a workshop photographing wild barn owls. I'm looking for advice on camera and lens settings (IS on or off) for photographing these beauties. I've got a 300mm f4 IS and 1.4x extender - hoping this is going to be enough.

Any advice greatly appreciated

Kind regards

Sarah

 

[Tori]

I shall be watching this post with interest Sarah!! Same gear as me too! ;-)

 

[scottthehat]

i would take the 70-200mm to, you will probably find that will be long enough and more flexible than the 300mm, try get the shutter speeds up to 1000/sec and i think that leaving vr/os/is/sr on makes no difference and i normaly leave it on, but it wont hert to turn it off.

 

[matt.c]

nothing more fun than shooting these beasties

settings used 70-300 lens
exposure 1/250
f4.2

 

[Briony]

OK I'm going to and I will be taking the Canon 70 - 200 and my sigma 120-400 hoping these will be o.k. and also trying to get hold of a Canon 100-400 so this should be o.k.? right or should I look to hire something different.?

 

[norvic-boy]

70-200mm should be enough... But still take the 300mm.

Briony - the 120-400 would give you great flexibility and would probably be worth taking. As owls have whole fields etc to fly in, they could be anywhere between 300 yards away to 20 yards away, so having a good range is gonna give you the upper hand of getting good shots.

Try and get a shutter speed, of near enough double the focal length you are shooting. E.g shooting at 200mm try and get a shutter of 1/300 to 1/400 - however that's only a guideline! It just helps keep blur and camera shake to a minimum

Hope this helps

 

[johnb]

Hopefully the tutors will be advising you. Recently did a days shoot at the Hawk Conservancy & the guys were brilliant, talking about iso & metering on a foul weather day. Owls appear to take a direct route so you can predict the flight path unlike kites which leave you mostly with blue sky on the pics. If the birds are flying in to the keeper you will find that the 70mm end is restrictng when they are coming in to land. You need to be far enough back or you will be clipping wings & feet.

Have a fab day

 

[happy haggis]

Would the workshop organisers advise you before you go?
Barn owls are truly beautiful and I'm sure you'll have a great time.

 

[Scarecrow]

Be aware of bright sky backgrounds and the whiteness of the owl fooling your camera meter as demonstrated by Matt's image above, which is underexposed by nearly a full stop.