![\"\"](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/burrowing-owl-2454.jpg\" "\\"burrowing")
<\/a><\/p>\nBurrowing Owl – Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, 1\/200, f\/13, ISO 500, cropped to 77% of original image<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The owl on the left is noticeably\u00a0soft.\u00a0 That is quite apparent at a larger image size, say 1200 pixels, though not quite so obvious at this size.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m very disappointed as I\u00a0had three great subjects in excellent light, on a natural\u00a0perch, with a\u00a0wonderful background and good poses.\u00a0 I don’t think the cause of the softness was motion blur, even at 1\/200 second, because the birds mostly held still and it was always the same bird that was soft.\u00a0 While I was shooting I tried to focus at a mid-point in depth between the birds at times\u00a0but it didn’t seem to make a lot of difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n I’d guess\u00a0that I was about 35 feet from the birds.\u00a0 If anyone reading this has an educated estimate of what aperture I should have been at in this situation to get all three birds sharp\u00a0I’d appreciate your thoughts.\u00a0 I don’t want to muck up a similar\u00a0opportunity again!<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I have spent many hours photographing Burrowing Owls over the past two summers but it’s a real challenge to get clear shots of them as they typically stay on the ground and are usually at least partially obscured by vegetation.\u00a0 For me it’s a real coup to get one on an elevated, natural perch in good light. Last week I had a wonderful opportunity with\u00a0them\u00a0and simply blew it.\u00a0 As we approached our “owl spot” we noticed that there were three of them perched up high on a sagebrush in beautiful early morning light.\u00a0 I maneuvered my pickup for the best light angle I could get\u00a0and to obtain separation of the owls from each other.\u00a0\u00a0Everything perfect.\u00a0 And all three birds gave us a variety of\u00a0interesting poses for several minutes.\u00a0 I had noticed that the owl on\u00a0the left was perhaps a foot (or slightly less) closer to us than the other two birds so I was\u00a0concerned about depth of field.\u00a0 I seldom shoot multiple subjects and typically with\u00a0only one bird I’m shooting at f\/6.1 –\u00a0f\/8 depending on the situation.\u00a0 Knowing I needed more DOF here I dialed in f\/13 thinking that would be plenty to get all three birds sharp.\u00a0\u00a0 The image below is typical of the results I got.\u00a0 Burrowing Owl – Canon 7D, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, 1\/200, f\/13, ISO 500, cropped to 77% of original image \u00a0 The owl on the left is noticeably\u00a0soft.\u00a0 That is quite apparent at a larger image size, say 1200 pixels, though not quite so obvious at this…<\/p>\n