{"id":37374,"date":"2016-02-12T06:20:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T13:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=37374"},"modified":"2016-02-12T07:13:27","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T14:13:27","slug":"foggy-low-light-barn-owl-in-flight-my-sharpness-issues-may-be-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/12\/foggy-low-light-barn-owl-in-flight-my-sharpness-issues-may-be-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Foggy, Low Light Barn Owl In Flight – My Sharpness Issues May Be Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a good day. Despite the “soup” in our valleys I was able to get some shots that begin to confirm that my lens may be working properly again and I met one of my blog followers from out-of-town.<\/p>\n

The inversion in Utah’s northern valleys is the worst we’ve had in years. The thick fog\/smog persists throughout the entire day instead of burning off in the afternoons so shooting conditions are generally abysmal (and it’s depressing to boot). But yesterday morning I was hell-bent on testing my newly repaired 500mm lens so I headed for Antelope Island with all my digits crossed that I’d find at least one feathered test subject in enough light to make a proper lens\u00a0evaluation. It was close but\u00a0I did.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"barn1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 1600, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This was one of two Barn Owls that flew close to me along the causeway to the island. It was so dark and foggy that I’d preset my camera at ISO 1600 (too high for this shot with relatively bright fog in the background instead of darker\u00a0vegetation – the owl had been hunting low) and when this owl appeared out of the fog I didn’t have time to make any adjustments before it was\u00a0past me. I underexposed the bird in camera and the image is noisy but what’s most\u00a0important to me\u00a0is the owl is sharp. And even in these low contrast conditions where I had trouble locking on to my subjects, once I acquired focus I was able to get about 15 sharp images of the two owls in flight.<\/p>\n

One morning with\u00a0so few subjects is not enough to confirm that my lens is in proper working order again but it’s a start. Getting sharp images of a bird in flight\u00a0in these conditions bodes well for the future.<\/p>\n

Once on the island I hooked up with Ed MacKerrow<\/a> and spent about an hour with him as we toured the island together. Ed is a highly skilled New Mexico-based nature photographer with\u00a0a scientific background and he’s also\u00a0an all-around nice guy so I really enjoyed spending time with him. We’ve wanted to get together for several years but this was the first time our paths actually crossed. Some readers will recognize his name from his many insightful\u00a0comments on my blog.<\/p>\n

Blog followers are likely beginning to tire of hearing about my lens woes and I don’t blame you because I am too. Hopefully this post will be just about the end of it.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was a good day. Despite the “soup” in our valleys I was able to get some shots that begin to confirm that my lens may be working properly again and I met one of my blog followers from out-of-town. <\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,344,6,334],"tags":[31,45,539,146,148,1788,309],"class_list":["post-37374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-barn-owls","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-barn-owl","tag-causeway","tag-flight","tag-fog","tag-inversion","tag-tyto-alba"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/barn-owl-2492-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-9IO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}