![\"short-eared](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/short-eared-owl-7940-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHow’s that for a convoluted, seemingly disjointed title? I’ll try to pull it all together as you proceed through the post.<\/p>\n
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1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 400, 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 Short-eared Owl, photographed last month during my camping trip to Montana and Idaho, was one of my early indicators that I was having intermittent focusing problems with my Canon 7D Mark II. A few of my images of this bird were very sharp, as this one is. But then I’d get a bunch of shots of the same bird that were moderately soft and they shouldn’t have been. So this is one of the birds that began my long and frustrating journey to try to figure out what was going on. I think that journey is finally over – more about that later. But first I noticed something interesting in this image besides the bird.<\/p>\n In previous posts about owls and pronghorn caught in barbed wire my readers and I have had conversations about the evils of barbed wire, including the possibility of somehow making wire fences less dangerous to wildlife. One of those discussions involved the potential of making barbed wire with fewer barbs. It was those conversations that made me pay more attention to the wire in this photo – notice that it is almost barb-free. In about 2′ of wire I see only two double barbs, seemingly randomly placed.\u00a0Most of the barbed wire I see has barbs every 4″ or so.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n An uncropped version of the same image reveals much more of the wire and still there’s only those two double barbs. I don’t recall ever seeing barbed wire with so few barbs so I do wonder what’s going on here. Could this be a type of barbed wire deliberately manufactured to inflict less trauma on wildlife? And I’m surprised that the barb placement seems so random. I reach no conclusions here but for me it’s food for thought.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ok, back to my camera dilemma. Yesterday, after yet another extended stay in the shop (11 days this time) I got the camera back. A quick trip to Antelope Island revealed that my focusing problems still were not solved. Long story short – on my way home from the island I stopped at a local camera shop and purchased a new 7D Mark II – yes, I was that<\/em> frustrated!<\/p>\n I’ll probably send the old one in to Canon (I probably should have done that in the first place)\u00a0and see if they can repair it. If they can I’ll then have to decide whether to keep it as a backup or sell it. This story is much more involved than I can go into here but many of my readers are photographers and have been interested in the entire process so I thought I’d summarize it here.<\/p>\n Hopefully that’s the end of the story…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How’s that for a convoluted, seemingly disjointed title? I’ll try to pull it all together as you proceed through the post.<\/p>\n![\"short-eared](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/short-eared-owl-uncropped-7940-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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