{"id":47280,"date":"2017-04-05T05:41:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T11:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=47280"},"modified":"2017-04-05T10:57:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T16:57:30","slug":"my-first-of-year-short-eared-owl-and-unexpected-advantage-of-shooting-at-long-focal-lengths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/05\/my-first-of-year-short-eared-owl-and-unexpected-advantage-of-shooting-at-long-focal-lengths\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Of Year Short-eared Owl (+ an unexpected advantage of shooting at long focal lengths)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a bird photographer I sometimes find myself looking through my lens at an interesting\u00a0bird with a wire fence between us. It happens more often than you might think.\u00a0At times some of the wire can be directly in front of the bird and due to circumstances beyond my control I can’t move to a position that\u00a0prevents the problem with the wire. Some photographers won’t even take the shot\u00a0because of the obvious negative effects on the image of a visible wire.<\/p>\n

But if you’re shooting with a long lens it can be worth taking the shot to see how it really<\/em> turns out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve seen a few Short-eared Owls on my last few trips to northern Utah but they’ve always been in flight and much too far away for decent photographs. But yesterday morning I photographed this\u00a0bird along the road\u00a0as it hunkered down in a spot well protected from the breeze to warm up in the sun. Temps were in the low 30’s so I’m sure that sun felt good. The bird barely budged in the few minutes I was with it – in fact about the only movement I noticed was when it would slowly close and open its eyes. This isn’t a great image but it’s my first SEO of the year and I was happy to get it but it was mostly just a delight to get a good look at the species again. I’ve missed them very much.<\/p>\n

There’s\u00a0actually lots of fence wire between me and the owl but can you see any of it? I cannot. I can see an out of focus, light colored stem running\u00a0diagonally across the belly of the bird and into the darker background\u00a0but I can’t see any wire.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/2000, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s another photo of\u00a0the same owl from the same vantage point. For this shot\u00a0I deliberately tried to focus on the\u00a0wire but it was so thin I had difficulty locking onto it\u00a0so instead I focused on a fencepost out of frame\u00a0to the right and then recomposed with the owl in the center. That got the wire much sharper so it can be seen easily\u00a0but it’s still quite soft because the post was slightly further away\u00a0than the wire in front of the bird.<\/p>\n

So why did the wire mostly or completely disappear in the first image?<\/p>\n

Images taken at\u00a0long focal lengths have very little depth of field. According to this depth of field calculator <\/a>my DOF at this focal length (1120mm effectively), this distance from the subject (estimated at 60′) and this aperture (f\/7.1) would only be .82 ft or 9.84 inches. The further an object is in front of the bird or behind it the more out of focus\u00a0it becomes, eventually to the point that something as thin\u00a0as this wire would\u00a0be undetectable or very nearly so. The diagonal piece of\u00a0vegetation behind the wire can be seen a little more easily because of its\u00a0greater contrast with the\u00a0darker background and because it’s a little closer to my focusing distance so it’s sharper than the wire (especially at the top).<\/p>\n

According to the calculator if I’d been using my 100-400mm zoom lens @ 100mm and at the same aperture my DOF would have been 31.46 ft! In\u00a0that situation the wire would have been about as sharp and visible\u00a0as the bird (though of course the owl would have been very small in the frame). If you’re an experienced photographer this likely won’t be any news to you but even advanced amateurs often pass up an opportunity like this because they instinctively assume the wire will ruin the image.<\/p>\n

But at long focal lengths\u00a0that isn’t always the case. Take the shot – pixels are cheap.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some bird photographers wouldn’t even take this shot.<\/p>\n

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