I had my first guest yesterday at the wood after what seems like years of lockdowns and after he had left I planned to have a go at some flight shots that evening with the owls.
It’s now not dark till 8 pm after the clocks changed Saturday night so I had time to kill and spent a few hours wandering around the wood seeing things I could change, plant, build, etc, and was a pleasant spring afternoon to spend in the sunshine.
Anyhow back to the owls, I was given some mice from my friends at Cuckfield petshop and fixed them on a post ready for owls, nothing guaranteed but hoped they would come out to play and play they did.
Just before dark, 7.55, one flew out and grabbed a mouse and was expecting to fly off with it into the night but cunningly I was one step ahead and had nailed it to the post giving me more time for a shot, quickly followed by a second one and at one point had both on the post together trying to rip the mice off.
It was constant for the next half until all the mice were gone.
I had seven small mice which were taken in quick succession and by 8.35 it was game over, so I packed up and left.
Technical bits.
The post was 10.5 meters from the hide which could have been closer but I was allowing for clipped wings and gave a bit of buffer space.
Flashes are set at 4.25 meters from the post in a v shape to the post and set at 1/4 power, I had the camera on manual with manual focusing using focus peaking on my Nikon Z6 coupled with my trusty 300ml 2.8 vrII.
I didn’t need to use focus peaking as I could have just used back focus to lock onto the post and tighten down but fancied a change and didn’t need to move the setup once set.
Shutter speed 160 sec, Iso 640 at F9 which at 10.5 meters distance gave me 64cm depth of field, roughly 50% front and back of the focus point so as to get the detail in the wings, sounds like a plan.
I am using a remote trigger plugged into the camera and sitting there watching for movement and just as they approach the post within a few feet I fire off a couple of shots.
Anyway back to the results.
Here is what I managed, pleased but I know I could tweak it a bit.
What do you think?
Leave a reply