So this happen a couple weeks back…hanging out by the bathrooms in Yosemite, This GUY flies by! This is a Great Grey Owl (click to learn more about this kind of owl). I’ve been searching for him for a couple of years now. I’ve made special trips up to Yosemite, just to catch a glimpse with no luck. Goes to show things happen when you least expect them, it pays to be ready! I had my Z8 with me with a shorter zoom of 24-200mm. It’s what I carry with me as an all around camera for hikes. I was with a group of friends, we were heading out to hike the trail out to Mount Watkins off of Tioga Road that morning.
The Great Grey owl flew by us in the parking lot and landed in some trees behind the buildings. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was other than some type of owl, when he flashed by. It was a little later in the morning around 8:00 am, which I wouldn’t normally expect to see an owl, but there he was. It was very shady in the tree’s, so I blew out my ISO to make sure I could catch something. It’s not a great picture due to it being pixelated due to having such a high ISO, but I used the Topaz software Gigapixel to help bring out the details and reduce the noise. The above photo is what I got. It’s a nice memory, still kinda grainy. I’m on a learning curve with these low light captures. Photography is a fine art with a definite skill set of balancing shutter speed, f-stop, and ISO. For birds and fast moving object, experts suggest a high shutter speed of at least 2,000-3,000. With that high of shutter speed for an in focus shot, requires a high ISO. I was on manual and just cranked it. Probably too high, too extreme on both ends. Now I need to learn how to better judge a balance of the two in order to get the very best capture. That’s the difference between a snapshot and art (IMO), my goal is to create the very best artistic captures of the nature that surrounds me.
Practice, Practice, Practice is how a photographer get’s better. So it’s outside I go, open to whatever comes my way. 📸
Happy Trails 😎
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