I don’t generally photograph birds. However, I saw this great horned owl walking across the open area just in front of my patio one morning. No plans to photograph it, but was interesting to see it walking out in the open. It climbed up on this rock and just sat there. I was watching it through my living room window, and decided to try out a new camera and lens. The lens’ longest reach is 200-mm on an APSC sensor, so 300-mm equivalent. As I started shooting, the sun started coming up providing the warm highlights to the background. To get the head turn, I hit the edge of the window frame gently. I wanted to see the face, but didn’t want to scare it away. That tricked only worked a couple of times. Owl soon lost interest in my tapping.
The image is at least a 50% crop of the original capture, and I don’t think the focus is quite sharp . The camera’s focus-peaking indicated strong focus on the eyes, but I was pressing the shutter release on the camera, not a timer or remote, and, even though the camera was on a tripod, there might have been movement. Or maybe the focus wasn’t as good as I’d thought. Or maybe shooting through the two panes of glass throws things off a bit. So I still have some learning to do when it comes to bird photography. Suggestions always appreciated.
Fujifim X-S10, 55-200 lens @ 200 mm, ISO 160, f/11, 0.3 sec
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Is this a composite?
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Nice photo. It sure looks like a big owl. The ss looks pretty tight to me and and might be the reason the detail is not there. I like that nice soft lighting up the colorful leaves in the bg.
Looks quite good at this size – glass can really degrade an image, especially double-pane. I would be delighted to have seen this – wonderful you were able to get a very nice picture. The whole scene is great!
Hi Tony. I suspect the slight image quality issue is caused by your landscape mindset. Iso 160 is almost never used by bird photographers. We’re up at 640 or even much higher (in the dark Pacific Northwest, I usually seem to be at over 2000). We also tend to go for soft backgrounds, so we shoot with a lot larger apertures than this (f/8 is my favorite, but many are wide open on whatever lens they’re using). However, your settings ended up making for a really stunning image. That owl’s plumage is fantastic and I love the background.
f/8. Thanks for the tip @Dennis_Plank. I’ll try that next time . . . if there is a next time.
Tony: What a cool opportunity. Love the warm light and the pose of the owl to show off the beautiful plumage on the back and perfect head turn. Shooting at f/11 cost a lot of shutter speed and your landscape tendency to keep the ISO low didn’t help you out. You still managed to get a pretty sharp image. I didn’t know what the widest aperture of your lens was so I looked up the lens. At 200mm it is f/4.8. I would have been there. I don’t know how far your were from the owl, but I made a quick calculation assuming a 20 foot distance. You’d still have a depth of field of 7 inches which is more than enough to keep all of the owl nice and sharp. If you were further than 20 feet, then obviously you would have even more depth at f/4.8 and been able to pull of a faster shutter speed (only to help with camera movement - looks like your friendly owl cooperated and was still).
Hello, despite the techs that could have been a bit better, still a nice shot that many of us could only dream of … The setting in itself is nice as well. Would be great should the bird return and you can check if all the advise would render a better IQ image. But, as I said, many of us would really be thrilled by such a photo-opportunity ! Cheers, Hans
Certainly nice to have this owl be so cooperative for you. Good job considering the conditions of shooting through a window. I’m wondering whether you might get even more reasonable sharpness by trying topaz sharpen AI in the original. If you have this it might be worth a try. Very nice colors.
Thanks for all the good advise. Now I’m hoping for another opportunity to photograph birds.
Tony, Everything has already been said about SS, ISO and aperture so I won’t get into that anymore. I love the shot regardless of settings and perceived softness. What kicks this into high gear for me is the fall color s in the background of this shot. Had you opened up to f/4 or so you would have certainly gotten a softer background but I don’t at all mind the depth of field for this shot with everything being fairly sharp throughout. Birders tend to like creamy out of focus backgrounds but this still works for me. Great get. You sure don’t see this everyday! 
