Rock Me Baby - Snowy Owl
There are some scenes that you just can't pass up.
The uncovered portion of the rock conveys the passage of strength to the Snowy's powerful liftoff. The pyramid formed by the snow-covered rock leads the eye directly to the main subject of the photo - the Snowy.
Due to a setting sun situation where the background was already in the shadows due to high tress blocking the light, the almost black-brown and white look of the photo, the "white" Snowy stands out without other colour distractions to the eye.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens offhand @ 1/1000, f4.5, ISO 400, + 1 exposure compensation. Cropped a bit for composition purposes and leveling of horizon.
With the overnight rain and quickly-melting snow, my season with my valued feathered friends has come to an end for this season. But, as you can imagine, I have a good archive of unpublished photos to keep my site updated in the future.
This species above all others gives me the most pleasure being with for study, photography, the challenges with at times extreme cold and personal well-being.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Two-Point Landing
The Snowy Owl 2014-2015 season in my area is rapidly coming to a close.
The owls will soon be migrating back north - they have to be on site for mating towards the end of April, and I'll be giving my poor wrecked knees a good rest.
March in Quebec City has been very cold, and we recently had two good back-to-back snow falls which did not melt, which probably extends the owls' stay. The Snowys still have a nice snow cover in the fields to entice me to go out after them.
Today, there was a veil of clouds, which prevented me from getting the setting sun with its magnificent light that I so much love. Also with the cloud cover, the colours were muted to a more dull pastel look. This was late afternoon, so on top of that, the cloud cover reduced the normal intensity of light making the image darker.
I had two options in formatting the photo - keep it pastel, or add a bit of contrast and saturation to boost the overall look so that it pops out more. Either one would have looked good - just different. Although my camera saw the scene as dull pastel, my eye on site saw it more as my interpretation here.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens offhand at 1/1000, f/11, ISO 800, +1/2 exposures compensation. Slight crop for composition purposes. The sky and wood background blurred to reduce noise. Some dust-bunnies cloned away.
Snowy Owl - Sunset Touchdown
Great setting sun light for this shot.
Despite a reasonable temperature of -7C, the arctic-type winds blowing across the field put an unusual deep chill on the day's activities, but it was worth the discomfort.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - I Stand On Guard For Thee
Basking in a golden late afternoon light, this Snowy appears as if performing sentry duty with the Royal 22nd Regiment at Quebec City's famed Citadel.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens offhand @ 1/1000, f5.6, ISO 400, + 1 exposure compensation. Formatted vertically from a horizontal shot.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Moon Raker
Full-moon time again. Actually a day before the full moon with about 97.7% of the moon's illumination.
These moon shots take some planning ahead of time. Charts have to be consulted to find out date, times and direction that the moon rises. Then there is the work and chance of having both a Snowy and a moon at the same place at the same time.
To make things harder after all this planning and chance, you only have a couple of minutes to get your shoots before the moon is too high, and boy, does it rise fast! It doesn't always work, and you have to wait another year to try again :- )
And finally, because I use a 500mm lens, I can never hope to get both a close Snowy and the moon in focus. It's either one or the other because of small depth of field due to the long lens.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - All Flaps Deployed For Landing
The title says it all!
Caught in a late afternoon setting-sun light.
Cheers,
Mike
Pole Vaulting Snowy-Style
An almost perfect V-form departure for a 9.8 score.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens offhand @ 1/1000, f9.5, ISO 400, no exposure compensation.
Cropped to a vertical aspect from its horizontal original.
It's at times difficult to judge your distance from the Snowys for these take-off photos.
It's a balance of not being too close, to avoid the clipping of wings, or too far, so that you limit how large you can print the image due to resolution loss.
Cheers,
Mike
Peek-a-boo, I See You - Snowy Owl
Cute pictures of Snowy Owls don't always have to be on the fly.
Because of the structure of Snowy's eyes (their eyeballs can't move within their sockets like our eyes), they at times bob and weave their heads to accurately identify what they are trying to focus on.
Cheers,
Mike
Sunset Super-Stretch - Snowy Owl
Despite menacing cloud cover weather predictions for late this afternoon, the sky held out for me till sunset for today's outing.
This one of Ti-Beau (Little-Good Looker in French), was taken about 45 minutes before sunset.
And of course, the golden vegetation gives depth and contrasting colours to the image plus complementing the Snowy's eyes.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II, offhand as usual @ 1/1000, f9.5, ISO 400, + 1/2 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
On The Picket Line - Snowy Owl
Canon 5D Mark III with my 500L f4 lens offhand @ 1/1000, f9.5, ISO 400, no exposure compensation.
A very slight crop for composition purposes.
Cheers,
Mike
I'm On Fire - Snowy Owl
Again,a late afternoon shot of this magnificent bird, but this time with a bit of sidelighting.
As usual, freehand with my 500L lens.
Cheers,
Mike
When The Sun Sets In The West - Snowy Owl
Dusk is one of my favourite times to photograph Snowys, due to the extreme light conditions.
This one, named Ti-Beau in French (Little-Good Looker), gives a nice dynamic pose on the horizon in the fading light with the sun also on the horizon.
The golden vegetation adds depth to the image and compliments the Snowy with its colours.
As usual, free-hand with my Canon 5D Mark III with my 500L f4 lens with the 1.4 Extender II.
Cheers,
Mike
Horizon Landing - Snowy Owl
Late afternoon colours are neat.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - I see a bad moon rising. I see trouble on the way
The title is from an old Creedence Clearwater Revival song.
Using a 500mm lens with a 1.4 extender with resulting zoom compression, I can't get both the owl and the moon in focus - obviously, the Snowy takes priority :- )
Cheers
Mike
Snowy Owl - Night Moves
Well, it was actually towards sunset and not night. I just wanted to play with the title of an old Bob Seger song.
It was important here for me to keep the golden and brown tint on the owl due to the general lighting and time of day, and to avoid the error of "balancing for whites" to render the owl pure white, as many photographers seem to want to do.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Nice 61th Birthday Gift
This Snowy Owl offered me a nice 61st birthday present.
The body and the knees are not happy campers on these outings, which I will have to gradually slow down :- )
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Sunset Departure
I love the colours at late afternoon and sunset.
Today, because of light passing clouds dancing on and off in front of the setting sun, I had a great variety of light and colours to capture my Snowy in.
In this shot, instead of a dominant reddish magenta colour, the cyan and blues took over as a light cloud veiled the sun.
Canon 5D Mark III with my 500L f4 lens with 1.4II Extender, offhand @ 1/1000, f8, ISO 800, +1 1/2 exposure compensation. Full-frame, no crop, but I did a small free transform skew of the upper left corner to straighten the tree horizon.
Cheers,
Mike
Do You Mind If I Zoom Through?
Another from my unpublished files, circa 2015.
Snowy Owl - Pastel Parting
Sometimes a light-cover of clouds hiding the sun can give a pastel look, as seen here with this Snowy.
These winter photos tend to turn on the cool or blue side, so you can always adjust to warm it up as you feel necessary.
Cheers,
Mike
Great Grey Owl On The Glide
Taken with my trusty Canon 5D Mark III, but this time with my lighter and older 100-400L lens, handheld @ 1/750, f8, ISO 800, +1 exposure compensation.
I often format wide wing shots at a 2:1 ratio for an 8 x 16 inch frame. To achieve it in this case, I basically only had to crop away horizontally above and below the bird.
I did a bit of despeckling of the background to reduce noise. Despeckling also adds a very small touch of blur.
And yes, it was very cold out there!
Cheers,
Mike
When Will This Frigid Wind Finally Die Down? Snowy Owl
Did I mention it was cooold out there?!
Cropped for a vertical look.
Cheers,
Mike
Moving On Out - Snowy Owl
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f2 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f9.5, ISO 400 + 1/2 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
Barred Owl Snow Tippy-Toe
Again, we have terrible light conditions in our area recently with lots of grey skies and snowfalls. Add to that, for this late-afternoon shot, the sun had just set behind the trees - a moot point since it was also behind a grey cloudy sky.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 100-400L lens handheld @ 1/500, f4.5, ISO 1250, +3 exposure compensation.
Had to play with the image to better white balance to reduce a heavy dull blue-grey cast.
Cheers,
Mike
Low-balling Young Snowy
Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not co-operating the other day when I took this shot.
It was late afternoon and the sky was grey - not a great combo when photographing a white bird against a snowy white background.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f6.7, ISO 800, + 1 1/2 exposure compensation. White balanced to remove the dull grey look.
On these dull grey days, the camera has difficulty focusing on moving white/grey objects against a white/grey background, therefore my keepers were very limited, but we take what we can get.
Cheers,
Mike
I'm Just Fitting In - Barred Owl
Under a cloud cover.
I find that owls and their background give a nicer more even result than if taken on a sunny day with its harsh shadows.
Cheers,
Mike
Golden-Eye For This Snowy Guy
I normally don't like to take my Snowy photos when the sun is high in the sky, for example at noon, but hey, if they're there, I won't turn a blind eye.
With my Canon 500L f4 lens handheld at 1/1600, f8, ISO 400, - 1/3 exposure compensation.
A minimal crop to re-center the bird which was leading out towards the left. Because of the very high contrasting noon light, which my sensor recorded an unrealistic dark blue sky, I therefore had to desaturate the blues to bring them down to a more reasonable level.
Cheers,
Mike
Enjoying The Light - Snowy Owl
Side-lit male Snowy Owl gives the image some depth against this less-than-total snow-covered scene.
Cheers,
Mike
Joyeux Noël - Merry Christmas - Xrystos Narodyvsija
Avec une pensée spéciale pour Pierre Roy, chez qui j'ai pris cette photo il y a plusieurs années.
Mike
A Winter Encounter
Caught in the shadow just before sunset.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - I Choose This Fence Post
The line of receding and blurring fence posts adds a bit of depth to this Snowy Owl shot.
Canon 5D Mark III with the 1.4 Extender II handheld @ 1/640, f13, ISO 800, +1 2/3 exposure compensation. There was a light cloud cover which explains my settings, such as ISO 800, etc.
This was a vertical shot, but had some annoying distant building distractions way above the bird's head. Therefore, I cropped for a horizontal view at the native 3/2 proportion. I also cloned away some remaining bits and pieces of the far-off out-of-focus buildings which were still at the top of the crop.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - I Can't Seem To Blend In!
Nature's F-22 Stealth Raptor - The Snowy Owl
Taken with my usual Canon 5D Mark III with 500L f4 lens handheld @ 1/1000, f13, ISO 400, +1 exposure compensation.
Cheers,
Mike
Snowy Owl - Time Out, Please!
Eh oui, une autre pour ma ka-ka collection :- )
Mike
Merci Jean
Jean Beliveau 1931-2014
Une photo que j'ai pris de lui en 2001 ici à Québec
Mike
Where Did All the Snow Go To? Snowy Owl
Blizzard Fu Manchu Snowy Owl
Quebec City had its first good solid snow blizzard of the year yesterday, and this Snowy was part of it.
She was sporting a Fu Manchu moustache made of some vegetation stuck to her fur.
50% crop of my Canon 5d Mark III with the 500L f4 lens with 1.4 Extender II, handheld in the swaying bitter cold wind blowing off the river while low on the ground.
Despite the lack of light due to the grey snow-laden clouds, my settings were pretty decent, f 5.6 @ f5.6, ISO 1250 with +1 exposure compensation. Three strands of out-of-place vegetation strands cloned away to the right of my signature.
What a camera that 5D Mark III!
As can be expected, the moment I lowered my lens because my glasses were full of blowing snow, Fu Manchu took off before my eyes and I missed the shot. Oh, well, the season is still young.
Merci pour l'accompagnement, Christian!