short eared owl Archives - Craig Rogers Photography

This Week’s Featured Print: Ready To Pounce (Short-Eared Owl)

15th June 201915th June 2019Craig Rogers

This week’s featured print is also a new addition to the Shop, however, it was taken back in March 2016.

I spent many weeks photographing 2 Short-Eared Owls that were wintering in an area near the city of Derby in England, either arriving before sunrise or an hour before sunset. The were totally fine with my presence. Usually shooting with the 500mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter attached I was able to get some close-ups, but also some great atmospheric shots when the Owls where at a distance. Of course, the sunrise and sunset colours always providing an incredible backdrop.

With this particular shot the Owl had spotted something on the ground and was just about to pounce. It did, but came back up empty!

I printed this photograph to put on display at last weekends International Algarve Fair and it looks amazing printed and mounted behind glass, so it is now available for purchase and of course, is this week’s featured print.

Click the photo to view in the shop

Possible Local Sighting Of A Short Eared Owl

12th January 201812th January 2018Craig Rogers

In March 2016 I spent many cold mornings and evenings standing in a Derbyshire (England) field watching and photographing a pair of Short Eared Owls hunting. After so much time waiting and watching I developed a fascination of these incredible hunters.

Whilst driving/riding (still don’t what to call it when you are on a Quad Bike) near a flood plain this afternoon, something caught the corner of my eye. It was a bird of prey hunting. I wasn’t close enough to identify it, however, it was flying low over perfect Short Eared Owl hunting terrain and performing swooping acrobatics I remembered from my time the Derbyshire field.

I’m still to have my 500mm f/4 lens returned from Nikon and now it’s becoming frustrating as I’ll need it to have any chance of capturing some good shots.

As a throwback, here is my gallery from last time with Short Eared Owls and can only hope my 500mm f/4 is returned soon.

{Wait for navigation arrows to appear on image to scroll through album. Click image to view on Flickr - opens in new tab}

Using Adobe Lightroom and DxO Optics Pro 10 to Edit An Almost Deleted Photo (Video)

16th March 20169th October 2017Craig Rogers

I had a few long distance shots of the Short Eared Owl that, due to high ISO, I almost deleted. They had a fair amount of noise and because I had to crop in, the noise was too much to be able to edit it.

However, I thought I’d let DxO OpticsPro 10 have a go at reducing the noise and as always it delivered. I was so impressed how it cleaned up the noise that I thought I’d show a complete workflow of the post editing.

The video maybe useful for any one else editing, but also may be a good watch for any non-photographers to see how a photo evolves through it’s post processing stage from it’s RAW format to it’s final published copy. For more information on RAW files and post processing, please see a post I made quite a while ago – RAW, JPEG and why Lightroom isn’t Cheating.

Here is the image that the camera captured, it’s a conversion to JPEG without any post processing

A very short appearance by a Short Eared Owl this afternoon

13th March 20169th October 2017Craig Rogers

I waited for an hour for one to take to appear, it did one lap of the field (unfortunately too far away from me) then landed in the long grass for 5 minutes before clearing off not to be seen again.

I did manage to get close enough to take a shot of it sitting in the grass.

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}

Short Eared Owl - D810, AF-S 500mm f/4 @ 500mm, f/5.6, ISO280, 1/400sec - {Flickr Link}

Backlit Short Eared Owl

9th March 20169th October 2017Craig Rogers

This photo of a Shortie is taken into the Sunrise. It wasn’t too long after the sun had come above the tree line (just to the right of shot). The camera’s light meter is taking it’s reading from the light around the Owl. The light shinning through it’s wings was very bright which results in the camera underexposing the Owl add that to the -1 stop of exposure I had dialled in making the shot even darker and giving this backlit effect. Of course, post editing in Lightroom was needed to give the final effect.

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}

Backlit Shortie - D810, AF-S 500mm f/4 with TC-14III @ 700mm, f/5.6, ISO3600, 1/800sec - {Flickr Link}

Short Eared Owls

6th March 20169th October 2017Craig Rogers

This morning I was again out well before first light in hope that the Short Eared Owls would co-operate.

Over the last few trips, I’ve fired off around 20 shots, this morning I’ve almost 900 shots to go through and it’ll take a while to go through them all.

It was an amazing sighting this morning with both Owls flying around looking for food. In fact, there may have been 3 different Owls, but that’s not confirmed. I also heard 2 Little Owls calling to each other too.

{Click image for a higher resolution, click Flickr Link in caption to view photo on Flickr}

Short Eared Owl — In Flight – D810, AF-S 500mm f/4 with TC-14III @ 700mm, f/5.6, ISO1000, 1/1000sec – {Flickr Link}