Garth Peacock
Kevin Robson's Tawny Owl hide

Archive

Somewhere new to visit

Monday 14th October 2024

Friday 4th October - North Norfolk

Monday 7th October 2024

Tanzania Day 8 - The Serengeti

Saturday 5th October 2024

Two trips out with little to show.

Wednesday 25th September 2024

Tanzania Day 7 - The Serengeti

Monday 23rd September 2024

Abberton Reservoir - again

Thursday 19th September 2024

Abberton Essex

Wednesday 11th September 2024

A morning at Grafham Water

Thursday 29th August 2024

After holiday blues

Thursday 22nd August 2024

Trying out a new lens

Monday 5th August 2024

Tanzania Day 5 - Ngorogoro Crater

Saturday 27th July 2024

Kevin Robson's Tawny Owl hide

Thursday 25th July 2024

Local stuff

Saturday 20th July 2024

More local stuff

Saturday 29th June 2024

Catching up with a local rarity

Friday 14th June 2024

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Thursday 25th July 2024

I have been to Kevin's Tawny Owl set up in the two previous years and decided to give it another go this year - last Thursday 18th July to be precise.

I was rather unsure as to whether it would work out as previously I took my 500 f4 prime lens as the lighting is by strobe lights and not flash so low  shutter speeds would be necessary. This time, I took my Canon R5 with the RF 100-500 lens but, at 500 mm, the aperture is f7.1 so much slower.

The Owls came in quite early and, quite frankly were there for most of the evening - the mother and two Owlets but the mother did not stay long leaving the stage to the youngsters.

After a load of perched shots at 1/60th second shutterspeed, I decided to try upping the shutter speed (with the resulting much higher ISO) to around1/400th second - ISO 12,800.

I was trying for some activity with the expected loads of blurred shots but the occasional one relatively sharp (providing you do not look too closely).

And then one shot that came out just acceptable after considerable work in Lightroom, Topaz Denoise and Photo AI - 1/400th second at ISO 12,800.

and then back to the usual 1/60th second for an unusual pairing of the two Owlets.

And, by the way, there was a rather brief visit from pair of Muntjac's - mother and well-grown fawn.

Many of my photos were acceptable - more in the Recent Additions section - but with a library of nearly 100 photos of Tawny Owl, I deleted most of the perched shots. Still an enjoyable evening.

Now back to the day job - the final editing and posting of the photos from Day 4 of the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.