Mid air Hawk owl with vole

Discussion

14 replies

Posted by Rene de Heer on March 25, 2006 at 9:08 AM

Another image from my Finland trip. Its very hard taking images of flying hawk owl. They are very speedy. It was a lot of times "hit and miss" but eventually i ended up with a couple of sharp images. The Hawk owl was lured with a wild mouse by the way.To be honest; this is the only way to get close up images of Hawk owl.

The best hit ratio i had was after the owl swooped on the mouse but its almost impossible for the camera to keep up with this flying torpedo. I both tried the 200-400 and 2.8/300 and the best results were overall with the 200-400 on the D2X.

Nikon D2X, pre focussed, handheld, 1/1000-4.5, Nikon 200-400/800ISO

Rene de Heer

Posted by Justin on March 25, 2006 at 9:31 AM

Hi Rene,

Sounds like a very tricky shot to achieve but looks like your dedication paid off.

Superb shot.

Posted by Rob Ashton on March 25, 2006 at 9:34 AM

Very effective. clean shot Rene. It is good when you get a difficult subject like this.

Rob

Posted by Nick on March 25, 2006 at 12:10 PM

its almost impossible for the camera to keep up with this flying torpedo

Ah Rene, you should have stayed with Canon

, or maybe you need a refresher course from Mr Nimblefingers - Wayne

.

A very nice shot though

Posted by Dave Courtenay on March 25, 2006 at 12:52 PM

The eyes have it,always a pleasure to see a wild owl flight shot and this one is no different-nice one

Posted by Peter Barritt on March 25, 2006 at 1:13 PM

very nice, Rene. Well done.

Posted by John MacTavish on March 25, 2006 at 1:28 PM

I'll agree with Nick....a 1 series Canon with fast glass would keep up!

Doesn't really matter though, you've got the shot and you never even had to waste any film.

I like this a lot, it's the eyes, they're mesmerising

John

Posted by Phil Shaw on March 25, 2006 at 1:29 PM

How many mice to get a photo? Whatever happened to the wildlife photography code about the doing no harm. Quite frankly, this type of baiting sickens me.

Posted by Rene de Heer on March 25, 2006 at 1:29 PM

Forget it! Canon wouldnt keep up either! I sometimes wonder why i EVER used Canon in the first place....... :

Rene de Heer

Posted by Helge Sorensen on March 25, 2006 at 4:27 PM

Fantastic shot, Rene

After having worked with Hawk Owls myself for hundreds of hours I can appreciate how difficult a shot this is

Posted by Bart Breet on March 25, 2006 at 5:18 PM

Cool shot Rene, I like this one!

Posted by Mark sellings on March 27, 2006 at 3:06 AM

Great shot, but it leaves me cold knowing how it was got - I'm with Phil on this one - no photo is ever worth staking out live bait for. i'm sure the vole will be pleased to know he went down for a worthy cause.

Mark

Posted by John Chapman on March 28, 2006 at 4:32 AM

Hi Rene
what a wonderful shot.
John
Aberdeen

Posted by Michael Sayles on March 30, 2006 at 5:35 AM

Sorry, but I'm with Mark and Phil. Knowing how the image was achieved just negates any other positive feelings I have about the image.

At the same time, I do appreciate your honesty in declaring the use of live bait.

Michael S

Posted by Andrew Forsyth on March 30, 2006 at 9:36 AM

I'm really very uncomfortable with this. Sorry Rene, but I can't support the live bait practice either.