In the Field

Great Gray Owl - Sunrise Sentinel. Lac du Bonnet region, Manitoba, Canada. March 16, 2013.

Catching a Great Gray Owl perched on a snag just a few feet above ground - and in the warm light of sunrise - is a darned good way to warm one's spirit when it's about -25C outside! It's funny how you can forget about how cold your hands and feet are when there's a cooperative owl mugging for you!

I captured this image doing something I rarely do - using a teleconverter. In this case it was a 2x teleconverter (the TC-20EIII) combined with my favourite overall wildlife lens - my 400mm f2.8 VR. My bias against teleconverters is pretty simple - even under great conditions (enough light to stop down and still retain a blur-minimizing high shutter speed) they always reduce image sharpness at least SOME. How much they reduce sharpness varies with a lot of factors, including the lens they're paired with. My own past testing has shown that one lens the TC-20EIII does real well with is the 400mm f2.8 VR (see my TC-20EIII Field Test for more info on how this TC pairs up with an assortment of additional Nikkor lenses). In most situations I will opt to shoot a longer focal length lens "native" (sans teleconverter) rather than adding a teleconverter to a "shorter" lens, but in the real world one can carry only so much camera gear. In this case, I was on my first trip to the region I shot this image and I wasn't sure if my 400mm or my 600mm would be the best lens choice. But logistics prevented me from bringing both my 400mm and 600mm lenses along on the trip. So, I opted to take my 400mm f2.8 VR and both my 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. No one can argue that carrying a few teleconverters is a whole lot easier than throwing a 600mm lens in your pack "just in case"! When this owl posed in this great light I knew I had enough light to add on the 2x teleconverter and stop down the aperture enough to ensure a decently sharp image. I also knew that with such a long focal length (800mm) I'd be able to stop down and STILL throw the background nicely out-of-focus (to make the owl pop out from what could have been a distracting background).

There are always compromises when shooting with teleconverters - sometimes it's a reduction in autofocus capability, sometimes it's related to the losing one to two stops of light, sometimes it's image sharpness, and sometimes it's a lack of control of one's preferred depth of field. But for me, once in a while they CAN prove their worth and "pay" for their spot in my camera bag!

Note: This image was captured during a trip in 2013 that will form the basis of my "Owls of Manitoba" photo tour in March of 2014. For more details about this great owl photography trip, just check out just check out the Photo Tours page of this website!

Behind the Camera

Great Gray Owl - Sunrise Sentinel. Lac du Bonnet region, Manitoba, Canada. March 16, 2013.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 450.

Nikon D4 paired with Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VRII prime lens plus 2x TC-20EIII teleconverter (800mm focal length). Supported on Gitzo 1348 tripod with Wimberley head. VR on and in normal mode.

1/800s @ f9; -0.67 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting. Auto ISO engaged with shutter speed set to "Auto" (1/focal length of lens).

At the Computer

Great Gray Owl - Sunrise Sentinel. Lac du Bonnet region, Manitoba, Canada. March 16, 2013.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass/capture sharpening using Capture One Pro version 7. Three raw variants (processed from raw) differing by a total of 1.0 stops in exposure.

Further digital corrections on resulting 16-bit TIFF files using Adobe's Photoshop CS6 and Light Craft's Lightzone. Photoshop adjustments included compositing the raw conversion exposure variants, selective minor tweaks to exposure, selective colour saturation and desaturation, and selective sharpening for web output. Final tone tweaking performed using tonemapper/re-light tool in Lightzone.

Conservation

Great Gray Owl - Sunrise Sentinel. Lac du Bonnet region, Manitoba, Canada. March 16, 2013.

Species Status in Canada*: Not at risk.

The Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa) is North America's largest (but not heaviest) owl. This rodent-eating specialist and resident of northern boreal foress shows a moderately strong preference for areas nears bogs and especially along forest edges. It is the only member of its genus to breed in both the old and new worlds.

While the Great Gray Owl is not considered to be at risk in Canada, timber harvest - and the subsequent removal of large diameter trees typically used for nesting, roosting, and hunting - can have great impact on their populations. In Manitoba (where this Great Gray was photographed) their preferred habitat may be threatened by forestry, peat extraction, and agriculture.

*as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada