The Ayes Have it….

Snowy Owl, originally uploaded by andyskelton.

A final photo from the Hawk Conservancy batch of photos and I have an admittance to make. For the first time in about 8 months, I actually used photoshop to edit one of my photos – all the others have been straight out of the camera (I don’t even bother with RAW now as the JPG’s are more than good enough). This is not the image in question. Surely you didn’t think I would make it that easy for you, did you? Not only did I use photoshop, more specifically I used the clone tool. I know the clone tool can be useful for getting rid of unwanted items in the photo, I however had a different need or driver. An owl, there I’ve narrowed it down for you a bit, was in the middle of shredding it’s food, and as the sight of a disemboweled chick might be offensive, I painted over some feather. The things I do for you, Dear Reader(s)!

The above photo, in itself, has it’s own interest from a technical point of view. Taken with my Canon 1D4 (have I said how awesome this camera is enough yet?), and 100-400mm – due to the location of the cage and the time of day, the light was poor. As such I boosted the ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed – this photo was taken at … ISO 3,200! I remember film days, when ISO 800 would give you a grainy image – this is 4 times that sensitivity and with little or no sign of grain. What a Hoot!

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