I recently showed this old image of a Short-eared Owl at sunset, both on these pages and in other locations. I had some questions (in those other locations) so I reposted the picture with the caption you see below the picture. This picture has sliver thin depth of field (point of focus) and can look pretty bad on some web pages.

The caption for the picture at those other locations was………………………………………….

Ancient History from 2/20/2006. The technology of photography moves on.

I have my share of old film pictures of wildlife bathed in the first or last light of the day. Even in earlier digital days, the likelihood of any technical perfection was eons below today. With high-resolution sensors, the possibility of using high ISOs, the ability to make large crops without a debilitating loss of quality, this is a good time to be a photographer. Those possibilities are becoming seemingly endless. Of course today’s hardware will also eventually become obsolete. A few years in the future, someone else will be writing an article just like this one.

This picture was made with a 500mm manual focus (no VR/IS) lens at 200 ISO, a 6 megapixel camera, using a throw pillow for support while I was in my car. The color of light on the bird is 100% natural.

I would invite anybody to create images of a wild animal under those conditions and with that equipment. Any resulting useable images that would convey the feeling of the moment, and the mood that existed when viewing the bird, would be satisfying, trust me.

That being said, I can’t help but imagine the potential image that might have resulted with some of the advantages available today. If only we could have do-overs with selected images every five or ten years!

God Bless,                                                                                                                                                    Wayne