Flight of the Great Horned Owl

Around sunset, the mother of the GHO chicks I've been showing becomes active and flies from tree to tree always landing in a place where she has a view of the nest. In this case she went from a very tall oak tree to a pine tree and I captured her in the last glow of the sunset. Using 40 FPS allowed me to have some frames were she was mostly visible as there were trees between us.

1) Launch
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 6400 ISO +2.0 EV

2) Descending
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 6400 ISO +2.0 EV

3) Continuing to descend
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 6400 ISO +2.0 EV

4) Leveling out
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 6400 ISO +2.0 EV

5) Uncropped image showing what I was shooting through
X-H2S NIKON AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens 500mm f/5.6 1/1600s 6400 ISO +2.0 EV

Comments and suggestions welcome,

Morris

Very nice and love the 4th one Morris.

Danny.

Thank you Danny

Morris

Very Nice Morris.....I've heard there are a couple 'round where I live but only heard them in
the early morning hours before sunrise. Nice to see images.

Best Mike

That's an excellent set, Morris. The 3rd image in the sequence is very nice. I'm impressed with how clean the image is in such low light...and how well the X-H2S tracks focus in low light. Of course, the photographer tracking a launching bird through tree branches played a key role, too :)

[edit: 3rd image in the sequence]

Yeah, I'm beginning to think Morris might know what he's doing with a camera. 😁

Fantastic set Morris. I really like #2. It's too bad there is that bit of branch in front of the leading wing.

Thank you Mike,

They are most active around sunrise and sunset. They are very well camouflaged and there is a good chance you have walked right past them

Morris

Thank you Bill,

The third is my pick as well. Any image I take with the X-H2s with an ISO above 1600 is processed first in DXO Pure RAW using there new Prime XD noise reduction. It dose an amazing job of bring out detail and not smearing as it dose the noise reduction. I have my camera set to stay with the predicted focus as long as possible which avoids hunting and then having to jump back into focus when the subject reappears. I do the same continuing my pan and burst in a situation like this.

Morris

Thank you Fred,

Sometimes obstruction can help an image yet in the case of the second it's not.

Morris