Barn Owls ISO 4000

Once the light goes, the K3 gets put in the bag and the K5 comes out. Nevertheless I was all packed up and ready to come home in near darkness when Barnie decided to put in a belated appearance

Still noise reduction on these big crops

Just sharing, to demonstrate that the K5 is still a fine camera in low light despite its critics. No specific critique required. I know I'm not gonna win any prizes with shots at ISO 4000

K5, DA 300, and 1.4x TC


Low Light Barn Owl by Alan Wennington, on Flickr


Low light Barn Owl 2 by Alan Wennington, on Flickr

Alan, these shots have the texture and appearance of the quality of the Snowman cartoon and that went down a treat. Both excellent images, regardless of the conditions.

Best regards

A competition in which the quality of an image is judged by it's ISO isn't worth entering

I read an article recently which compared todays technology with what was available to bird photographers back in the 70's & 80's, where generally they'd have to accept much slower shutter speeds than ideal , so not many freeze-frame pin sharp images like we see regularly now.

The author showed some shots that were published on the front cover of magazines in the 80's that now , on here, would be written off for softness and grain - poor technique even. It shows how far technology has come.

Even I don't find the colour noise on these shots an issue, I'm sure a bit of colour channel work pulling down the green or blue or even just some de-saturation with the sponge would sort easily.

Very nice Alan. Can I ask how you achieve the white background on these shots?

Thanks for feedback Gary - much appreciated.

Smeggy, there is reduced detail due to the low light, but you knew that

Thanks gwing. Background isn't exactly white. However, dark greyish sky with a hint of blue. Exposing for the bird simply brightens the sky up.

Corrected the white balance globally based upon the flank of the bird in #1 and the front edge of the wing in #2. If that had been golden I would have left it, however, a blue tinged barn owl isn't so attractive

Thanks for your feedback too Nigel. Didn't spend much time on these. I was surprised to get anything remotely useable it just seemed so dark and foreboding at the time. It was much lighter when I got home 30 minutes later. I should have hung around a bit longer