We decided to give France a miss this autumn and take the caravan to God’s Own County for a few days.

I also thought it wise to avoid attracting the attention of the Tyke Thrift Police by showing extravagant camera purchases when out of their jurisdiction.

 So I left my long lenses at home. Well let’s face it, the weather forecast was five days of wind and rain with most activities indoors (getting my moneys worth out of NT and EH subscriptions) so why would I need long lenses? I even wondered if I should just take the iPhone.

Pitched the caravan facing a rough pasture. And was greeted by the sight of a lovely barn owl quartering the said pasture.

A guy in the next caravan spotted it and was trying to capture images with his Nikon D3200 and 500mm lens. He confessed his inexperience, so I waded in with some help. Myself?  I was limited to 100mm. So short of actually bumping into the owl I had no chance of any images of worth. 

After 2 evening with this owl grabbing half the voles in Yorkshire neither of us had secured anything decent. 

That’s when I noticed him correcting the focus on the lens barrel after the auto focus acquired beep. Asked why, he said he didn’t think the image was sharp enough. I discovered he hadn’t adjusted the eye piece diopter to his eyes!!

By the 3rd night he was getting good static shots when the bird stopped swooping about but was having problems holding the flying bird in view.

That’s when the penny dropped…DX 1.4x on 500mm = 700mm and little chance of keeping flying bird in frame. 

By the 5th night (it rained on the 4th) we had got his hunting pattern sussed so went down the field to a secluded corner and waited.

Getting savaged by Yorkshire gnats was a small price to pay for a good shot of a hunting owl.


The little feathery b***ard had different ideas and decided to grab the vole 3-4metres in front my caravan!! The wife got a ‘cracking view’ while preparing dinner.

This is all I got (massive crop) with 100mm across the other side of the field….



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Lots of lessons here….expect the unexpected, take all your lenses, sit and wait for the subject to come closer to you, don’t stand in hedgerow at dusk without mossie protection….leave it to the experts.

This is the full frame shot ( at 12,800 iso)  to get an idea of the crop quality loss ….



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Last edited on Thu Sep 28th, 2023 13:23 by