Every year is a new thrill. This was a good one, no clouds, no moon, a goodly number of meteors, and great settings. Many meteors to the east and southeast, both lower and higher in the sky. Mostly shot between 9:30pm and 1:00am Night one was in Paonia, CO. Night two was on the N Fork of the Gunnison near Paonia Reservoir. The river was lined up with the Milky Way. That was fortuitous. Night three was again in Paonia, but the feature was clouds and lightning, not as crisp as I would like, but dramatic. All were shot with a Z9, 14mm Rokinon, with the same settings as mojaveflyer - 20 sec, ISO 3200, f2.4. Post processing was in Lightroom. Masked the sky and foreground separately. I have another 20 or 30 pictures that I will stack when I have some time.
Marty
mrtk.smugmug.com
Beautiful bird. Great shots.
I enjoy your work. Thanks. Keep em coming.
Thanks very much tcthome. The Z9 is quite the camera. Now if they would only ship the 600 tc
Thanks very much srsincary. I appreciate the comments
Thanks very much J-SPEIGHT
Thanks rockdog I’m glad you enjoyed the pictures.
The photos are the gravy. The info about the shots is certainly worth sharing. The info about the owl is really fascinating. The GGO is the tallest owl, has a five foot wingspan, with males weighing about 2 1/2 pounds (he's mostly feathers). His flight is absolutely silent. His skull is about the size of a fist. His many layers of feathers makes his head much larger. The feathers protect his face when diving into snow, face first, up to a foot deep in search of prey. His hearing is exceptional thanks to his bifocal ears and conical face shape. He hears the vole moving under the snow and is unerring when he attacks. He swallows his prey whole. That's why he hunts small mammals. Truly a remarkable critter.
These were shot several years ago with a Tamron 150-600 at 600mm on a D850, 1/2500, ISO 4000. The Z9 and f/4 lens with a TC 1.4 is a whole other ballgame.
Between the z9 and denoise life is good. Thanks for looking.
Thanks very much. Glad you liked them. The GGOs are usually deadly. I've never seen them miss that much not even through a foot of snow. The grass was deep and wet. He only went down a handful of times in those two hours and forty five minutes. Maybe the voles were scarce. Maybe an off day. A friend saw a couple owls the next day in another meadow and they were more successful. Go figure.
Thank you ver much PAR4DCR