Hello Reader !

Owls.

Love them!

How 'bout you?

One problem.

I've never actually encountered them in the wild. Not really.

Well... there was that one time in Cape Coral while visiting friends.

You might remember that story from a newsletter months back.

Burrowing Owls nesting literally two doors down from where we were staying.

Technically? Sure, it counts as "the wild."

But in my mind?

That doesn't qualify. Way too easy.

I like a challenge. A real hunt.

So the search continues.

Another problem compounding the first... I rarely get opportunities to photograph raptors in their natural habitat.

Especially in flight, wings spread, talons extended, doing their thing.

There's an old saying that's been stuck in my brain since childhood: Practice makes perfect.

Kind of impossible to practice when it's the dead of winter and I refuse to leave the house because I despise the cold.

Or when your target species treats cameras like existential threats and vanishes the second you show up.

So the next best option for building those skills?

Find a conservatory where the birds actually cooperate.

I didn't locate it myself... our daughter did.

And she wrapped it up as a birthday gift and handed it to me with a smile.

Isn't she awesome?

The Canadian Raptor Conservancy just outside Toronto offered multiple raptors to photograph.

Birds in flight.

Close-up portraits.

The whole experience.

I felt like a seven-year-old kid turned loose in a candy store with a fistful of cash.

First up on the flight line? A Great Horned Owl.

The setup was brilliant.

Two trainers positioned on opposite sides of a pond, each with food rewards.

The raptors would launch from one side and fly directly toward the other, crossing right in front of us at eye level.

Absolutely perfect for drilling birds-in-flight technique.

Settings: f/5.6 | 1/3200 | ISO 1600

…1/3200 for this size subject… slow-moving to boot?

Well, for smaller birds like songbirds, my default shutter speed for flight photos is 1/3200th.

For hummingbirds, I'll crank it all the way up to 1/8000th because their wings beat so insanely fast your brain can barely process it.

The bigger the bird or raptor, the slower they generally fly, and a more relaxed shutter speed will freeze them just fine.

But here's the critical caveat most photographers miss...

Think about it like this: if an owl is 500 feet away flying left to right across your field of view, it takes a long time... relatively speaking... to travel visually from one side of your frame to the other.

Now compare that to the same owl at 50 feet away.

It rockets across your sensor dramatically faster even though it's flying at the exact same speed.

So to compensate and keep everything razor sharp, you need a faster shutter speed the closer they get.

Which is exactly why I stayed locked at 1/3200th for all of these raptor flight photos.

And let me tell you something...

Every. Single. Second. Was worth it.

Owls gliding silently past my lens.

Hawks diving with purpose.

Falcons cutting through the air like feathered missiles.

Practice that actually felt like pure joy instead of work.

A powerful reminder that even if you can't chase the wild ones yet... even if logistics or weather or life gets in the way...

...you can still sharpen your skills and build your confidence for that moment when you finally do track them down in their natural habitat.

The practice counts.

The reps matter.

The muscle memory you build transfers.

​
Have an awesome day!

Chris Parker

Parker Photographic

P.S. My birthday was actually yesterday, but this gift and this incredible experience happened a couple years back.

Maybe she'll surprise me again next year... fingers crossed and hope springs eternal.

269 WALKER ST V5718, Detroit, Michigan 48207-4258
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​