Superbowl

From Harold Wilion

There are more than a few photographers I know that are always trying and talking about getting a shot of an owl with the moon. I'm not one of them. Not because don't think it's cool as hell, but because first of all, it usually completely slips my mind because I just can't hold much in my brain. And second, it's just such a longshot to get an owl, unobstructed, on the right branch where you can maneuver to get a shot.

But last night when this Screech landed on this branch, I started walking around it to find a shot and all of a sudden, I notice the moon and said, "holy s**t", I may actually be able to line myself up for a prized moon shot. I started panicking and hurriedly fumbled to set up my tripod before it flew. I thought I was in a decent spot and my plan was to quickly take some insurance shots and then try to maneuver to find the best angle as sometimes she flies in seconds.

I was happily clicking away thinking "hell, I'm actually getting this", when I looked at my camera monitor and noticed the word "FULL" flashing away. My heart sank. I had no idea how many shots I had already missed and started to panic. At first, I just stood there in shock pondering the best course of action. I had another card in my pocket but didn't remember if that was also full and tried to decide the quickest way to get up and running again. I decided to just try to quickly delete some shots I got on her earlier perch. I probably deleted a half dozen shots when I thought it was taking too long, grabbed a few more shots and quickly filled the card again. Then I decided I really had to delete a bunch and do it quick.

My camera allows me to delete all shots taken on a certain date and I fumbled through the menus with my heart beating out of my chest and my hands shaking as I navigated to the oldest day of photos on my card, sometime back in August, and hit delete. Minutes seemed like hours as I watched all the great poses she was giving me, but not able to capture them. Finally, before the deletion process ended, she flew. I felt sick. I hurriedly looked at my monitor to see if I got anything useable. I got a couple poses with decent sharpness, one of which is this one, but missed all the good poses. In this shot, she's coughing up a pellet, and the creepiness would probably make a good Halloween photo. I'll post another shot in a day or two figuring I might as well milk this moon shoot as much as possible even though I usually tend not to post multiple similar images.

But this entire situation should and could have been avoided if I wasn't such a moron. I've actually gone through this exact scenario the last 3 times I went out shooting (I just never learn!) because I didn't want to format the memory card because I didn't know if there were any decent photos on it that I didn't upload yet. There are days I don't even upload photos and was afraid of accidentally deleting something I might actually want. I just keep forgetting. So, the moral of the story is, don't be a moron like me!

1/13 sec @ ISO 10,000 f2.8