February 2024 - OM System Newsletter
Using High Res mode for wildlife photos
It was March 2022, the days had started to warm up a bit and I was sitting in the garden one late afternoon when I heard the call.
It was a tawny owl, and it was close!
I ran up to my office and grabbed my OM-1 camera with the M.Zuiko 300mm f/4 attached and put the 1.4x teleconverter in my pocket.
It took me a while to find the source of the call, but after I found the whitewash down one of the larch trees it didn’t take too long before I saw the tawny owl perched close to the main trunk of the tree.
The owl was high up so I decided to walk further away and put my teleconverter on for a reach of 420mm (840mm ff eq). By going further back I’m not shooting up at such a steep angle and I achieve an effect of being slightly more at eye level.
I took many images that afternoon, but it wasn’t until twilight came that I thought the light looked really good, and the darker quality of the light seemed to fit the owl much more.
However, my settings were now f/5.6, 1/60s and an ISO of 16000!!!
That’s when I decided to try the high res mode on my OM-1. I have a quick button assigned for this feature as I tend to use it every now and then.
With the same settings I got an image using high res mode which gave me a much larger file with more details, but to my surprise there was also no noise present in the image.
Whenever I come across an animal that sits still I try to remember to use High Res mode.
