By Harold Wilion

This male flew to this hole where the female has been hanging out lately. and was just looking into the hole for a while. Those of us that were there were just praying he would turn around for a turnaround shot like this before going into the hole. He finally gave us a quick turn, of which was only able to get one frame of, before popping into the hole.

The problem with shooting these guys when it’s dark is how long it can take to focus and how short of a time they give you to shoot. I pre-focused on the back of his head, but had to try to tweak when he turned around. I have to shoot wide open when it gets this dark, and the depth of field is so shallow, even if you are off an inch it will affect the area you want in focus, which is usually the eye. If you look at his back feathers, you can see how quickly they get out of focus as they get closer to the camera. I am usually faced with a similar situation sometimes many times in the course of an evening. They are so quick, if they have their back to me, a look-back can literally last a fraction of a second, and although they may stay on a given perch minutes, it’s often just seconds. Like my friend Karl always says, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.