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I first found the Great Horned Owl nest on March 11th. Momma Owl may have been on the nest for a few days at that point. Now, a bit over two months later she is finally off the nest. Yesterday evening I went out to take some family portraits on Mother’s Day (May 14th). Anyhow, Mom was nowhere to be seen. With my tunnel vision it took a while till discovered Mom wanted some time off and was sitting only 10 yards away. Okay, how many of you Moms out there also want time off?! This female was on her nest both incubating and brooding her owlets w/o a break for over two months straight! Shortly after I took these photographs she actually flew away to hunt. The young are starting to get bigger, and their demands for food are increasing.

At sunrise this morning Mom was back on the nest providing warmth. I was only 34F at our house, but by 10:30 am she had disappeared again. However, I easily found Poppa Owl. Over the five years of watching this pair of Great Horned Owl parents, one of them is always on guard near the nest.

All of these images were taken yesterday evening.

Poppa Great Horned Owl on Guard

Momma Great Horned Owl on Guard: This looks like two identical photos, and it is with one HUGE difference. Sony talks about a feature on their alpha cameras called “Clear Image Zoom“. This feature is different from both Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom. While “clear image zoom” is in fact digital enhancement / enlargement of the photo, Sony engineers claim that algorithms and all the focus points allow for a digital zoom capability that equals optical zoom … up to a point. Most practical examples state one should limit “clear image zoom” to a 1.7 factor. In my first image I used a 1.5 enlargement factor, while in the second photograph I only used optical zoom with a minor crop to achieve the same image. The pics were taken seconds apart. Thus, light and camera settings were 100% identical. Sony also states normal “digital zoom” which allows for an even greater zoom is NOT the same high quality as “clear image zoom”. Clear Image Zoom has a limit of a 2.0 zoom factor.

While I can not see any difference between the two images, during my test I had a harder time achieving perfect focus when using “clear image zoom”. Normal optical zoom using “spot focus” was always dead on tack sharp.

Final notes … a APS-C camera like my Sony A6300 does not have the same size sensor as a full sized sensor camera. Thus the camera’s sensor does not capture as much light as a full sized sensor camera, but normally at lower ISO settings there is negligible if any quality differences between sensor sizes … and APS-C cameras are much lighter and smaller. I was using a 70-350 mm Sony lens. Thus if one applies the 1.5 crop factor AND my 1.5 Clear Image Zoom factor my effective reach at full optical zoom of 350 mm was 787.5 mm.

Clear Image Zoom 1.5 Factor