Snowy Owl at Frenchmans Bay

[Andygod]

Very cold with blowing snow today, not a good day for taking pictures, but it's my only day off so I thought I would head down to Frenchmans Bay to see if the snowy owl was still there.  There were people out on the ice fishing, but I am very nervous on ice.  Hopefully he will be there when the ice is thicker and the sun is shining.

[cosmo3667]

I was there Friday and noted the owl dead center of te Bay but not a single person out on the ice so I stayed off too and came "Home" empty handed

[Rotarran]

That's as close as I got today:

[BoboBird]

Cool shots.

What distance was she from you guys?

What size lens are you both using?

Thanks.

[cloaca]

Those are two different owls.

[Rotarran]

Could be two different owls, I noticed that the bird in my pics is lighter...but I just attributed that to my poor camera.

I'm using an Olympus point and shoot with 36x zoom.  I got it on sale during boxing week ($130) so it is what it is.  

I was about 200m away from the bird when I took the closest picture.  It wouldn't let me much closer than that.  The camera is ok for some situations but I often get frustrated with its low light performance and long focus time.  

I'm looking at the Nikon 50x zoom which goes for $399 at Best Buy.  That's the most I can afford and I read some good things about it...definitely an improvement over the Olympus.  Still nowhere near a SLR but I can't afford an SLR...even the $399 is beyond my budget so I'm struggling with this decision.

[Andygod]

I took my picture using a Canon D40 and a Sigma 150-500 zoom.  I was further away, probably 300-400 meters zoomed in all the way and it was snowing fairly heavily.  I had to adjust the contrast in photoshop to get any kind of decent results, that couls account for the colour difference.  I am heading to Amherst Island today to look for more, but the weather doesn't seam to want to co-operate.  Unfortunately this is my only day off this week and all the owls will be heading north soon.