I have filmed some footage of the owl in the evening, the same day the footage for this submission was shot. However, the 100-400mm lens has a maximum aperture of 5.6 @ 400mm and then with a 2X teleconverter, I lose 2 more stops of light. Without the teleconverter, I'm still hard pressed at 5.6 to get enough sensitivity before the image breaks down from noise in the waning light...obviously the faster the glass, the cost is almost exponential. The 100-400mm is a costly, but effective compromise lens for me right now.

The slow motion from the 7D is quite tricky. Easy to use, but if you've read about aliasing and moire from this camera, it is most severe in the 720p60 mode. In an organic shot, its not too bad...but sometimes it is almost unusable. Certainly not as smooth as the 720p60 from the Panasonic HVX200.

I recorded the sound with a Zoom H4n separately and laid it over the footage. I live outside Washington DC, not a humongous city, but there are 3 different airports, 2 of which at least have airplane paths over my city and so every 3-5 minutes, there is the distant drone of jet engines from 5,000-10,000ft. Typically not something you're conscious of until you're recording nature audio. :-) One of the costs of amazing travel I suppose.

Thanks for your comments.

I was quite pleased and a little surprised with the Owl as well. While I often first spot them taking flight when I approach, I was able to get relatively close to this one without it flying off again.

Yes. I am monotone. I recorded the narration several times before I just decided to put one of the last takes in because they all sounded the same just about. Haha. I'm definitely not a "host" personality but need to work on it a little at least if I'm going to make more of these. :-)

I wonder if the teleconverter works out on the Canon DSLR setup because of how it is a larger sensor and so the image degredation isn't as accentuated by a small 1/4"-1/2" sensor size?

Thanks for the comments.