This is kinda cool

On the weekend, I popped over to the wildlife sanctuary to work with my new-to-me Canon T3 camera and a Sigma 18-250 lens.  I also took my "point and swear" bridge camera, a Sony DSC-HX99.  The sanctuary had recently added smaller gauge wire to some of the pens, making it harder for me to focus through the wires, so I wanted to practice different settings that 'should' minimize the bars of the pens while maximizing the focus on the bird or animal behind the bars. I also wanted to compare the efficiency of the more expensive Canon & lens to the less expensive but still versatile all-in-one Sony. 

Here's my subject, Elsa the snowy owl, who was found near starvation in 2013 and has never been able to fly well enough to be released back to the wild.  This first photo, taken on my Canon, shows you the gauge of the wire in her pen:

In this shot, with my Sony point-and-swear, I attempt to mask the wire and focus on Elsa.  It is somewhat successful, but you can still see the shadows of wires in front of her:

And this one, with my Canon and the Sigma lens (f 7.1, 1/400 sec, 250mm, ISO 1250) is almost as if the wires weren't even there!  With a bit more skill, I could probably have fine-tuned it so that even the slight blur wouldn't show. 

Pretty cool, eh?  

(None of the photos has been edited/retouched in any way except to add my signature in the corner.)