This is another instalment in my local businesses series, where I visit somewhere interesting near where I live and try to do justice to the place and the people with my cameras. Wren Birds of Prey is run by Jenny, a falconer with a strong rescue focus, and her birds are the kind of subjects you have to keep yourself from photographing badly. Each one is a personality.
I went out with one camera (the Stenopeika Air Force 4x5) and two lenses (the trusty Schneider Symmar 210mm and my brand new Nikkor SW 65mm), which is the kind of restraint I try to manage on these shoots but rarely actually do. I will tell you about Wren, about Jenny’s birds, about the photographs (which were genuinely tricky), and about the 65mm lens, which is the article’s secondary story.
The 65mm Nikkor was new to me on this shoot. I had said in my first Stenopeika video that the camera could take a 65mm super-wide lens but that I would not rush out and buy one. Within about ten minutes of finishing that video I had bought one. This was its first real outing.
What Wren Birds of Prey is
Wren is a small bird of prey sanctuary near me, with a strong rescue focus and a generous policy of offering photography days where you can come and shoot the birds in proper conditions with the falconer’s help.
The rescue work matters. Jenny told me something I had not realised: in the UK, you can buy a bird of prey online with no licence required. People do, often without any knowledge of how to look after such an animal. The result is birds in poor condition, sometimes kept in unsuitable spaces, sometimes neglected for years. Many of Jenny’s birds come from such situations.
Birds of prey live a long time in captivity. Mumbles, the Indian eagle owl I photographed, will live to 30 or 40 years and is only 16 now. Tilly, the Harris Hawk, is 11. Saxon, the common buzzard, is 7. These are commitments measured in decades, and people who buy birds online without understanding this find themselves with a long-lived responsibility they did not sign up for.
Wren takes some of these birds in and rehabilitates them. Tilly had not been flown for ten years when she arrived; Jenny has been working on her fitness ever since. Mumbles has only been with Jenny a few days but is already being assessed for flight work. The aim is always to get the birds flying, because it is best for them physically and behaviourally.
If you are anywhere near and you want to spend time with extraordinary birds, book a day with Jenny. It is the kind of small operation that quietly does enormous good and deserves the support.
The simpler shoot, in theory
I had been over-ambitious on my previous local businesses shoot (Jolies Fleurs in Thornbury, with the Mamiya Super 23 and Speed Graphic). I had brought too many cameras and not got enough of any of them to count. This time I was determined to be more disciplined. One camera, the Stenopeika 4x5. Two lenses. Just enough sheets to do meaningful work without splattering film around.
So a more restrained kit. The shoot was still ambitious because photographing birds of prey on 4x5 is genuinely hard, but at least I had reduced the number of things that could go wrong.
The birds, it turns out, were the variable I had not properly accounted for.
![PLACEHOLDER: George the bird at his perch outside the main building at Wren, before any photography attempts]
George, the first bird
We started with George (a Harris Hawk I think, although my notes are vague). Jenny brought him out and set him on a perch. I framed with the 210mm Schneider at f/5.6, light meter saying 1/40th. Standard bird portrait setup.
The first frame went well. George held his pose. Jenny held him in position. I cocked the shutter, pulled the dark slide, exposed, replaced. Got a frame I am happy with.
A second frame, slightly different angle. Also fine.
Then I tried to get a super close-up of George’s face. This is where it got hard. With significant bellows extension on the Stenopeika, the depth of field at f/5.6 is millimetres wide. Any movement of the bird’s head, in any direction, takes him out of focus. And birds move their heads constantly. They are watching. They are turning to track sounds. They are blinking. They are doing everything except holding still on the millimetre-scale that 4x5 close work requires.
I got the frame. The bird had moved by the time the shutter fired. Out of focus.
Lesson noted. Close-up bird portraits on 4x5 are extremely difficult.
Mumbles, the Indian eagle owl
We moved to a different location for the next bird: a lovely overgrown shed with iron bench fittings and dense green foliage behind. Jenny brought out Mumbles, the Indian eagle owl who had been with her only a few days.
Mumbles has eyes that are genuinely incredible. Massive amber discs that seem to take in everything. Anyone who has spent time with owls knows the effect: the gaze is intense, the head movements are precise and silent, the bird is processing the world in a way that feels alien and present at the same time.
She also did not like my dog Winnie, who was sitting nearby. Mumbles spent the shoot watching Winnie with mild suspicion, which gave her an alert, slightly tense expression that worked beautifully on film.
I made three frames:
Frame 1: black and white on FP4 Plus with the Schneider 210mm at f/9. Standard portrait setup, mumbles on the perch with the foliage soft behind her. The black and white was deliberate because the house in the background would have distracted in colour. Got the frame I wanted.
Frame 2: same composition with the new Nikkor SW 65mm. This was the experiment. Coming in close with a super-wide gives you a totally different feeling: the bird dominates the frame but the surroundings are pulled into the composition, the perspective compresses, you can see more of the world the bird is in. Genuinely different aesthetic.
Frame 3: same composition in colour on Kodak Portra 400. Repeated the 65mm shot in colour just to compare what each rendering produced.
Then I attempted a super close-up of just Mumbles’ eyes with the 210mm. Same problem as George: razor-thin depth of field, owl moving her head minutely, shutter firing fractionally after the moment I had focused on. The keeper rate on super close-ups was low.
![PLACEHOLDER: Mumbles the Indian eagle owl on her perch with the Nikkor 65mm SW, showing the super-wide perspective on the bird against the foliage backdrop]
What the Nikkor 65mm SW does
The new lens is the article’s secondary story.
The Nikkor SW 65mm f/4 is a super-wide for 4x5. It is the widest lens the Stenopeika Air Force 4x5 can take with standard bellows configuration. On 4x5, 65mm is equivalent to roughly a 20mm lens on 35mm. Seriously wide.
A few observations from this first outing:
The 65mm gives you a perspective that no other lens in my 4x5 kit can. The 210mm Schneider is standard-ish (equivalent to roughly 65mm on 35mm). The 65mm Nikkor goes much wider. Suddenly compositions open up that were not previously available to me.
It works beautifully on subjects with strong foregrounds. The Mumbles shot with the foliage and the bench framing the bird is the kind of composition the 65mm makes possible. With a longer lens, you would lose all the context. With this lens, the context becomes part of the image.
The depth of field at wide apertures is generous for such a wide lens. I shot at f/4 wide open for one of the frames and still had usable depth of field across the subject. Worth knowing for low-light work.
The build quality is great. Modern Nikkor large format lenses are beautifully made. This one is in a Copal 0 shutter with reliable behaviour.
My main complaint: it is heavy and bulky for what it is. The front element is big, the shutter is full-sized, the overall mass adds noticeably to the camera kit. For travel work this matters more than it does for the kind of “drive to a location, walk a short way, set up” shooting I usually do.
I am completely sold. The 65mm is going to be a regular part of my 4x5 work from here onward.
On the focal length point more generally
A wider observation from this shoot, building on what I have said about lens choice in other articles.
I do not like 50mm equivalent focal lengths. Not on 35mm (where 50mm itself is, in my view, the boring middle), not on medium format (where 80mm on 6x6 or 75mm on 6x4.5 leave me cold), and not on 4x5 (where the standard 150mm lens has never excited me).
The Stenopeika came with the standard kit pairing. A 150mm-ish Schneider Symmar that everyone sells as the “first 4x5 lens.” It is fine. It is competent. It bores me.
The 210mm I used here is what I reach for most. Slightly longer than standard, good for portraits and tighter compositions, gives me the kind of compressed perspective that suits how I see.
The 65mm Nikkor SW gives me the other end: genuinely wide, dramatic, the kind of lens that creates compositions rather than just framing them.
Between the 210mm and the 65mm, I might genuinely never use the 150mm again. Two lenses that go to the extremes of what 4x5 can do, skip the boring middle, and let me make photographs that have a point of view.
This applies to your kit too. The boring middle focal length is where most amateur photographers default to because it is “natural” or “neutral.” But neutral is also forgettable. Pick lenses with character.
What worked and what didn’t
The honest verdict on the morning’s frames.
Worked: the standard portraits of George and Mumbles with the 210mm. Sharp, well-composed, properly lit by the available natural light. The Nikkor 65mm shots of Mumbles with the foliage. The colour Portra 400 frame held its own against the black and white versions.
Didn’t work: the super close-up attempts. As discussed, the depth of field and bird movement combination is brutal. I got a couple of acceptable-ish close-up frames but the keeper rate was much lower than on the wider compositions.
For future bird of prey shoots on 4x5: stick to portrait-distance work. Forget super close-ups. The technical difficulty is not worth the failure rate. If I want tight bird portraits, a medium format SLR with a longer lens is the right tool for the job, same as for wildlife generally.
I am planning to take the best black and white frame of Mumbles out to the darkroom and print it properly to give to Jenny as a thank-you for accommodating me for the day. That is the right kind of result for a 4x5 shoot at a place like Wren. One excellent print to mark a good morning, not fifty mediocre digital snaps.
What’s next
The Stenopeika and the new 65mm are coming with me to South Africa in the next week or so. I will be there for work and will try to do some serious large format work in a totally different landscape, and yes, I will also try wildlife on 4x5 because someone in the comments will challenge me to and I will accept.
Big thanks to Jenny at Wren Birds of Prey for the morning, the birds, the patience with my slow camera, and the obvious care she has for every bird in her sanctuary. If you are anywhere near the West Country and want to spend time with extraordinary birds, book a day with her. Genuinely one of the best ways to spend a morning I have found.
For more on the camera at the heart of this shoot, my first impressions of the Stenopeika Air Force 4x5 cover what the camera does generally. This article is the first real test of what it can do when paired with the right wide lens. The 65mm Nikkor SW gets a strong recommendation from me. Worth the money. Worth carrying. Worth using.
Comments below if you have shot at Wren yourself or have your own experiences with the Nikkor 65mm on 4x5. I would be curious to hear from anyone who uses this lens regularly.