Sometimes the best mornings are the coldest mornings (smile). It was a dark and frigid start with ice fog and hoarfrost everywhere, but I couldn't find an owl to save my life! Just as the ice fog was burning off and the sky lit up in all of its magenta glory, there she was.

Cold weather photo tip: Be sure to acclimatize your camera and lens to the cold! It is really important to allow your camera and lens to adjust to the outdoor temperature; If the lens is not the same temperature as the outdoor air that you are photographing in, then the lens elements become unstable resulting in distortion or an image that is not razor sharp. This is especially true of lenses that use fluorite elements!

Why do lenses use fluorite elements? Optically clear transparent fluorite lenses have low dispersion, so lenses made from it exhibit less chromatic aberration, making them valuable in high-quality camera lenses, microscopes and telescopes.