Oct 11, 2018 | B&W Photography, Landscape Photography
The story of the Grand Tetons to me is often best told in B&W. Their size, majesty, and sheer beauty fly off the page in those tones. And when you add fresh snow, well I just gotta express that all in B&W. And if there is one thing the Z7 does extremely well, it’s B&W! It’s then no surprise that I’ve spent my week in the Grand Tetons with the Z7 shooting B&W, and I’m loving my results!
Playing dodge with the snow front, the Tetons pop in and out. And when they do that at the same time with the sun, I’ve got the 180-400VR trained on those spots. Since I want to use the Z7, I’m connecting the two with the FTZ and the combo as you can see works out beautifully! The best part as far as I’m concerned is the post-processing, that because there is none! If you’ve followed my blog for years, it seems about every six months I find a better way to post process my B&W. Now, I just take them out of the camera and go! And since the snow just stopped, it’s time to do just that, go! mtc
Oct 10, 2018 | Landscape Photography
Mt Moran & Grand Tetons
captured by Z7 / Z24-70
Wow, just wow! That doesn’t even really sum up our time so far in the Grand Tetons. The sun found us at The Oxbow watching as the snow started to settle in for the day. Before it closed in, the sun squeaked through to light up the peaks and fall color for a spectacular sunrise. I shot with just the Z7 / Z24-70 until the light was squeezed out then I turned to longer to capture some gorgeous B&W. Shooting hand-held at 1/25 was pretty darn easy with the captured by Z7 / Z24-70 which made the shooting not only fun, but successful. mtc
Oct 3, 2018 | Landscape Photography
You know that for me to think about, let alone actually do, macro photography, it must have been easy and fun. Well, it was just that! Fall color in one corner of our property is blazing so with the rain we were having and its soft light, I went out to see what I could find. So I grabbed the Z7 / FTZ / 60f2.8macro and explored. With the leaves at eyelevel and the lightweight rig (and almost no breeze!), it was fun looking for raindrops suspended on the leaves. The FTZ, 60f2.8macro combo worked great! That extra length added to the 60f2.8macro by the FTZ made it easier to hand-hold. So then it was just getting on my artsy fastsy funk to find the photo.
I personally like shooting the Z7 in Continuous H (extended) because I don’t loose site of the subject while shooting. I was shooting in Dynamic-area AF and with the Z7‘s 493 AF Sensors, I was able to select the AF sensor at the bottom of the frame to grab hold of the drop. That was so sweet! I shot at f/8 as I didn’t want a ton of DoF, just a tad. Then while standing in the rain, I shot a couple hundred images. Yep, the camera, lens, Sadie and I got pretty soaked. We all dried off just fine and while Sadie curled up in front of the fire, I checked out my images. I gotta tell you, this rig made shooting macro pretty darn easy and I really like the results. No, it’s not enough to get me to do macro photography regularly, but I might play with it just a little bit more now!
Oct 2, 2018 | Wildlife Photography
I wish I knew the genesis of some of the photographs I want to capture. I have this unspoken list that often I don’t know I have until I see the photograph appear in my viewfinder. I’ve worked with Bison for decades and have thousands of images in my files taken in many different habitats in all sorts of weather. Yet with all of that, certain images still elude me that I want. Why I want them I can’t tell you. Be it someone else’s image that has inspired me, a “possible” photo my imagination conjured up or a combination of the two, it’s in my head in either case.
This past week at Roosevelt Nat’l Park offered me one of those opportunities. It was early morning, twenty-nine degrees out as the sun popped over the horizon. There beside the road was a gorgeous Bison bull, it’s fur coated in a layer of frost. As the sun struck him, the frost turned to steam. I watched through the D5 / 180-400VR as he slowly turned just a tad so rather than being all backlit, he was now a combination of backlit/sidelit and that glancing light lit him up a tad but more importantly, the steam from his back and breathe. I got quite a chuckle that the first image caught his tongue sticking out, a symbol of my years looking for this image. But then I caught the shot and that made me very happy.
Sep 28, 2018 | Landscape Photography
My total enchantment with Roosevelt Nat’l Park just grows and grows! There isn’t really a corner you turn in the road that isn’t a new visual symphony of color, shapes, and textures. And with the coming of fall sprinkles yellows amongst the tan sandstone.
There are two units of Roosevelt, southern and northern. These photos are from the Northern which as a single, fourteen mile round winding through its landscape. It’s just gorgeous! mtc
Sep 27, 2018 | B&W Photography
The sandstone formations the make Roosevelt Nat’l Park have me in their grasp! They are so unique, every shape and size amongst the most unique settings. You have no idea if this is a mountain or a mole hill which is why I shot it with the D850 / 8-15Fish. Just a facinating place!
