Feb 11, 2011 | Wildlife Photography
The moment I saw her, I was in love! She had spent some time on the downward wind side of a thermal and when the steam hit in the cold, it coated her in a splendid winter jacket. We stopped and we shot and as how things often happened, nature moved in our direction.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp14601.swf,595, 484 [/swf]
What does that mean? The herd slowly walked to us so the distance was closed at their leisure.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP14181.swf,404, 600 [/swf]
Yeah, it was real simple. With the ice drops hanging frozen from her eyelids and just about everywhere else, she posed at point blank range just long enough to make the shot. It was an amazing Bison day!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP17321.swf,404, 600 [/swf]
Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film
Feb 9, 2011 | Wildlife Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp98911.swf, 402, 600 [/swf]
Our third stop was with the incredibly cooperative Bald Eagle. I’ve never spent so much time with a Yellowstone Bald Eagle as this one which stayed on this one perch for two and a half hours! We spent an hour with him, leaving once the light was too much for my taste. I wish we’d been on him much earlier because the hoar frost on the tree where he was perched was to die for! That’s what really made the shot which disappeared as time went on and the day warmed up to zero degrees. But let’s look at the major problem with this shoot. Can you tell what it is?
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp99851.swf, 595, 482 [/swf]
If you said background, you hit the nail on the head! The top shot is the very first vantage we had of the eagle. Since they normally don’t stick around, we made our “record” shot. I went vertical to grab a little something in the lower right corner to attempt to overcome the horrible scuz clouds in the background. I could only take this so long and once I figured out this guy wasn’t go nowhere, I moved!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp02361.swf, 595, 482 [/swf]
I like the middle image background the most but that’s probably because the light was still OK. If you compare the top and middle image, you can see where that gray scuz really does suck for a background. The bottom image, I like the background because it says winter but by the time I got to this location, the light had become hard. The physically distance I walked from the top frame to the bottom was about 60yards. This is in part because of the major change I wanted in the background. It is also because of the trees on our side of the Firehole River we had to shoot through. The eagle was on the other side of the river and that along with the warmth of the sun is probably why it stayed around so long. By the time we left him, it was coming up on 13:00 and we’d only traveled a few miles since the beginning of the day. Excuse me now, I’m really excited to look at the rest of the day’s images.
Photos captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-20e on Lexar UDMA digital film
Feb 9, 2011 | Wildlife Photography
Yeah baby, the weather turned our way with the morning low at -22! It was a SPECTACULAR day with great photography in God’s country of some rather basic subjects providing big time fun. I could have this day the rest of my life and be quite happy. With only five stops over 10hours, I have 2156 images to go through tonight. Wow!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP96701.swf, 595, 482 [/swf]
Out first stop was with this massive gathering of Trumpeter Swans. I’ve not seen so many on the Madison for years so it was great to see and even better to spend time with them. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve not gone through all my images from the day yet. I quickly looked over what I shot and picked those images that tell the story of our day rather then the best photos I took today. These show the moment the sun came over the ridge and first kissed the swans.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP97091.swf, 595, 482 [/swf]
The top image is looking west down the Madison. This family group of two adults and a Signet swam up just as the sun picked over. With their gorgeous white plumes and the shadowy background, they pop so it was a no-brainier click to make. The middle image is looking directly across from where we stood facing south. I liked the sidelight and how it pops the white subject from the white background. I don’t like the flare in the lower edge of the frame but included this in the post to show what flare looks like. This was caused from a single stray of light strikes the front element of the frame.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP97821.swf, 595, 482 [/swf]
The bottom photo was taken looking east into the rising run. With the cold temps there was a ton of steam and I just love shooting into steam. This bottom and the very top image are my favorite because the direction of the light makes the story come to life. All I did to make the three different images was to swing the lens, I never moved the tripod with the images all made within minutes of each other. It was a glorious start to the day!
Photos captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film
Feb 8, 2011 | Wildlife Photography
Welcome Back Yellowstone Adventure! That’s how I took our very first experience on a our first week back on our first venture in the park this morning. It was pretty classic wildlife photography 101.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP84811.swf, 404, 600 [/swf]
We were cruising the Madison and up ahead was a lone bull walking the road. Pretty darn common since walking the groom rather then plowing through the fresh snow. He was walking into the light. So we cruised passed him slowly so as to not change his path. We then went up the road about a half mile, parked, got our gear out and waited for the bull to walk up to us. A few moments later there he came and like clock work, walked right up to us, stopped for a heartbeat and then walked right on passed us. Why stop for this bull? Look at all the frozen winter on his coat. It made him a stand out and a great start to a great day!
Photo captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Dec 27, 2010 | Wildlife Photography
I hope all your Christmas wishes came true for you this weekend. We had a glorious day starting at sun up when we looked out our window to see our rabbit family out and about. This isn’t the species that’s been my nemesis for the last decade, these are the sweet ones that pose.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP47611.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
This is a Mountain Cottontail that is fairly common on the eastside. While we see them in the summer, we see them nearly everyday in the winter for a couple of reasons. The main being it burrows by the exhaust from our clothes dryer so it stays really warm. We also fee the family apple cores and other vegetable matter. In return, they entertain us with visits and torments our dogs to no end (which is fun too).
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP47401.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
Without leaving the comfort of our warm home, I shot out the window at it posed. Why the two photos? Peter Cottontail, Bugs Bunny, folks have a preconceived idea of cute rabbits. No one wants to see for example of photo of road kill Bugs. Not that’s what I’ve got here but what one image doesn’t have are the cute ears. Yeah, the ears really make a difference. The more frontal photo would have worked if the ears were separated, but they’re not. So the profile works better I think because the ear we see looks “perky.” Those little details matter I think. Great present to start the day!
Photos captured by D3x, 500VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
Oct 19, 2010 | Wildlife Photography
Quite often, a Moose will walk the entire shoreline of the pond. When that happens, photo opps still happen if you think about it prior to it happening. What do I mean by think about it? Some of the best images are lost because of the lack for forethought.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5501.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
My biggest lens with me this day was the 200-400VR2. 400mm is typically as long as I like to go with big game because it just visually compacts it too much. That’s is, when the critter is up close to the lens. When they are on the other side of the pond, that’s not an issue so going longer doesn’t bother me visually.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5507.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
So I put the 1.7x on and shot. In this low light situation, did it have problem focusing? No. Looking at the placement of the Moose in the viewfinder, did I have the AF sensor on the Moose? Nope. All I did was look for “telephoto landscape” photos along the path of the Moose and once it was in the scene, go click. Sometimes I would zoom all the way in and sometimes all the way out leaving the converter on. At the very least, it made for a killer spotting scope because watching is fun!
Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
