Jan 13, 2009 | Wildlife Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/yel0112-1.swf, 500, 394 [/swf]
I’m sitting in front of my notebook, face burning from the wind burn, my toes, hell I don’t know if I have any toes they are still so cold, blurry eyed looking over a great day of images on my computer monitor! I’m toast and I have a real weird confession, I missed the detail of the D3x in a couple of my photo opps today. Here’s an example, the steam frost lining Paint Pot trees. I’m not sure what I’m going to go about this. A problem to explore.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/yel0112-2.swf, 394, 582 [/swf]
The temps are actually not that cold and that directly effects the steam and what photo opps I’m finding that move me. I started today with the frozen steam as you see above, to just photographing the steam itself, moving to
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/yel0112-3.swf, 500, 394 [/swf]
photographing steam and the life around it. The life around it today was our DLWS photographers exploring for themselves this winter wonderland. Apologize for the more than normal typos, it’s 3am and I have to get up in two hours. My reading glasses aren’t enough at this point to see.
Photos captured by D3, 14-24AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Oct 6, 2008 | Landscape Photography, Wildlife Photography
[SWF]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/dlwsvt1.swf, 495, 390 [/SWF]
To say we hit the color is an UNDERSTATEMENT! We went to one of my favorite locales this AM, Sleepy Holow and it was great. The color, the fog, the farm itself were just spectacular.
Shooting for me was relatively simple because I stayed focus on the color and fog.
[SWF]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/dlwsvt2.swf, 495, 390 [/SWF]
To preserve the airness of this photo as well as shadow detail, I used my five image-HDR technique. While not the text book application of the technique, I do love the feel it preserved from the morning.
Photos captured by D3, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jun 14, 2008 | Wildlife Photography
With the change in the weather this morning, I changed plans and headed to where I thought we’d have the best possible photo opps. Heck, it’s Friday the 13th.
So we headed to the sheep and hoped they would come when they should. We lucked out, they came down and it wasn’t just the ewe group but five rams, three with decent sized curls.
And while you might think all was copesetic, it was anything but a few times. The biggest ram chased off the younger ones a couple times with full blast head butts.
This is right after one of the head butts with the younger ram, I don’t know, saying it gives? I’d never seen behavior like this so not sure what’s going on. Glad I had the opportunity to see and photograph it.
After a marathon boardroom session, it was back out to wildlife photography and since it is my Base Camp, we went to one of my favorite places for the afternoon.
Potter Marsh despite the wind was as active as usual. The wind while buffeting our lenses pretty good, stopped the Arctic Terns dead in their tracks making capturing flight shots pretty darn easy.
This is why they hovered, they were coming in to the nest, bringing in nesting material and fish to the nest. it was great photography, great fun and in my mind, a great ending to our Alaska Base Camp. Want to thank Jorgen, Dave, Chris, Rob, Fredrik and Jarred for making it a great week!
Photos captured by D3, 600VR (Terns w/TC-17e) on Lexar UDMA digital film
Jun 9, 2008 | Wildlife Photography
Went off to one of my secret locales in Anchorage for one of my favorite birds in AK, the Red-necked Grebe. Not one you find outside, especially in breeding plumage, I target this bird in June when I’m in AK. The Base Camp campers got quite a show, from great backlit feeding (the water splashing is from killing a little fish it had caught), to courtship and in this case, defending a territory from another male, to just simply coming up and saying hello. Light and backgrounds were on the learning agenda for the day and the grebes made it great!
Photos captured by D3, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film.
Jun 6, 2008 | Wildlife Photography
Just back from the trip chasing tornadoes and I’m already on the road and in Alaska (for our Base Camp). But the experiences from last week left a definite impression.
This thunderhead over Cook Inlet is upsecuring the view we were just minutes before enjoying of Mt McKinley. Its speed and density brought back memories of last week in KS. But we ain’t in KS no more :)
We then went out scouting for some of our training locales for Base Camp and came across some old and favorite subjects like Mew Gull. And…
Arctic Tern. This one is flying in with a fish which it delivered to its mate tending the nest. While I nailed it in flight, it smoked me when it dove down to its nest and delivered its fish. Outta practice I guess, need to work on my vertical panning this week. Panning is something we stress at Base Camp. Stopping action by moving the camera body (sounds like an oxymoron) is an important tool in the wildlife photographer’s bag.
So is this tool, the Wimberley Head VII. I depend on this head for supporting my 600VR. Mine got “unhappy” on our SD Base Camp (TSA dropped). Well, sent it to Wimberley for TLC and man, did they deliver. Waiting for us in our room when we checked in AK was a silky smooth, very happy Wimberley. Now that’s service!
Personally, I use my Wimberley slightly differently from the instructions. You can see here I mount the lens in the opposite direction so my wrist isn’t fighting the main support post. Also, I never tighten the controls but rather, have them slightly loose so panning is smooth but not stiff.
I’ll post from AK the next week as I can. With only a few hours of “dark,” it’s going to be some long days!
Photos captured by D3, 70-300VR / 600VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
May 8, 2008 | Wildlife Photography
Coming down to the end of SD Base Camp and the photo opps just keep getting better and better. This evening we were amongst a herd of bison that decided to just have fun running. So we closed our lenses down to f22 so we had a shutter speed of 1/20 and then panning, made this bison look like track stars.
Photos captured by D3, 200-400VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
