Despite not much snow, if any on the mountains, big game mammals are making their annual trek down slope for the winter. They come down to lower elevations where gathering food is easier at the height of winter when there is less snow cover. It makes access to these magnificent critters simpler such as these Rocky Mountain Sheep. These rams, along with a herd of about eighty heads, were photographed yesterday at the 6000-foot mark. It’s essential to remember they are coming down for food and not do anything that would hinder that basic biology. Yeah, you might be able to be right amongst them with a 70-200, DON’T! I was shooting primarily at 1200mm giving them space to graze at will and at their comfort range rather then pushing them about, possibly diverting important foraging. Being amongst them is a huge thrill, nothing like wild sheep but be good guests as you make your visual story to share with others. Now’s the time though, they’re comin own!

It was kinda like de-ja-vou. I gotta tell ya, the Z24-70f2.8 is a great lens! I remember all too well when it was first introduced, I had to find out if it was as good as 24-70f2.8, which was an all-time favorite of mine. When I received the Z24-70f2.8II, its size and weight gave me pause, not the quality being finer than the F mount version. I once again made a call before ordering the Z24-70f2.8II and when I heard of the reduction in size and weight and its performance, the lens was in my hands two days later.

The loss of weight with its internal zooming mechanism blows my mind! How the magicians at Nikon pulled that one off is amazes me! Yes, the 77mm filter size is indicative of the slim down of the lens. How they got the lens so slimmed down with a new AF motor and internal zoom still has me scratching my head a month later.

It’s when I’m out shooting with it that my mind goes to a fog, the quality is better than all previous versions! The detail it captures like seen below, shot at f2.8, is making capturing intimate natural detail a snap. It focuses so much closer than previous versions, it can do macro. Even I made a couple nice macro shots last week and I’m not a macro shooter.

It has a clickable ring that you can set to do a number of functions. I set it to f/stops. The shade has a sliding door, making it simpler to rotate attached filters. While sharpness (dare I say, flat field sharpness) it the top attribute I love of the lens, right behind it is its smaller size! I reworked my camera bags adding space because the Z24-70f2.8II requires less. I can wrap up my affection for this version simply, Z24-70f2.8II … holly molly!

Buckie is the real deal! A wrangler on the sprawling Philmont Scout Ranch, he does it all and this evening he added to his resume, model. Pushing a herd of horses around, I knew he would not be close, so I grabbed the 180-600 to make some shots. The light was gorgeous, the action was fun and the Z180-600 knocked it out of the park as a portrait lens! You can see the wear in his chaps, the hair on the mane of the horse and then there is that mustache. Every time I grab the Z180-600 from the bag, I am not disappointed. What a versatile lens!

It’s Alaska, it rains! The light is flat, the wind has a chill and you’re standing out in the middle of a marsh with no cover within a mile. Even your subjects, the Kodiak Brown Bears, think it’s kinda miserable. What does a photographer do? We’re heading towards winter and rain can be a constant. Now’s a good time to think through the options. I have a general rule of thumb, if I can tolerate the rain, so can the gear. I don’t cover the gear, it’s out in the rain just as I am. I do have a clean, white towel inside my jacket that I use to dab (not wipe) the camera gear dry. I have filters on my lenses so I can, as necessary, wipe them with the white towel. It’s shots like this I would miss if I ran for cover with a little rain. There are so many captions this pose offers up. For now, the caption is, don’t let the rain get you down.

There are a number of settings in our cameras that can prevent the flash from firing, the most common is shooting at High Speed Extended. The Z 6III has one that is not obvious at all! I’ve had a few Z 6III owners reach out of late, all having this problem and thankfully, all having this simple solution. The Z 6III has a Silent mode, which makes the Z 6III silent when you’re shooting. I use it all the time. When it’s turned on, the flash won’t fire. To make the flash fire, simply turn Silent Mode to OFF. There you have it, no flash problem!

I’ve not photographed a Sora for a long time. Oh, I’ve seen them but normally I see them just as they dash back into their secretive world of the marsh. It’s a busy place where f/4 isn’t even shallow enough of DoF to make the subject pop. You need critical sharpness of the subject but with a small (about the size of your fist), darting of a bird, that is a huge challenge. It’s why I don’t have many shots of a Sora. I went out with the Z 6III using the new Bird Detection in the new Firmware 2.0 just to give it a test run. Look what I came back with. It is by no means a great shot as it is a very busy photograph. But it is sharp and it is a Sora. For now it’s a keeper and one of my better sora photos, thanks to the Z 6III bird detection … schweet!