Alaska: Denali NP: Polychrome Pass: Dall sheep

These were two of a group of six rams making themselves comfortable on Polychrome Pass.

Is it against the law to do Black&White photography on Polychrome Pass?

 

Is that a cigar in that ram's mouth, or is he just having a good time?

 

If they're on the pass, I shudder to think how high the mountain is!

 

I absolutely love the background colors.

 

Fred, keep giving us images like this, and we may even forgive you for being gone for so long.

Nice shot ot the mountain goats. I would have gone for a little more background detail - you don't really get any sense of altitude with the shot currently.

Very nice. Is the rear sheep sticking its tongue out or are his horns assymtrical? Anyway nice capture in nice light.

Nearby, however, is Mt. McKinley (Denali) which is 20,320 ft tall. There will be other images which detail the surroundings better. The ram's horns will be shown in more detail in later images as well. You may shoot any sort of image you desire on Polychrome Pass as it's name derives from the colorful rocks surrounding it.

Awesum shot, love the seperation in the subject and background.

Mmmmmmmmm! cute & innocent picture. very simple & yet dramatic. foreground needs 2 b cropped just a little bit. the horn [ goat in the background ] is a bit distracting. seems jutting right out of nowhere. over all, a very memeorable shot. serene & clam.

Excellent shot ! well done.

This composition is perfect! The shadows and colors are beautiful, and I like the muted colors in the background. Nice work.

Fred... absolutely wonderful shot! The composition is great. It is like they were posing for you.

 

Welcome Back!

I slipped a few carrots and sour apples to them for the privilege of photographing them. We passed them on the way into the park and on the way out. There were many photographers set up there on both trips. This particular image was made on the way in. It's a 66 mile trip each way and these were about 50 miles into the park. I was on a bus so the there was no chance to take a tripod. All these are handheld images.

If in reality you "slipped a few carrots and sour apples to them" you were in violation of park regulations. This image is incredibly soft.

Yes, it's soft. Show me some sharp ones, dude. Do you have any?

I have to agree. most sheep are pretty soft.

 

I really like this one Fred, they are professional models aren't they?

I can attest that these were real sheep! I was on the 10am Eielson bus in Denali on 07/09. I've got plenty of photos of these sheep, but I haven't had the time to scan them in yet... still working on the beginning of the trip.

 

Just to add some additional commentary to what Fred has said here... basically in this environment you're shooting w/ a big lens out the window of a school bus, not exactly the best scenario. The bus will stop, but there are people moving all of the place and shifting in the bus. So, no matter how hard you concentrate and keeping steady and positioning the camera in the window to brace it, there's almost nothing you can do about it. I have several photos that I was disappointed in because of this phenomenon. The best you can do is shoot wide-open w/ fast-film (or digital equivalent) and hope for the best.

 

FYI there were two 10am buses that day, "10-A" and "10", I was on "10."

Hope your images come out. You've described the situation precisely. We happened to have a Greek chorus family group of ten that ran from side to side on the bus at every stop. The drivers are always kind enough to shut off the diesel engines but the passengers are truly a problem for photography. I have numerous blurred shots from this series and I was using an Image Stabilization lens. I also had to manually focus with the teleconverter fitted. That's why I'm saving my pennies for the 500mm IS lens so that autofocus will work with the TC. I wanted to get out and shoot like the people we saw at the Pass but since it was a family outing I couldn't. I'm sure those shooters got great images.

 

Wasn't it a gorgeous day? I had forgotten about all the dust coming in but luckily nothing has ground to a halt in the D60 yet.

I was shooting w/ a Sigma 50-500 + 2x TC for a few shots... 1,000mm effective focal length is not something designed for hand-holding, or bracing against the metal frame of a school bus!

 

I was also in the park on 07/07 and the back of the bus had a seat missing so I set up my tripod inside the bus ;) still that didn't stop the motion of the bus, but it at least elimianated the hand-holding. Too bad it wasn't sunny on that day tho'. But, we did see a wolf that day! (marginal photos of it unfortunately).

 

PS I've looked at the slides and so far I am pleased with them, I will upload the files over the weekend. I am still in the process of adding all the other scans from earlier in that week.

We saw two wolves in July, 1999 but, as you know, none this year on the ninth.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=320189

 

One of the wolf photos is up, and unfortunately that's about as good as it gets. Shot from the back of the bus w/ the back door open. I think our bus driver almost hit the wolf, it just came out of nowhere!

 

Not to mention that I had about 10 frames on a roll of Provia 100 that I shot at 800 and, yup the wolf was one of 'em! Thankfully I got the lab to do a mid-roll cut and process accordingly...

 

PS I still haven't got to the scans yet w/ the Dall Sheep photos.

Fred, I think you got me here, but for those of you still doubting, take a look!

Christian: You may be getting some of the softness from your scanner. That's one of the reasons I went digital. The film can be perfect but there are so many potentially problematic steps to go through before anything can be output. As I look at some of your wonderful bear images I see some characteristics of scanner shortcomings. I could be wrong (as I have been many, many times in the past) but I feel you are being shortchanged by the scanner. Are the transparencies sharp under examination with a high-magnification lupe? It just sets me pondering where the softness came from.

 

Oh, I see you changed your comment and posted image.

Fred, I really love this shot. I like the focus on these two little critters rather than having the background take away from them. Very nice shot.

Canoscan 4000US. Right now I am scanning @ 2000dpi for the purposes of creating an MPG2 stream and authoring a DVD. A TV can't handle all that resolution anyway.

 

After this I will go thru and select the images that I want to print and scan @ 4000 dpi and pay much more attention to them.

 

re: softness. There's no such thing as a free lunch! Shooting a 500mm (zoom) + 2x TC handheld out of a bus window is certainly going to have its shortcomings. Most of the images look fairly sharp, but the ones w/ the TC are softer than I would car for, but how else are you going to get close enough to a bear w/ cub? anyway...

 

The bear photos in Denali are soft, but most of the photos at Wolverine Creek are sharp under examination w/ a loupe. Those were shot w/ the camera tripod mounted (w/o 2x TC), but on a 12' boat w/ an outboard motor, again not the most stable platform. Autofocus was giving me fits, so I was manually focusing alot and pushing the film to get a bit faster. I was also stopping down in the hopes that any focusing errors would be compensated for as much as I could. But that was robbing me of some shutter speed... oh, well. Of the 5 rolls I shot there I have plenty of wonderful photos and a bunch "that could have been."

 

The film vs. digital angels and devils on my shoulder are playing quite a game w/ me ;)

It's true that in experimenting with the 100-400 and the 1.4x TC I've not been totally able to discern which iteration (with or without TC) has better final quality. That and the fact that manual focus is a pain in a modern autofocus camera with no focusing aids whatsoever makes for an interesting internal debate every time I think about using the TC. I may have to rob a bank and get the Canon 1Ds just to get the autofocus capability past f/5.6. I will look seriously at the new Canon due out in September anyway.

 

As to the 1000mm handholding problem. I agree that it's almost impossible to hold a lens of that length steadily enough to get a sharp image. If I were serious enough to be dabbling in that focal length I would definitely get out of the bus and work from a tripod.

 

Anyway, I look forward to viewing the rest of your images from Denali. I always like looking at pictures.

wonderful wildlife shot!