rdpufallphotography

<p>http://reaganpufall.blogspot.com/2010/07/nature-tips-3-shooting-sun.html<br>

I shoot the sun all the time, if you have any questions shoot me an e-mail. I rarely check my photo.net anymore.</p>

<p>this awful and if you think it's awesome you're awful</p>

<p>Well if you're not printing there isn't really any good reason to buy a new camera since you don't care about ISO. Ignoring bells and whistles, most of the reason to upgrade would be for those reasons.</p>

<p>I pick the vantage point and what I want in the image and then use the zoom accordingly. I lean towards ultrawide for the effect. When I'm not shooting landscape, I tend to keep to the extremes and use it as two primes in one and crop later.<br>

>>Are there specific optical issues involved<br>

If the lens you're using doesn't have a constant f stop there could be an issue, but for landscapes you're stopped down so who cares. Most quality zooms have a constant f stop so with there shouldn't be an issue anyway.</p>

<p>I wouldn't. RMNP is miserable this time of year. Filled to the brim with tourists and while the elk is interesting you won't get any sleep anywhere near them. The silly things bellow late into the night.</p>

<p>If you look at canon they make 2 series of L lenses, one at f2.8 and one at f4. The f4 series is designed to be cheaper often half the price or so of the f2.8 version and take smaller filters but are slower and sometimes slightly lesser in quality. The f2.8 series is faster slightly better and costs you more than you want it to.<br>

f4<br>

17-40 24-105 70-200<br>

f2.8<br>

16-35 (hopefully 14-24 soon) 24-70 70-200</p>

<p>Rocky Mountain National Park is a national park for a reason, but it can be rather crowded. Indian Peaks just south of it can actually be much more scenic. Closer to Denver are a handful of okay stateparks, El Dorado Canyon (rather busy) and Roxborough (special permits for off trail required) are the most scenic. I would skip Golden Gate Canyon this time of year to be honest. The place to go would Great Sand Dunes National Park, but that would be a bit of a drive down to southern Colorado.</p>

<p>Continuing the support for canon outdoors doing well, I've had my 30D out in some decenly bad weather. Last month I had my 30D up next a waterfall and had the spray litterally freeze a few of bottoms stuck and coat part of it's body also in ice. Besides not being use my direct print button (o dear!) and the menu button, it worked fine.</p>

<p>I made a quick guide on shooting zoos on another forum, maybe you'll find it helpful. Also you may be mistaken when it comes to animals in your area. Look around on-line and find out where the greatest animal populations are in your area, it can make the difference seeing nothing for trip after to trip to nearly stepping on them every quarter mile.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.rdpufallphotography.com/images/Shooting%20Zoos%20copy.png" alt="" /></p>

<p>I haven't been there at the right time of year, but Desoto is supposed to have a decent population. It's north of Council Bluffs. There is also a decent pond with an amazing amount of lillies that should be most excellent this spring.</p>

That inane video of the squirrel with the screaming child and rather detestable sounding woman in the background is a prime example of why I hate Nikon for starting this and Canon competing with it. Also the one of the awkward woman is hilarious, which if everyone's models are that awkward on video maybe we'll get some laughs out of the little toy they've tagged onto their cameras.

I've done some shooting with a flash on wildlife. In every instance they just continue to ignore you except for in one I've had. It was some deer on island on Maine and it bolted away.

 

Even if you're concerned about it scaring away your subject, a flash is worth carrying to work as a fill light for landscapes when you're not photographing an animal.

Don't.

 

Most website viewers despise and will not browse online galleries with music added.

You can also hdr or expose to get enough information in the sky and foreground to photoshop them into what you want. Make 2 adjustment layers and mask what you want adjusted in each and bingo proper sky and proper foreground. You lose some detail with that method but it works.

 

Best options were already stated, flash and or a polarizer. Neutral densities are good but can be limiting when creating a composition if you don't have a decent variety of them.

I've been shooting wildlife with this lens for the past 2 years. I'm not sure why but sharpness seems to be hit and miss. Sometimes I get shots that I don't have to sharpen at all and sometimes I get images so blurred they are unusable.

 

The image you've provided I would stack under a miss.

 

A most telling moment was when I using it to shoot portraits and about 1 in 5 photos were perfect and others slightly blurred. It wasn't me (tripod similar exposure times) and it's not my 30D (other lenses do not have this issue on my camera).

I went there for spring break, great park just don't expect to a lot of sleep. Temperatures were fine, it was just so windy. My target was animals though, not landscapes.

 

I saw mainly five different animals, elk, magpies, red foxes, coyotes, and some kind of deer, exact type escapes me at the moment. With the exception of the foxes, the rest were very comfortable around people, especially vehicles in regards to the deer, coyotes, and magpies.

 

Elk: I saw them in large numbers around Moraine Park and Sheep Lake. The Sheep Lake area had a small herd of buck elk (12ish?). On foot I got with 30 feet without them really even glancing at me. I didn't care to get closer via the feet. In the care you can get right up next them without bothering them.

 

Deer: Much the same but much more weighted towards the northern part of Moraine Park.

 

Coyote: There was a pair of them would move through the eastern edge of the Moraine Campground to the meadow nearby. I only saw them twice, once around 8am and again around sunset. They have no fear of stationary cars and while they won't run from you on foot they won't stick around either.

 

Fox: I saw what I assume to be the same one several times on the road leading from Moraine Park to Bear Lake. He was very skittish bolting at the sight of even cars.

 

Magpies: They was a large number of them in the Moraine Park area and would interact with the elk in the mornings. They have no fear of cars and little fear of people. The one of the ones pictured came within a foot and a half of me while I was sitting watching it.

 

Expect snow at higher altitudes and very well trodden trails. Be for warned that some of the trails I hiked had been so trodden upon that the snow became smoothed at and was slippery as ice. The Bear Lake area has some excellent high altitude and high difficulty trails. A good, milder trail can be found in the Moraine Park area. It takes you by several excellent lakes and Fern falls. Would be a good trail to start on. Even milder if you are worn out would be simply to hike around the Alluvial Fan. The road places several excellent falls within very short hikes.

 

some of the shots

http://esoteric-imagery.deviantart.com/gallery/#Wildlife

You don't. Melt your water when you need it from frozen what you have with you or from the plentiful snow. Anything particularly important keep with you in your sleeping bag.

 

Frankly I would NOT GO in the winter unless are very familiar with the area and such temptatures. People have used ND as training for Antartica in the past. Are you ready to drive by using only the road markers because the road has disapeared into a 6 inch layer of blowing snow. It can get worse than it if decides to blizzard in which your car, while it sits on the side of road, is completely engulfed in a snow drift.

Les Barstow

He likes to walk along the side of the mountains on the main road for GGC, keep your eyes open when driving along it and you might luck out. =D

I grew up on ND.

 

If you are not familiar with cold, I'm talking about -40 before wind chill, DO NOT GO in the winter. Every year you'd in the paper where some idiot didn't bring their winter survival box. That's right, a winter survival box in their car, for driving on the interstate.

 

The warmer seasons are more manageable. Depending the year, ticks and mosquitoes can be completely unmanageable in the eastern part of the state. Don't go out in shorts and short sleeve shirt. Go in pants, boots, and long sleeves. If you're in an area with trees, which is rare, wear a hat with a 360 brim. I don't know how many times I caught ticks walking the brim of my hat. Also be ready and willing to check yourself at least 1-2 a day if you go walking the fields for ticks and be willing to dig them out of you.

 

Central and Eastern part of the state will be quite often windy, bring a hefty tripod.

 

Fill your gas tank every chance you get and consider bringing a container of extra gas. If you get lost you can and will run out of gas before you find another station if you're not careful. Bring a map and compass if you plan on going off the major ways.

 

All of that being said, you should have no problem with the people up there. Any land that is not marked as posted consider open to you, though it is considered good manners to talk to the people first anyway. If it's hunting season, do wear hunters orange and DO NOT WEAR ANY SORT OF CAMO. If you see parked cars near a gate, consider the area as unsafe if you're not in hunters orange because likely as not people are hunting there. That should be a rare occurrence simply because there just isn't that many people in the state.

 

Feel free to shoot questions at me. I love that state a lot.

Like Les Barstow said, talk to your local parks and pick one that has a decent number of sightings. In my experience of them they are have no real fear of cars but on seeing a person they'll get moving pretty quick.

 

Here in Colorado there's Golden Gate Park near Denver where every so often a bobcat will be rather visible.

In terms of hiding and waiting you could pick up or make if you have the time a ghillie suit. If you live somewhere that is cold it's a god send because they're so warm. On the other hand warm climates you'll roast. For approaching birds use what other people have said: Don't look at it and don't walk directly towards it. If you have rabbits in your yard they're great practice. Walk in a circle around them that gradual gets smaller. You can get within 5feet of most rabbits this way and with what little bird experience I've had, works on a lot of them too.

http://www.marriottcameras.co.uk/praktica/filters.htm

might help you some when you go shopping around

 

I can't find if it has the front screw on mounts for filters. If it does hoya makes a real nice polarizer. You'll find that there's two types of polarizers right now, linear and circular. Linear is what film traditionally used but with the way digital technology's focuses they had switch them to circular. In theory, either type would be fine for you.

 

Also, most film has a sweet exposure spot. For better saturation and tones people under expose the film slightly.

There's the old scenic highway you can take instead of the interstate when you approach Bismarck from the west. Usually covered in deer at dusk.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota

 

I'd wait for the spring or summer unless you're experienced with what a real winter is. I'm not kidding. Unless you can deal with -20 and then wind don't go in the winter.

I shoot with a 30D

 

Like O'Sullivan said, shoot bright not dark when using higher iso and then adjust darker. Depending on what you're shooting pay attention to your histogram and make the upper levels more dominate. Be careful not to the blow your whites out though.

 

Noise will be visible in large solid colors, most present in black. By adjusting darker it will eat most of the noise. Using a noise reducer will make the image softer, but sharpening will increase how noticeable. I've only used the photoshop noise reducer though.

 

I never shoot over 400iso, but then again I make 13x20" prints of animals where noise just isn't acceptable.