I don't do much in the way in the way of wildlife photography, but when wildlife walks in front of my camera and poses... hard to pass up that opportunity. I was set up for shooting the sunrise scene posted below when about 10 or 12 mountain goats made their way through the scene, 3 or 4 at a time over a period of about 5 minutes.
After the second group started meandering through, I decided to switch lenses and actually try to get a decent photo...which is MUCH harder than I thought it would be. Goats move. After a few shots, I realized that a landscapish low ISO and small aperature with long shutter speed wasn't going to work . Changed the ISO, opened up...composition keeps changing, focus area needs to be changed (several times). Goats go behind rocks, come back out, recompose, refocus... At this point I think they wondered what the heck I was doing and decided to give me a break, and they sat like this for a couple of minutes. This is slightly cropped - there was a 3rd goat partially obscured by a rock at the very bottom of the frame.
A Midwesterner here browsing the forum. The goat shot is killer! They look very familiar
! About 4 years ago the one on the left kept wanting to play "King of the Mountain" with me while up there visiting. Cutting off my escape route from about 6 feet distance, it seemed intentionally, every time I tried getting away from him.
You obviously need two camera bodies, one setup with a long lens for wildlife and the other for landscapes. I know whatever configuration I have, it will be the wrong one, but I now can quickly turn off the mirrror lockup and 2 second timer.
Jack - I wish that I had that on 4x5. It was set up on a separate tripod, then I went after a vantage point for the mountain goats and left it behind. The shot above is an 8MP take with an Olympus C-8080.
Bill - yep. The first shot I took of the goats was with MLU, and at -0.7 because I had been bracketing, ISO 100, f/16 and something like 1/15. Definitely not an optimal wildlife configuration
Discussion
11 repliesAfter the second group started meandering through, I decided to switch lenses and actually try to get a decent photo...which is MUCH harder than I thought it would be. Goats move. After a few shots, I realized that a landscapish low ISO and small aperature with long shutter speed wasn't going to work
D2X, 80-200/2.8, handheld
A Midwesterner here browsing the forum. The goat shot is killer! They look very familiar
! About 4 years ago the one on the left kept wanting to play "King of the Mountain" with me while up there visiting. Cutting off my escape route from about 6 feet distance, it seemed intentionally, every time I tried getting away from him.
You obviously need two camera bodies, one setup with a long lens for wildlife and the other for landscapes.
Jack - I wish that I had that on 4x5. It was set up on a separate tripod, then I went after a vantage point for the mountain goats and left it behind. The shot above is an 8MP take with an Olympus C-8080.
Bill - yep. The first shot I took of the goats was with MLU, and at -0.7 because I had been bracketing, ISO 100, f/16 and something like 1/15. Definitely not an optimal wildlife configuration