Exp: 1/800 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400
Gear: Canon Rebel XTi, 400F5.6L, Handheld

Well here is another shot from back in the October.   I had over looked this shot at first because the composition wasn’t to my liking.  I started playing around with the cropping and came up with something I think is pretty pleasing.  The geese in the backgroud add to the image and give it a little more depth.  This was taken nearing sunset so the light on the water and goose was nice and warm.  The most challenging part of taking this image is controlling the contrast in the black feathers and preserving the detail in the whites.

Widescreen

Standard

Exp: 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, iso 640
Gear: Canon 40D, 500F4L, Propped up on car window

Here is a shot that was still on my camera from my trip to Yellowstone. This was taken along a dirt road that followed the road out of north entrance but on the opposite side of the river. It was a very rough road I’m glad i was driving a rental car and not my own. The pronghorn are here because it is a lower elevation than the park. This makes it much easier for these smaller animals to ride out the winter. There was a pretty good herd of them, many more than I had seen in the summer time. Pronghorn are known to be the fastest land animal in North America and second only to the cheetah in the world. They are capable of sprinting at 45mph and can sustain these speeds for much longer than a cheetah. For your last part of your science lesson is that although sometimes called pronghorn antelope, they are not part of the antelope family. Pronghorn are the only living species of their family.

Gear: Canon 40D, 500F4L, Propped on car window
Exp: 1/320 sec @ f/5.6, iso 400
Manual (Spot meter off the snow +1 2/3 compensation)

This is a shot from my last day in Yellowstone and is one of the last shots I took. The sun was on it’s way down and was filtering through some thin clouds over the top of a ridge that was almost at my back. I pulled off to the side of the road and just propped the lens up on the side mirror out the car window. The 500mm did a great job at separating the elk from the background and the IS kept the image relatively sharp for the slow shutter speed. As I shot this elk I had to pick and choose my shots as his head was always down as he was grazing. As I was slightly lower than the elk I was able to get some clear views of his face. Also this shot of the series came out the best because the elk had moved forward enough that his antlers would not be “lost” in the tree behind him. But I like the tree in the image because it gives it more color.

Widescreen

Gear: Canon 40D, 500F4L, Tripod
Exp: iso200, 1/400 sec @ f/6.3

Well yesterday was my last day in the park and I’m sitting in the airport right now waiting for my flight. I figured I’d post a wallpaper while I’m going through and editing pics. This eagle was sitting in a tree after being chased off an elk kill by some coyotes. Most of the day yesterday it snowed really hard. It let up just long enough for me to get this shot. Hopefully in the next couple days I’ll be able to get the gallery updated again.

Widescreen

Standard

Gear: Canon 40D, 500F4L, Tripod
Exp: iso200, 1/640 sec @ f/8

Well today got out to a slow start but it picked up toward the end. I updated the gallery with some more shots along this one. I saw this bull elk that was bedded down along the road try to stay warm the wind was probably gusting at 20mph and I was standing off the road in snow over my knees. Not every day you see a big bull elk sitting on the side of the road so I couldn’t pass up the chance.

Widescreen

Gear: Canon 40D, 70-200F4L, HH
Exp: 145mm, iso200, 1/320 sec @ f/5.6

Here is a quick wallpaper post this image is from Thursday on the Canyon snow coach tour. This was a very cold and snowy coyote that was about the only life we saw the whole time we were in the Canyon area. Off to find some dinner.

Widescreen

Gear: Canon 40D, 500F4L, HH
Exposure: iso400, 1/640 sec @ f/5.6

It was a tough time picking an image for a wallpaper from today I had some good shots. The one I picked is a portrait of a coyote looking up. I took this shot on my way back from Lamar Valley today. There was another wolf kill out in the valley this one was a little bit closer to the road. So far the wolves seem to get hungry every couple days. Hopefully I will get to see a kill and it will be closer to the road than the last two. Even using the 500mm+1.4x converter the shots I have been able to get of the wolves aren’t as good as I’d like, they are just too small in the frame.

Widescreen

Gear: Canon 40D, 70-200F4L, HH
Exposure: 200mm, iso200, 1/400 sec @ f/5.0

So far the photography part of this trip has been pretty challenging as I have never shot wildlife in snow like this.  I’ve found that the camera metering is extremely unreliable so I’ve been shooting in manual mode a lot. I’ve found that if I meter off the snow and then overexpose +1 1/3 to +2 I get the exposure just about right for the dark animals and trees.  I’m going to post two wallpapers today the first shot is one that I liked and I can’t wait to see what it looks like printed.  It is a shot of one of the bull elk I came across on Wednesday in Lamar Valley while I was blissfully missing the elk hunt that was happening where I had passed all the wolf watchers.  Hopefully the wolves will get hungry again before I head home.

Widescreen

Standard

Well I made it to Yellowstone yesterday.  I got a chance to drive out to Lamar Valley and I got some decent shots today. I found some reliable internet, thank you Super 8 Motel “we leave the WiFi open for you”. Here is a shot of a big horn sheep I came across just before I was going to turn around to head back in. I had to drive down a ways from where I first stopped in order to get the rock formation and pine tree in the background but I’m glad I did because it made the picture. More images to come, I have some processing to do first. So far the animal checklist is Coyote, Elk, Bison, Big Horn Sheep, Wolves, Bald Eagle.

Gear: Canon 40D, 500F4L, tripod
Exposure: iso 200, 1/2000 sec @ f/5.6 Manual

Widescreen

Standard

As I’m preparing for a trip to Yellowstone to do some winter photography I figured I’d post a picture taken from my trip back in August to Yellowstone of a coyote. This was captured driving from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Lamar Valley after visiting the hot springs. The weather was not the greatest, overcast and misting rain, as you will see in the image the coyote’s fur is wet on its legs. Anyway, driving along I happen to see this coyote run across the road a good ways ahead of me so I slow to a stop and the coyote proceeds to ignore my jeep and go about his business of hunting rodents. I roll down the window on the passenger side of the jeep and I was able to shoot about 3 dozen images of the coyote using the 70-200F4L as that is all I needed because the coyote was so close to the jeep.

Gear: Rebel XTi, 70-200F4L, (Jeep blind)
Exp: 200mm, iso200, 1/1250sec @ f/4

Widescreen

Standard