Wildlife Photography

Jasper NP, Red Fox: 300mm at f2.8, 1/250 sec, ISO 100.
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Jasper NP, Big Horn herd, isolated young: 300mm at f2.8, 1/1600 sec, ISO 100.
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Glacier NP, Ground Squirrel: 300mm at f3.5, 1/1000 sec, ISO 100.
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MT Rainier NP, Red Fox: 300mm at f2.8, 1/2000 sec, ISO 100
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Yellowstone NP, Raven: 300mm at f4, ISO 100.
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Wildlife photography for me has always been secondary to my landscape work, but I have now come to embrace it, mostly due to the experience I have gained over the course of, well, many years. Showing my age a little : )

The main thing I have learned, is to shoot as wide open as you can, why ? several reasons; Shooting at a wide aperture allows you to shoot at faster shutter speeds and lower ISO's, wild animals are often seen at dusk or dawn and with lower light, ISO values start to rise, in order to maintain a fast enough shutter speed you may need to shoot at ISO 800 to get to 1/250 of a sec.
at f2.8.

See this ISO 3200 image or this ISO 1600 image and here at ISO 100.

Whether or not its low light or the animal on the move, a wide aperture will help with the shutter speed or low ISO.

The main reason though is subject isolation, a wide aperture like f3.5 (just short of wide) on a 300mm f2.8 lens is great for blurring the background and some times the fore ground, which makes the subject stand out , if you look closely at the first fox, I had to pick him out amongst the grass and clover and to make him stand out, I needed the foreground and background out of focus. Another benefit on long primes, your lens is at its sharpest in the wider range of apertures.

Where to focus ? always on the eye, very important to have at least one eye in focus.

Also great for portrait photography.

To sum it up, you should end up with sharp, low ISO images, with good subject isolation when shooting at or near wide open.

Aperture diagram courtesy of Wiki

Ross

Images In Light

Winter at Mt Rainier NP

Image: 5D Mk II, 300 f4 IS at f4, 1/2500 sec, iso 100

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Well I bumped in to my old friend at Mt Rainier NP a couple weeks ago, hes not scared of people so I assume he has been fed in the park by tourists, I think he's the same one I've seen a few times, each time he's a different color, above his transition to Red Fox is almost complete, even though there is still a huge amount of snow in the park, below is the black and silver phase in Jan of 2009.

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Of course Mt Rainier was there in all her glory, this time she appeared to me in Black and White, a short snow shoe up the trail from the Paradise parking lot.

Image: 5D Mk II, 70-200 f4 IS L, f11 at 1/640 sec, iso 100
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I hope to be blogging a bit more in the coming weeks, its been a pretty busy and rainy winter, I have not had much chance to get out and about, I was snow shoeing just the other side of the Hwy 2 Pass this last weekend and got some good light its amazing that it can be so cloudy here and I can drive just 2 hours and its a sunny winter wonderland.

Ross

Grand Teton Isolation

Image: 50D, 300 f4 IS L, 1/800 sec at f 7.1

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Isolating mountain peaks with a telephoto lens is a type of landscape work I enjoy a lot, it gives a sense of what its like up there, and allows you to compose some interesting and original work. This can be shot at wider apertures than the typical landscape due to less depth of field, these type of images also lend themselves well to black and white renditions, the 300 f4 IS L is a very nice lens and pretty versatile, I was shooting Buffalo in the morning with it and the Teton range later that day. The above shot was converted to b and w with CS4.

Ross Murphy Images In Light

Wide Angle With a Telephoto

Image: 46mp 4 shot portrait mode panorama 5D Mk II, 300mm f4 IS L.
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Rope teams, 100 % crop, center left near summit
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Rope teams, 100 % crop, center right near summit
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Medium Format territory resolution stitch in CS4, this 46 mega pixel image, 4 shot portrait mode panorama was stitched and blended together using Photo shop, shot with a 21 mp 5D Mk II and a 300mm f4 IS L. whats amazing about this huge image is what can be seen when zoomed up, the 2 lower shots are examples, the upper of the 2 you can see the 7 rope teams as they make there summit approach above Disappointment Cleaver and the lower shot shows 5 or 6 teams near the top of Emmons Glacier. The native print size for this image is 17" x 30" and could easily be up sampled with CS4 to 24" x 40" and that is a very large print, almost to the point of becoming to expensive to mat and frame with good quality materials, one needs a buyer for this first that can appreciate the value of a good frame and mat, before dropping $300 - $400 on the frame. The mountain range in the fore ground are the Cowlitz Chimneys.

Ross Murphy Images In Light