Wildlife Photography: Zooming with your feet may get you mauled

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Dorkroom > Wildlife Photography: Zooming with your feet may get you mauled

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InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

I think the little ones are pretty cute:

Atlatl posted:

I've been lazy about keep up with the forums recently but I did want to say this is beautiful. Love the rest you posted as well.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2018 17:42

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 20:59

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

I'm trying to motivate myself to get through some more of my bear shots. Still fighting with that green balance though.

President Beep posted:

Took another crack at this shot with your suggestions in mind. I do have to say that I think it's a much better image now. Seems more...intentional--like there's really a narrative going on here (or it's all in my head!)

You've taken down the original so I have nothing to compare it to, but I like whatever you have going on in this shot fwiw.

Atlatl posted:

hell yes

Shooting macro critters on a wide angle

These are phenomenal.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2018 14:57

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

Wowzers, this one is especially great. I love the lighting.

single-mode fiber posted:

I'm incredibly envious. I've been after a shot like this for ages now, and to get it framed so perfectly with misty mountains in the background is insane.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2018 19:27

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

I missed a few months of this thread and scrolled back a bit. Holy poo poo Atlatl, your underwater stuff is just incredible.

Helen Highwater posted:

Using the old M42 Takumar 100mm f/3.5 that I bought from a Goon ages ago. Great lens

IMG_2919.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_2894.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

IMG_2889.jpg by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Great results, those are so sharp.

I've been going through some bear stuff from June.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2018 03:29

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

BetterLekNextTime posted:

Paid a visit to A�o Nuevo State Park north of Santa Cruz yesterday for the Elephant Seals. It's the season when you need to go in with a guided walk so there's frustratingly little time for photography once you get out there, but it's still worth it. I went with my father in law who grew up in Northern California but somehow had never been. We signed up for the last slot in the day. Challenging light but probably more interesting than bright overhead beach sun.

Elephant Seal leaning in-4873 on Flickr

Elephant Seal bite-4878 on Flickr

Elephant Seal lunge-4895 on Flickr

Fantastic series of action shots. Also, huge congrats on that (well-deserved) photo contest win.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2019 18:14

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Rainy day here so rainy bear time

Mega Comrade posted:

taking way way to many shots

No such thing.

Also, those zoo shots came out great especially considering it was through glass.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2019 20:25

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

I sold both my kidneys and went on a Polar Bear trip

(was totally worth it)

# ¿ Nov 4, 2019 18:39

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Wilderness around Churchill area (50km north and a second location 100km east).

I brought my 600, 100-400, and 24-70 and used all quite heavily. My wife brought her 300, 70-200, and 16-35 and ended up just using her 300 (with 1.4 and 2 TC). We had crazy weight limits as well and basically blew 2/3 of our limit on just glass and tripods. If I had to do it again I think I would take a monopod instead because there was about 10km of hiking each day unless the bears were right at the camp.

xzzy posted:

My advice is to only bring the longest focal length you can manage.

This x 1000. Default stopping distance when approaching a bear was 100m out, but sometimes we'd get lucky and have the bears walk in closer.

[edit] That photo above was cropped just a tiny amount to straighten the photo but is otherwise full frame at 840mm. That is as close as we ever got to the bears.

InternetJunky fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Nov 4, 2019

# ¿ Nov 4, 2019 19:21

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Pablo Bluth posted:

I'm assuming this was a pre-snow trip?

I've got a trip to Yellowstone in January, so I'm about to have to go on a cold weather gear spending binge. I've not done a proper snow trip before and the south of the UK really isn't cold. A decent down jacket, snow boots (UK shops have a terrible selection of snow boots), warm trousers, hats, gloves, base layers, all at once is going to add up...

Assuming you're asking about my trip, then yes it was pre-snow but with the wind chill the temps were around -20.

I shoot a lot of wildlife in really cold temps (-40) and let me tell you it's ridiculously expensive to get a decent set of gear and it takes up a huge amount of luggage space. If you can find a place that does it, rent the boots, parka, and ski pants once you're in the area instead. For gloves you cannot beat these amazing gloves that I swear by. Check out Baffin for quality snow boots. Otherwise make sure you have tons of layers rather than tons of bulky items. At the end of the day the cold is going to get through anything if you aren't moving.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2019 21:13

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Pablo Bluth posted:

Was there a particular driver who visiting at that time of year?

I'd like to photograph polar bears but grizzlies at Lake Clarke are the top of my bear bucket list.

The sea ice is pretty much all gone in the Hudson Bay by mid-June, at which point the bears come off the ice (due to the current they come ashore around the east of the bay) and start the long trek back to where the ice starts to form on the west. As soon as the ice forms again (by end of November) the bears are gone. It's a small window to catch them in the area.

I've done Lake Clarke as well and plan to go back soon. The great thing about Lake Clarke is you are going to see bears 100%. We saw ~40 different grizzlies in the 5 days we were there and they come so close you can take full frame photos with a 100mm lens. With polar bears there is a real possibility that you get skunked and see no bears.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2019 16:03

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Atlatl posted:

Took my camera to class to gently caress around with the new GH5 firmware update, the AF is actually good now. I turned on focus peaking for AFS and set it to near priority and eye focus and it just snapped right on to everything even in bad light.

Yeah, looks like you are dialed in for sure. Eye focus setting would be a dream. Does it work well for wildlife, or is it built for humans primarily?

Love that squirrel karate pose.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2019 22:15

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

toggle posted:

Soldier crab doing it's thing.

starship troopers reboot lookin good

Wow, that's pretty awesome.

I played around with an older photo. Does this work?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2019 23:07

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

charliebravo77 posted:

I feel like the highlights are just a touch too hot, but I dig it otherwise. Has kind of a Donal Boyd feel: https://www.instagram.com/donalboyd/

Thanks. The original had blown highlights so I'm kind of stuck with it. It's one of the few bear-coming-at-me shots I captured so this is my attempt to salvage it.

BetterLekNextTime posted:

I feel like it might work better b&w?? It’s cool and I bet it would sell. Personally not my cup of tea. It doesn’t feel like a wild bear anymore, and that bothers me more than it probably should for a piece of art.

You're probably right about the b&w, but I'm going to try a metal print for this and hopefully the orange tint picks up a nice glow that way. If I was doing regular prints I think I'd skip the colour for sure. I understand your criticism, and it's probably not my cup of tea either, but as an experiment I'm pretty happy with it so far.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2019 01:10

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

BetterLekNextTime posted:

Sorry if that sounded harsh. It's a very impactful photo that I think will click with a lot of people.

No, it's not harsh at all. This is basically the only place in the entire internet you can get actual criticism on work so I always appreciate it.

Atlatl posted:

I know this is a bird but since we're getting advice I'll throw this draft in:

Thanks to big idiot em1x burst rate I happened to have more than enough shots to do a takeoff sequence so I tried this. Is it too busy? Is this garbage? I would prefer to know prior to spending a few hours on masking and adjustments, because this stuff is pretty tedious.

I agree with BetterLekNextTime. Cut out the last of the sequence and just focus on the first four (and get rid of the tree if possible). Pretty cool sequence!

# ¿ Dec 6, 2019 18:45

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Finger Prince posted:

I knew I'd seen something like this recently. Deloitte Canada has this whole "disrupting the bear" ad campaign running on the UP Express airport train in Toronto.
Lots of bear imagery, including things like this:

Maybe you could sell your photo to whoever is running the campaign? Get in on some of that Big Finance moneys.

Well now I feel like I've ripped off someone else and I've never even seen that add before. :ohdear:

# ¿ Dec 12, 2019 16:55

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 20:59

InternetJunky: May 25, 2002

Kind of crazy that I have so many polar bear shots and haven't really processed any of them.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2019 19:59

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Dorkroom > Wildlife Photography: Zooming with your feet may get you mauled

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