Nature Photography Workshops Tours
I love using long lenses for landscapes, surprisingly it’s a choice that often gets overlooked in nature photography. It always amazes me the different perspectives and compositions you can find within the scene when experimenting with a telephoto or super telephoto lens. This is a recent shot of Amphitheater Mountain taken in the northeastern corner of Yellowstone National Park during an early morning snow storm.
Canon 1DX 500mm f4L IS, 1.4Xtc f8 1/500 ISO3200
Breaking trail along the Continental Divide near Helena, Montana.
Canon 5D markII 24mm 3.5L TS F16 1/500 ISO400
This shot was taken a couple weeks back on my fall photography workshop in western Montana. A calm night looking towards the Swan Mountain Range.
Canon 1DX 70-200mm 2.8L IS, f11 1/15 ISO 100
Last night I was down near Yellowstone National Park when I was able to capture these incredible storm clouds that rolled into the Paradise Valley at sunset. There was no time to set up a tripod so I had to shoot at some higher ISOs to maintain a fast enough shutter speed while hand holding. This shot was taken at ISO 1600 F11 1/250 sec.
You’ve got to love the advancing technology and lower noise processing of the higher ISOs that are in our cameras these days. I routinely and comfortably shoot at ISO 1600 when I have to and up to 6400 when in a pinch now. Not only has the better sensor quality helped, but also the improved noise reduction algorithms in software have made a big difference as well.
Over the years, wildfires have certainly left their mark in and around Glacier National Park leaving behind ghostly silhouettes dotting the landscape. On this morning there was a beautiful fog just breaking along the north fork of the Flathead River just outside the park’s western boundary. The cool morning fog and early morning light produced a beautiful hue of purple and pink, adding a nice backdrop to the fire’s remnants.
Last month I was hiking up Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park when I decided to stop and set up a landscape shot featuring the Olympic Mountains and some wildflowers dotting the hillside.
I had everything set up, my tripod adjusted, and was taking a few shots, when out of the corner of my eye a blacktail doe wandered into my frame. I had literally two seconds to adjust my camera settings in order to freeze the deer’s movement in-frame and include her in my shot.
Not an easy thing to do and most of the time when things like this happen we end up missing the shot while fumbling frantically to switch our settings. However luck and preparation were on my side this morning as I was using my Custom Shooting Mode, C1, on my Canon 5D mkIII for my landscape settings.
For those who aren’t familiar with using the Custom Shooting Modes on your camera, they allow us to preset or program custom settings into a designated mode that can be quickly accessed on the camera. Canon’s 5D mkIII has three custom shooting modes located for easy access, C1,C2,C3. Each mode is programmable and located on the mode dial. You can program any settings you like into each mode, so when you switch to that mode, your settings are ready to go and you’re not left navigating endlessly while you miss that once in a lifetime shot.
On my camera for example I have C1 set up for shooting landscapes. I have programmed all the usual settings we start out with when shooting static scenes.
C1: Aperture Priority, ISO 100, f11, mirror lockup, 2 second timer.
This makes it quick and simple when I want to shoot a landscape and especially when I need to switch back and forth between shooting situations.
So for my blacktail deer on Hurricane Ridge, I was shooting my landscape in C1 and when the deer entered the frame, I quickly switched my mode dial to AV mode which was already set for action at ISO 800 f5.6 with no mirror lockup or 2 second timer. I was able to fire off two frames and get one with the deer right in the middle.
Now by itself my landscape shot was not a very interesting one nor one that I really cared for. But with the deer in the foreground it made the shot more interesting and added a little something extra. This was the absolute perfect example of the convenience of the Custom Shooting Modes and also an example of how they can help us capture shots that we ordinarily may have missed.
Here’s a shot from Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park from last week. Beautiful morning on the mountain with not a soul in sight. Couldn’t beat it!
Little Matterhorn, Glacier National Park. Canon 5dMkII 100-400mm 4.5-5.6L IS. ISO100 f8.0 1/20 sec
I was editing images this evening and kind of liked this one. It’s of the Little Matterhorn in Glacier National Park taken last September in the late evening. The image was taken at a longer focal length around 400mm and processed in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
Rocky Mountain Front. Canon 5dmkII 50mm 2.5. ISO100 f11 1/8
I was up near the Rocky Mountain Front earlier in the week and took this shot early morning near Augusta, Montana. Very cold morning with the wind blowing but still no snow to speak of. Winter so far in Montana has been off to a slow start and doesn’t look too promising at least going into next week. Oh well, I suppose we have until May until winter releases it’s grip here and I’m sure something will be coming sooner or later!
Canon 5dmkII 16-35mmII f16 1/10 ISO100
Here’s a couple shots from this weekend. I was shooting at the base of the Beartooth Mountains in southern Montana. Man are things looking spectacular right now, the wildflowers were out of this world!
Canon 7D 100-400mm f6.3 1/1000 ISO800