22 Jul 14. As we were driving to Bozeman to purchase supplies for our stay at the condo, I realized that we had driven that road back in 2007 when we were returning home from our Grand Tetons/Yellowstone trip that we took with the photo club from Gaithersburg. It was a great trip and our first exposure to the Grand Tetons. The drive was one with me wanting to stop every mile or so to take photos but didn't as we got a late start because one of us had been taking photos and we had a long drive ahead of us. So I just looked at all the beautiful scenery and drove on. Driving the same road on the way to shop found me doing the same thing as I had no way of knowing how much time would be needed in Bozeman. As it turned out, we spent the majority of the day there and began our return home in the late afternoon but not so late that we didn't have some nice light for the return which meant that I could get some of the material I had forgone on the way to town. At one point I had stopped and walked a very short distance from the vehicle to shoot some beautiful red shrubs framing a deep blue river with a blue sky full of puffy white clouds for the background. When I got back to the vehicle Jan asked if I had captured the animal tracks in the snow on the far bank. I had completely overlooked that and went back to try and capture what it was she was seeing. I tried a couple of different lenses to get the shot and the image for today is the best of that attempt. The color versions are nice, but it took B&W to really show off the tracks to the extent I desired. The river is perhaps two feet deep in this scene and is lacking both a visible fisherman and fish, but the tracks add a bit of interest to the photo that I think I prefer over the fisherman. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/2000 sec @ f /10.
23 Jul 14. While driving around the loop road heading to the eastern portion of Yellowstone National Park known as the Lamar Valley, we rounded a curve in the road to encounter a large number of vehicles lining both sides of the road and a group of photographers (film crew) all looking across the road with their cameras pointing to a specific location. We stopped, I got out to see what was causing the commotion, and was directed to a spot where a black bear was munching on its kill, a deer that had been taken down about three hours earlier. Putting my sharpest lens on the camera, I joined the group and took quite a few shots! Today's submission is typical of those shots and was taken with a lens with an effective 300mm focal length. If you look carefully you just may see the bear and its prey which is what I was seeing through the camera. I was shooting between all those other folks with the big glass that you see in the "film crew" image. It was kind of funny, but it was what I had and so that's what I used. To actually get the predator and large sheep images you need that big glass or just be lucky enough to cross paths with them unexpectedly, which can potentially become quite "interesting." Looking at some lens reviews last night for some of the bigger, but not break-the-bank expensive big glass, I ventured across a couple of videos on a technique I'd never heard of before, but one that apparently has been available on digital bodies, especially the Nikons, for over a decade, called back focus. It is a method for using a dedicated back of the camera button to do the focusing instead of the shutter release that offers many advantages. It saves battery power, makes for easier composition, and provides greater control of the camera. I set it up on all the bodies last night after watching the videos a couple of times and tried it out today. I'll now be using the technique in all my work. Some of you may find it worth while to check it out. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 200; 1/500 sec @ f / 5.6.
The film crew.
