July 2009

Brown Bear Portrait -- Thanks to the D700!

Submitted by David Cardinal on Wed, 07/22/2009 - 01:54

Even the seemingly endless daylight in Alaska eventually ends. Last night we were outside until late in the evening when a large brown bear gave us a beautiful portrait opportunity, but...we had lost most of the light and in order to get any kind of reasonable shutter speed to freeze the motion of the walking bear I needed to move my D700 up to ISO 2200. This gave me 1/250s, just enough shutter speed, with my Nikon 200-400mm f/4 lens and 1.7x Nikon TC-17E Teleconverter for an effective 650mm focal length. The result was a sharp image of the bear.

Flight Photo Secrets -- Horned Puffin Take-Off

Submitted by David Cardinal on Sat, 07/18/2009 - 11:03

On cloudy days or for a change of pace, flight shots taken in front of colorful landscapes are a great alternative to the more traditional shots taken against a blue sky. But auto-focus systems have a very hard time with birds flying in front of landscape backgrounds. Unlike clean blue sky there isn't much to provide the contrast your AF system needs. So what to do about showing a bird like this Horned Puffin flying in its environment?...One traditional approach is to acquire focus while the bird is in front of the sky and then track it on to the colorful background.

Horned Puffin Taking Off

Submitted by David Cardinal on Sat, 07/18/2009 - 11:02

Canon Instant Rebates Ending August 8th

Submitted by David Cardinal on Wed, 07/15/2009 - 09:56

Jody at Roberts wants to make sure everyone knows that the Canon rebates are really ending August 8. There was a report that they'd been extended to September, but that is not the case. There are some great cash back offers on quite a wide range of Canon lenses and flashes.

News
Canon Speedlite
Canon D-SLR

Clamming--Brown Bear Style

Submitted by David Cardinal on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 08:45

No one knows quite how or when Alaskan Brown Bears (also known as Grizzly Bears) learned to clam. Or rather, lots of people claim to know but they all have different stories...But what is certain is that the knowledge spreads and is passed down from mother to cubs. So one of the highlights of our summer Grizzly Bear Photo Safaris has become photographing the bears clamming. This female was particularly adept, sensing where the razor clams were dug in through some combination of seeing their spout marks and perhaps smelling them.

Brown Bear Female Clamming

Submitted by David Cardinal on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 08:45

Using a Telephoto to Draw the Viewer In -- Featuring the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 Lens

Submitted by David Cardinal on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 15:36

All it takes is standing alongside a road or in a park next to a long lens to draw shouts of "what are you shooting, the moon?" But as any wildlife photographer knows a telephoto isn't used just to photograph objects that are far away...Instead it is most often used to draw the viewer into a scene--making it more intimate than it would be otherwise. This Alaskan Brown ("Grizzly") Bear was racing back and forth in a creek mouth looking for fish getting swept out by the tide. One of her runs brought her towards us.

Sometimes Persistence Pays Off: Dall Sheep

Submitted by David Cardinal on Thu, 07/09/2009 - 08:03

I have heard for a decade how one of the best ways to see and photograph the charismatic but elusive Dall Sheep is on the stretch of highway between Anchorage and Soldotna... But somehow, despite having driven the road at least 20 times the best I'd done is some distance glimpses. So I began to suspect that this was another case of wishful thinking by the locals. But I stuck with it and yesterday, sure enough, there was a family of three sheep right near the road.

Shoot First, Get the Book Out Later

Submitted by David Cardinal on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 13:13

I'm not completely sure I knew there was a white morph of the Reddish Egret until two weeks ago, and I certainly don't think I'd seen one before that...

Hands on Field Test with the Revolutionary new Fujifilm Finepix F200EXR

Submitted by David Cardinal on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 08:20

When I first saw a prototype at PMA I knew it was going to be a cool point and shoot and one I'd want to get a chance to review. I've been a big fan of the low noise at high ISO of the Finepix cameras ever since the venerable Finepix F30. But a couple of its successors didn't really surpass its performance, so I wanted to see for myself whether this new generation of sensor would deliver the promised performance....

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