Saturday, January 14, 2012

Paul Staniszewski Featured Friday On VisitPA Facebook Page

Paul Staniszewski, who is a frequent contributor to this blog e-mailed me to let us know that VisitPA has a facebook presence and that they featured one of his elk photographs on  "Fab Friday Fan Foto"  The photo is also posted below with Paul's permission.

Bull Elk In Winter: Courtesy of Paul Staniszewski-all rights reserved.
Those who have a facebook account are encouraged to see the post on the VisitPA  facebook page.  Be sure to follow the links for information on The Elk Country Visitor Center.

Winter is an excellent time to visit Elk Country, especially when there is snow cover,as it can make for  exciting photo opportunities.  I especially like to film elk in the falling snow as it is easy to capture the falling snow flakes on video, and the snow creates a wild, dramatic backdrop against which to photograph wildlife.
Snow does not show up as well in still as in video in many cases, such as in the photo below of a young bull on the weekend before the 2011 elk season.

Bull Elk During Snowstorm
There was a moderate snow coming down, and while the flakes do show up in the still photograph, they are much more noticeable in video taken at the same time.

Originally posted at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Early Winter Wildlife: A Slow Period

This is an especially difficult time to get satisfying wildlife photographs and video as many of the bucks were killed in the past season, and the survivors are very cagey.  The lack of snowfall is another big minus.  Yes I do like the mild temperatures and dread the thought of dealing with snow, but it does open the door for great photo opportunities.

With that being said I was able to capture a portrait of a beautiful young button buck with the 500mm lens on a crisp, sunny morning. 

Button Buck Poses In Early Morning Sun

Turkeys are also seen at times, but they are usually walking or feeding their way across the meadows and seldom give good poses or do anything interesting, except when they fight among themselves. But this morning I saw a turkey fly  into the meadow in front of me, so I got the camera in position in the hopes and more followed, giving me several photo opportunities with the Canon 7D and 500mm lens. Here are two of the best shots.

Eastern Wild Turkey In Flight
Turkey Prepares To Land
 I did get a few frames of the birds landing, but none were sharp enough to use.  The birds were at fairly long range so the photos are heavily cropped, I would have liked to have been closer, but these are the first sharp photos I have taken of turkeys in flight so I am happy with the results overall.

Originally posted at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.
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