Early and Late Is The Key For Successfully Photographing Summer Bulls

7x7 Along Winslow Hill Road

 Today,s post features more photos of bull elk from the mid-June trip to Pennsylvania Elk Country.  While I saw several cows and calves it seemed that bulls were much easier to see and photograph.  Some had impressive antler growth, but most were young bulls such as the one in the photo below. This class of bull needs to get a few more years on him to grow truly impressive antlers, although they can look quite large to someone used to seeing only whitetail deer.

4x4 Pauses From Grazing

I found another 4x4 grazing in a small opening by the roadside  along Dents Run Road and photographed him with the 7D MKII and the 100-400mm IS II lens.

4x4 Along Dents Run Road

 It seems especially in the summer, that one can only see bulls consistently either very early in the morning or late in the evening.  They are usually back in the woods either before the first rays of the sun touches the meadows, or shortly thereafter in the mornings and they usually do not emerge again until shortly before sundown or later and the hotter it is, the more this rule applies.  The bull below was photographed on the first evening of the trip as I found him feeding along Winslow Hill Road.   This photo was taken at ISO 1000 with a Canon 5D MKIII and the 70-200 IS II L lens at f2.8 and 1/50 sec. shutter speed. This lens and the 300mm f2.8 are my two favorite low light elk lenses.

4X4 In Low Light-Winslow Hill Road

One cannot tell from the angle of the photo above but this bull will be at least a 5x5 as his main beams were beginning to fork into another set of points.  I cannot be certain as bulls with this general configuration are quite common,  but I think I filmed this bull several miles from this spot on Thursday morning with the GH4, but this was video only so I cannot post a comparison shot.

The next photo was taken at 5:44 a.m. on June 15th and  helps make the point that one needs to be out early. The equipment used was the 5D MKIII and 600mm F4 IS lens.  It was taken at ISO 1000 at 1/60 sec. f4.5.

Bachelor Group Interacting

The last photo for the day contradicts my advice somewhat as you did not need to be out extra-early to get it as these bulls were still in the meadow at 7:08 a.m. on June 16th.

Still Out After Sunrise On A Foggy Morning

I hope you enjoyed the photographs and remember that the key to success is getting up early and staying out late.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill

A Rainy Morning On Dewey Road

Mature Bull-Herding Cows In Falling Rain

Looking back 2015 was certainly a good year for elk and whitetail deer photography in many ways, while in other ways it brought disturbing changes--especially to Pennsylvania Elk Country, but for today we will strive to focus on the positive.

It was raining lightly on the morning of September 30th, and a large herd of elk was feeding across the road from the ponds on Dewey Road. A large number of elk watchers  and photographers were there when we arrived shortly after 8:00 and my brother and I soon joined in. The bull shown above was there along with  some satellite bulls.  This was possibly the largest bull seen at the Gilbert Farm Viewing Area this year and he was usually somewhere in the Dewey Road area during the two weeks I was there. This is also the bull that was in the video clip I posted recently.

Roaring A Challenge

The bulls are so impressive that we often focus much of our efforts on photographing and filming them, but it is also good to photograph the cows and calves as well. It was especially noteworthy today that one of the calves still had the spotted, summer coat and was small compared to the other calves so it was evidently born much later than normal.

Spotted Calf In Late September

Calf - Normal September Coat

All too soon the elk rut was over and now the year is over. I look forward to the photo and filming opportunities that 2016 will hopefully bring, bur as for the mature bull--he will not be back next year as he was killed during elk season.

All photos posted today were taken with the Canon 5D MK III and the Canon 600mm F4.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

River Encounters

Another September has come and gone and I am back home after nearly two weeks in Pennsylvania elk country .  Many years ago a photographer remarked that each year is different from the others.This is often because the best food sources will vary depending on what is planted in certain areas or if there is a good mast crop in a particular year, which will cause the elk to spend more time in the woods.  Whatever the cause, this was a very different year than most in the recent past, as this was the first time in many years that there were very few elk in The Saddle area during the time that I was there.

Resting In The Woods

Although elk were seen consistently along Dewey Road it was not as good as in most recent years and consequently I spent more time in other areas.  In twenty years of photographing elk I have spent little time along the streams in elk country, but that changed this year when I spent a few afternoons along Bennett's Branch.  One day I arrived a short time after an impressive dominance fight had occurred and found several  photographers discussing the events.. The largest bull involved in the fight was the one in the photo directly below.

7x8 The Day Before The River Fight

Even though the fight was over, the air rang with bugles as satellite bulls drifted back and forth across the stream, pausing to drink and to bugle.

River Crossing

6x6 Pauses To Drink

Bugling In The River

I have had many exciting times in elk country, but  this afternoon stood out from many of them because this was the first time I had photographed bulls during the rut in this type of setting.

All photos were taken with the Canon 5D MKIII and the Canon 600mm f4.0 IS L lens.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Images From The 2014 Whitetail Rut and Camera Thoughts

It has been over three weeks since this blog was last updated and that has not happened since I began blogging in 2007.  This blog has always been issues oriented, but I find it increasingly difficult to write about this type of subject matter.  It is amazing how time consuming it can be just to write a short article about a controversial subject when one is striving for accuracy and objectivity.  With that in mind, I will limit today's post to sharing some photos from the recent whitetail rut and some thoughts on cameras for stills and video.

With all the talk of the introduction of the 7D MK II I decided to get the old 7D out of mothballs and use it for some long range work this autumn. It turned out that it  and the 600mm was an excellent choice to photograph this buck which was about 125 yards away.

Eight-Point: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm F4.0 IS L-ISO 400-1/2000 Sec. F 5.0

The buck had followed a doe into the meadow and I captured them both in another frame.

Eight-Point Buck and Doe: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm F4.0 IS L-ISO 400-1/2000 Sec. F 5.0

Of course it is always good to capture wildlife other than whitetails and an encounter with Eastern Wild Turkey gobblers is a rewarding experience and no before you ask I wasn't THAT close to the bird. The old 7D can stand up to severe cropping as long as the light is good and it is focused accurately.

Wild Turkey Gobbler: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm F4.0 IS L-ISO 400-1/2000 Sec. F 5.0

Why, you might ask have I even mentioned the 7D MK II when I have not even seen one yet, let alone used it?

I am mostly a video oriented person, but I love still photography also. Beginning in 1997 I used high-end prosumer Canon camcorders such as the L2, XL-1s, and XL-H1, but with the introduction of video in dslrs such as the Canon 7D, T3i, and 70D I found myself shooting more and more of my video with these cameras, although their video quality left something to be desired in many cases.  I saw footage from a Panasonic GH2 in 2012 and it was much sharper than that of the 7D.  This began a period of shooting video with both Canon and Panasonic cameras.  With the advent of the 4K Panasonic GH-4 I have shifted entirely to the Panasonics for video and recently acquired a fixed lens Panasonic FZ-1000 as a secondary camera to use when the GH-4 has a big telephoto mounted on it.  The downside is that the GH-4 is not as good as the old Canon 7D for still photography and the the FZ-1000 is a good step behind the GH-4.

Frosty Morning Buck: Panasonic FZ-1000-ISO 1000-1/100 sec. F 4.0

The thing about the small sensor cameras for still photography is that their image may look very sharp at a glance, but if one zooms in to 100% or higher in Photoshop it is  noticeable that they do not have the fine detail of the larger sensor cameras. With that being said, they are perfectly usable for many purposes including taking images for publication and they have the advantage of being very small  and portable in comparison to the Canons with the big prime lenses.

Now back to the 7D Mark II-- At this point I would not buy one for the video features as there is no flip-finder and no 4K video for starters, but this does not detract from its' appeal as a still camera.  I can understand why Canon does not put a flip LCD on the pro-level still cameras, but it is severely crippling to shoot video without one unless you use an external monitor and as of yet external monitors do not work nearly as well on the Canons as they do with the Panasonics. The main attraction of the 7D MK II to me would be low light performance comparable to that of the 5D MK III. Another point to consider is that technically an un-cropped image of distant wildlife from a 7D MK II sensor should have better detail than a 5D MK III cropped to the same perspective. I do not know, as I have not tried a 7D MK II, but after extensive use of the 70D and original 7D  I still cannot make up my mind if it is really worth using a crop sensor for stills over cropping the 5D MK III image more in Photoshop.

In closing I wish to emphasize that I discuss only Canon and Panasonic cameras here as those are the only cameras I own and  have experience with.  As to the 7D MK II, I look forward to seeing results from this camera and reading users experiences.  At this point it looks like I will not be an early adopter, and perhaps may never acquire one, but who knows?  It may become my favorite wildlife still camera.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.