A Dramatic Moment-Capturing The Reality

Moon Rise Composite: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 100-400mm

It is certainly commendable to capture images that require minimal manipulation in post-processing, but it is sometimes not possible to capture the mood of a scene, or depict what you actually saw with your eyes, without manipulating the image with editing software, since our eyes can see a much wider range of contrast, etc. than what a camera sensor can successfully capture.  As a result I see nothing wrong with manipulating an image to look more closely like what your actually saw at the time.

I well remember posting a photo of a sunrise, in which I was up-front about techniques I had applied to improve the color and drama of the scene, and a reader commented that the photograph looked very good, but I had just as well made a painting of the scene as a photograph should present the subject just as the camera captured it.  The major fault with this argument is that it assumes that the camera sensor possesses some magic characteristic that makes its' interpretation of a scene the correct one. In other words you are leaving your creative decisions and interpretation of reality up to the engineers that designed the camera sensor, and exposure control system.

Today's photo is a perfect example of a case where I think extensive post-processing was acceptable. I was watching a remote creek-bottom on the evening of August 1st, in the hope that a bachelor group of whitetail bucks would show up.  That didn't happen and the air was so humid that even as the last rays of the sun were hitting the meadow that wisps of fog began to rise from the ground.  I left at photographic dark and was driving home, when I noticed the moon rising above the nearby mountain. The distant mountain in the background,  the trees in the foreground, and the eerie light of the moon reflected in the swirling fog, all combined to make a dramatic scene that I will never forget.

This is prime example of a case where the contrast range was too great for the camera to capture. At this point you have two basic choices, which are to expose for the moon and lose all detail in the sky and foreground or expose for the foreground and let the detail in the moon be blown out.  I began with the 100-400mm  lens at 180mm lens to get the basic composition I wanted and set the exposure so that there was about the same amount of detail visible in the photograph that was visible to the eye.  Next I zoomed in to 320mm and exposed for the moon.

After downloading to the computer I fine tuned each image in Adobe Bridge CS6  camera raw and then opened each image in CS6.  I then dragged the image of the properly exposed moon over the background image, which created a layer.  At this point I erased most of the layer containing the moon and then selected transform and scaled the moon to cover the moon in the background photo, but be somewhat larger so that the moon would be more dramatic and the detail in the face of it more visible.  At that point I carefully erased all of the layer containing the moon except for the moon itself so there was a natural looking boundary between the moon and the fog in the original background image.

Did this work?  I am sure opinions will vary.  I do not think it completely captured the essence of the moment--in fact I don't think it is possible for any imaging medium to capture a moment like this in a way to truly do it justice, but it certainly did a much more credible job than any straight out of camera effort could have hoped to accomplish.

Originally posted at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Pennsylvania Elk Country: Bachelor Groups of Summer

Fulton County Bachelor Group 2012: Panasonic GH2-Canon 500mm F4

 In my early years of deer watching and hunting I was not aware that mature bucks spent most of the year except the rut in bachelor groups. This was long before antler restrictions,  nearly all of the land in our area was open to public hunting, and there was little respect for the game law. One did not see many bachelor groups for the simple reason that few bucks survived to the age where they formed bachelor groups.  It also seemed that in that period, the outdoor newspapers and magazines did not deal as much with wildlife biology, but mostly with hunting stories and  firearms articles so there was not the awareness of  this concept that there is today and if one did see several bucks together they were likely to assume it was just a happenstance occurrence and not in fact normal behavior.

In time there was a lot more posted ground in my area and larger bucks were seen, but bachelor groups of large bucks did not become commonly seen in my area until antler restrictions were implemented in 2002.  I still don't think they are seen that often by the casual observer, because these animals are more shy than the yearlings and are usually seen in remote, quiet areas and are usually seen extremely early in the morning and very late in the evening.

The point of this ramble about bachelor groups  is that Wednesday morning, July 11th was an exceptional morning for seeing bachelor groups of both bull elk and whitetail bucks.  I traveled some distance from Winslow Hill to check out an agricultural area at dawn.  Shortly after dawn, I saw two outstanding whitetail bucks, but had no opportunity to photograph them.  Moving on, I came to a pull-off overlook a large reclaimed area.  There I saw three bucks.  One was small, but the other two were very nice indeed.  It was too far for good still photography so I took only video, using the Canon 500mm F4 with the Panasonic GH2 hybrid camera.  This camera has a micro-4/3 sensor, which has a 2x crop factor.  It also has an extended telephoto mode when shooting video, which is also about 2x, so in effect this gives the 500mm on this camera the effective focal length of a 2,000mm lens.  It can do this in video mode without enlarging pixels (digital zoom) because HD video is only 2 MP resolution, so it reads its information from only a certain part of the central portion of the sensor.  One can capture a still from the video in either the camera or in an editing program, but the resulting picture is only 2 MP.

Elk County Bachelor Group: Panasonic GH2 Canon 500mm F4- still from video

To this point I had not yet seen one elk, but after filming the bucks I drove on a short distance and came to a field beside the road and it seemed to be filled with bulls.  Parking in a safe place, I  got out and mounted the Canon 5D with 24-105mm lens on the video tripod and took some stills and video of the entire bachelor group.

Bachelor Group of Young Bulls: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 24-105mm F4 L ISO 400 1/60 sec. f8

One's first reaction on seeing this was that the field was full of large bulls, but closer inspection revealed there was not one truly impressive mature bull.  These were all either raghorns or young bulls that still need to live a few years before they can grow impressive racks.

Young 5x5 Has Potential: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 500mm F4 L ISO 400 1/320 sec. f4.5

Even though the bulls were not as large as hoped, it was still an impressive sight and a morning to remember. To emphasize how important being out early is--the elk left the field shortly after 7:00 a.m. and I saw no more elk or deer until that evening.

Originally posted at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Winslow Bulls And The 5D MK III

To be honest, Winslow Hill is not the best place to see mature bulls during the summer months--especially with the loss of three of the largest bulls that used this area as summer home range, in the past few years.  With that being said, I did encounter two rack bulls and two raghorns on the hill during last weeks trip.

The first that I successfully photographed was a  6x6 or 6x7 if one counts a small sticker point near the right ear. This was most likely a raghorn last year and is now in his first year as a rack bull.  While very nice indeed, this is still a small bull for Pennsylvania.    I encountered him in a meadow by the side of Winslow Hill Road on Thursday evening at 8:33 p.m. and stayed with him until nearly dark, taking a lot of still photos and video footage of him--all with the 5D MK III and 70-200mm f 2.8 IS L lens.

6x6 Winslow Hill: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 70-200mm f2.8 ISO 1250 1/200 sec. f4

I was back at the same area at the crack of dawn on Friday morning, and again I had the 70-200mm attached.  At first I saw two rag horns quite close to the road, but I never did get good stills of them because as I was trying to set up a good shot, I noticed a large 6x6 coming out of the tree line some distance away.  I took two frames of him, but it was obvious that I needed more power, so I quickly mounted the 500mm F4 and soon was in action with it.  This bull was a bit shy and stayed close the tree line for most of the encounter.  This was very early and the light was somewhat murky.  I used ISO 3200 so as to have a bit of a safety margin against motion blur.

Large 6x6 Winslow Hill: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 500mm F4-  ISO 3200 1/160ec. f4

Both of these encounters are prime examples of how improved noise handling at high ISO settings and larger aperture lenses are a great aid in wildlife photography.  Again I stress that the statements I make are based on limited experience with this camera and are not based on tightly controlled tests, but rather on impressions gained under actual shooting conditions in the field.  The first photo today was of course taken at ISO 1250 and the full resolution file on a desktop monitor seems as sharp and noise free as one taken at ISO 400 or less with the 7D.  It is acceptable for the most critical usage.

ISO 3200 on the other hand is starting to push the limit for something that you would want to enlarge to great sizes, enter in a photo contest, submit for publication etc.  Digital noise is visible, although I feel there is no more than is present in the 7D at ISO 800.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Mid-Summer In Elk Country

I was in Elk Country most of last week, photographing and filming the elk and working on "Pennsylvania Elk Country", the new film slated for release in late summer. An added bonus was getting to work more with the Canon 5D MK III on Pennsylvania's largest wild animal and getting my feet wet with the Panasonic DMC-GH2 EVIL (acronym for electronic viewfinder Interchangeable lens)camera, for long range video work. I concentrated on looking for calves and bulls in velvet, and did see quite a few.

Shy Cow: Canon 5D MK III-500mm F4 ISO 100 1/500 sec. f4.5

The cows and calves are still somewhat shy in most cases, and it was difficult to get close-up portraits of them-especially the calves. This is amazing because the same cows that flee now, will continue to graze peacefully when other herd members are shot close-by  in hunting season, or at least they did last autumn and I would expect no differently this year.

As one would expect, most wildlife activity was very early and very late.  If you miss being out there at the crack of dawn, you have missed the best part of the day.  The cow above was photographed at 7:41 a.m. and most of the elk had already gone into the woodlands.  They spend very little time in direct sunlight at this time of year.  If they have not already left before, they tend to leave a meadow soon after the first rays of sun touches it.  Fortunately, I did luck out to a certain extent concerning the weather on this trip, as I am told it was extremely hot in elk country the week before, and returned to sweltering temperatures by the weekend, but most of my trip was quite pleasant summer weather, which is to say hot, but not unbearably so.  In fact a light sweater felt good on most mornings.

Early in the trip I found that cows and calves were using a secluded meadow quite frequently, and I spent two evenings watching it. On Wednesday evening a group of cows and calves came into range, but some of the adult cows picked me out and barked at me   The calf in the photo below raised its' head from grazing and looked at the cow that had just barked.

Alert Calf In Late Evening: 5D MK III-500mm F4 ISO 400- 1/250 sec.,  F4.5

This encounter occurred at 7:54 p.m.  In time they worked into a strip of woods and began working toward Winslow Hill Road and soon you could hear the traffic on the road stopping as people paused to observe the herd.

On that note, I must mention that I saw very few other elk watchers or photographers in the mornings, but there was quite a bit of traffic in the evenings.  It seems that interest is higher this month than what it was in June.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.