Simon says: Wildlife...

[SSonnentag]

How about some wild animal shots...zoos are cheating. :)

Shawn

[Swampy]

One of my Coyote shots that hasn't been posted. In fact, I think Wayne is probably the only other person who's seen this shot from the forums. I've never posted this shot because I thought it was totally unusable. I've taken what I've learned here and threw it all into PS and came out with a usable photo.

Thanks to all who have shared thier sweat and pain here.

[lightwrangler]

Wildlife!?
I live in Toronto, Shawn - wildlife is usually found in night clubs here. (And man is that wild!) Unless you think photo's of raccoons and squirrels would be of interest, I may bow out of this one. I'm afraid that the zoo might be the only alternative.

Regards, Adrian.

[SSonnentag]

I like raccoons! We have some along the Colorado River here in Yuma, but I haven't seen one in many years.

[lightwrangler]

Ok, they are nocturnal and only usually seen raiding gargbage cans but.... I'll see what I can do. (Personally I think the night clubs are a better idea)

[sandman]

Shawn , i'm still trying to find a fire engine, and you come out with wildlife :) . I'm with lightwrangler on this, north kent is not a known haven for anything except old cement workings and a few dead and flattend hedgehogs.
But with a bit of poetic licence i'm sure i can cheat somehow.
Like swampy i'm surprised by your avatar, i saw you as somewhat older and more venerable looking , a bit like ''Frazier'' but with glasses :D . mind you i thought smunky was a fella untill she posted hers. Right got to go and find some fire engines , then wildlife, could find both down our local bar, but that's cheating.

Brian

[Swampy]

Sandman----- I am LAUGHING My Rear Off!

You gotta be able to find something around there. Look at mine... I'm in the cement city too... But we have small parks where we have some nice things. Doesn't have to be zebra's ya know... And I'm sure Ron is going to be posting something really nice here soon.... hahaha

RIGHT. Got to go. :D

[mmaathuis]

I don't like this shot, but since you insist on seeing raccoons :D

I love the shot of the deer or what ecer the are SSonnentag, since one!

What is Wildlife in your opinion? I haven't been able to shoot anything bigger than a crocodile.

[Ron Green]

Pacific Pelican

[SSonnentag]

According to Merriam Webster: wildlife n, often attrib (1879): living things and especially mamals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated.

So, I guess we'll have to admit that most zoo creatures fall under the category of wildlife, however, the aforementioned nightclub wildlife does not fall into this group because most specimins can be at least remotely linked to the human race, although they are commonly not domesticated. But raccoons, squirrels and birds most certainly do qualify! :D

Nice raccoon, maathuis.

Shawn

[smunky]

PLEASE PLEASE excuse the photo quality as my shot came out bad (wrong settings d'oh)
So I lightened it up to find this hilarious pose... it made me crack up.
Ill try to catch them in a better light, these deer live beside my house a family of about 17.

[sandman]

O.k.little cheat, something to get by on untill i can find something else. I threw a stick for my dog to chase and this elephant bought it back... HONEST...

Brian

[sandman]

No cheating now, got out and did a bit of shooting ''in the wild''.
''a wild stag night''

[Ross]

Brian,

where did you find the deer? Gary and I are planning to come down to Kent in the autumn, and the only deer park round here (that we know about!) lost all it's deer through TB (ironically at the time they were trying desperately to save them from Foot and Mouth!), so we'd love to get somewhere to see some...

Ross

[critter]

Here is an elk I shot at Estes Park with my 80-400VR . That was a fun trip...:beerchug:

[thetran]

I know have not been here in a while but here's my contribution.

The'

[GaryB]

Wow. That's far too good to be hidden here - it should be framed and hanging on the forum entrance ;)

What lens did you use?

Gary

[thetran]

This was a lens I used to have, Nik 400/3.5 AIS. I have since sold it and is looking out for deals at some AF lens in that range. That lens gives very good image, even wide open at 3.5. The manual focus was not that fun w/ the s2 because of it's smaller viewfinder.


Thanks for you encouragement.

The'

[GaryB]

The'

Have you thought about the Nikon 80-400VR? Its not cheap but it is very sharp, and you can handhold it at ridiculously slow speeds...

Gary

[chaser of light]

"According to Merriam Webster: wildlife n, often attrib (1879): living things and especially mamals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated"

That may have been in 1879 ! But some of the wildest life Ive come across is positvely human!
:D
Thetran, your contribution is astoundingly beautiful:cheers:

[thetran]

Hey Gary,

Thanks for suggesting the 80-400VR. I don't mean to sound snobbish but I am want to get a prime 500. I love shootin birds and even 400 is a tad short for smaller birds. W/ primes I can at least put TC one to make it longer and still have reasonable light. The 80-400VR is on my list but not at the top :-). The item that's high on my wanted list is the Sigma 500/4.5. Once I am able to sell my 300 AF-S, I think I will get the Sigma.

The'

[thetran]

Now, I need a bigger size hat :-)

Thanks,
The'

[LightWriter6208]

The'...that is an incredible shot...I agee..it needs to be hanging in a foyer or a gallery somewhere.

Alice

[JPS]

...due to the rotten weather we have these days, that's all I could find as "wildlife" ! :o

[GaryB]

Jean-Pierre - I love the movement that this captures...

Gary

[Linda G]

Jean Pierre,

ON with the poor weather if that's what it brings in! Love that shot.

[S_Leeper]

Wasn't an intentional baiting.
We've been looking for a place to hang the feeder. The last location was reachable by the squirrels...
Well those deer emptied it out just before the rest of the herd came by... it has since been moved up about two feet -- and the birds are happily enjoying their seed.

[kcmocopper]

I took this photo while down at my dad's. We just arrived down at my dads farm for a weekend of turkey hunting. My partner and I were anxious to go turkey hunting but it was dark out when we arrived so I decided to take him out and see if we could find something to photograph. Well we did! My partner seen this owl sitting in a tree while we were checking out this river on my dad's friends property. I was able to take 5 photos of this creature before he flew off. This is the best one!

Larry

[TimothyH]

We left home for the Easter weekend and came back to this nest on our front porch. We didn't have the cold hearts to get rid of it but we haven't been able to use our porch at all for some of the best weeks of the year. Can't disturb Mama!

Four new babies and boy are they hungry. Mom is working incredible hours just to feed them. They are very demanding.

Reminds me of my two kids but it took longer to get them out of the nest!

Tim

[easternherp]

Heres my stab at this :)

[sandman]

For some reason i seem to have totally missed this thread after my deer shots back in oct , so Ross if you're still interested , they were taken at Knole Park in Sevenoaks here in Kent .
There's some terrific shots here , how i missed this i don't know .

Brian

[GaryB]

Thanks Brian - sound like a good place to go. Ross doesn't visit here often now having gone over to the "other side" (She has bought a Canon 10D)

Gary

[Tom Nolle]

OK, Steve, here's a bull elk in velvet getting ready to lick salt off an SUV. Sigma 70-200mm EX at 200, RAW, ACR.

Tom

[Auminer]

...here's a bull elk in velvet getting ready to lick salt off an SUV...

Looks like he is ready and very capable too! ;) Nice shot Tom!

Dave

[Tom Nolle]

You know I tried to get him to turn a bit so his face wouldn't have the shadow! Darn animals don't take direction (like a lot in the military, right Dave?)

We were told that there are hormones released while elks are in velvet that mellow them out, shall we say, so they don't hurt themselves. Elk are a bit antsy (irascible, to add another word to our collection) under normal circumstances; I've had to run and hide from them more than once.

Tom

[Auminer]

I know you realize these critters are not as dumb as some tend to believe. When we are looking at somebody or something we would rather have our eyes shaded, cameras too. This may have been on purpose. :)

Haven't really been around Elk that much, although there is a herd in this area that come down from Oregon...need to get out and take a few shots. I have been around Alaskan Moose and they can be irascible :rolleyes: or darn right grumpy to say the least. Might have to take extreme evasive maneuvers!! :eek:

Don't know if you looked at the quick, uncomposed, shot from the hip photos I posted here a couple of weeks ago of our "uninvited guests" the Buffalo. They are aggressive, and irascible wouldn't fit their disposition, they had my black Lab and myself dodging and ducking around trees here in the yard.

Just have to love this wildlife photo stuff, and it helps to understand the various critters. If you can have an idea of their next move it will improve your chances of a good shot.

Keep'em coming Tom! :righton:

Dave

[Tom Nolle]

Thanks, Dave. I've not had any close encounters of the moose kind, but I did have a bit of a problem with a bison on my Yellowstone trip, actually in the Tetons. I got my SUV hung up in snow at about 8000 feet and had to walk out almost 6 miles for help. On the way, I encountered a male bison who disputed my passage, as they say. I thought I was going to have to bear-spray the guy, but when I started talking to him he turned away. Those darn things are scary at ground level, let me tell you!

I did see your shot and enjoyed it. I'll try to get some of my Yellowstone/Teton guys up on my website. I caught a whole herd including calves crossing The Madison River a couple of times and I think there are some nice shots lurking in that batch.

Tom

[SSonnentag]

This little guy thinks my wife grows an EXCELLENT buffet flower garden! :D

Shawn