Off-road Jeep at dusk.

This image is a combination of two photographs shot at dusk.  The goal was to show the effect of the light bar on the Jeep so we wanted the individual lights to show clearly.  We took an exposure of f/4.5 at 1/25, ISO 800.  This gave good definition to the lights and also kept the sky dark.  We then used a shot taken at 1/6, same aperture, to get detail in front of the Jeep and on the driver.  The driver was lit separately by a flashlight mounted in an adjacent tree.  We combined both images and used some masking to bring out the best parts.

I do not make many images that are set up in advance like this one.  We posed the Jeep carefully, set the camera on a tripod and waited until most of the light had faded from the sky.  The flashlight on the driver was actually an afterthought while we were waiting.  We were fortunate to have a nearby tree that had branches suitable for holding the light with a plastic bag over the front to diffuse the beam.

Landing Mallard

This drake mallard is about to land on the water.  He is backpedaling rapidly so as to slow his airspeed.  The wingtips are slightly blurred even with a shutter speed of 1/1000.  The tail is fanned out for extra braking and the feet are coming forward.

Ducks-Near Collision

Three mallards in descending flight.  The two drakes are almost colliding with each other as they try to stay with the hen.  There is some distance compression with a 400mm lens but the two ducks were still very close to bumping.

It happened quickly.  The motor drive was running on slow speed (3.5 fps) as I tracked the ducks yet the images both before and after this one did not show any potential mid-air problem.

Mallard in descending flight-2.

This drake mallard duck is in the same rapid descent as in the previous post but was shot from a different angle.  The wings are deeply cupped and the feet are deployed.

The clear blue sky and the low camera angle allow for a better view than the side angle shot posted yesterday.

Mallard in descending flight.

This drake mallard is in rapid descent as can be seen by his sharply cupped wings.  The feet are deployed as air brakes.

The duck is beginning to slow its airspeed yet it is still so fast that it is hard to track when using a long lens with minimal field of view.  A duck passing to the side, like this one, requires swinging the camera rapidly to keep up with the bird as well as trying to keep the focus locked on.

Freestyle skier.

This photograph was one of the last that I shot of the freestyle skiers and the location was my favorite.  I was on the side and slightly up from the bottom.  The hill is very steep but not very long so I was almost directly underneath the skiers after they came off the ramp.  I was shooting almost straight up so I didn't have any background items in the image (except for the top of the ramp, but this helps orient the viewer perhaps).

Freestyle skiing hill.

This image shows the top of the freestyle hill where all the action takes place.  The lens was at 90mm.  For the close-ups the lens was usually zoomed out to 350mm.

I could not get to the left side of the hill.  If I got too far to the right the building would be in the background.