Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Wild Tom Turkey

This is a nice picture of a wild tom turkey in the woods.  It was taken in the mid-morning and the sunlight was filtering through the overhead canopy with a lot of hot spots.  Fortunately, this bird chose to stand for a few moments in a spot that was evenly lit and he was broadside to the camera so we can see his beard.  Some dead twigs cause a mild distraction but luckily they are back by his tail.
400mm lens, 1/250 second at f/2.8, ISO 6400.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Fawn Whitetail Deer in Forest

This whitetail deer fawn paused just long enough to give us this nice picture.  The fawn was alert to  some noise or movement so his ears were in the perfect position.  The light was not bright due to the overhead canopy.  But it was nicely diffused without the harsh sunbeams that we often encounter.
400mm lens, f/2.8 at 1/320 second at ISO 3200.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Wild Turkey

This is the first wild tom turkey we've been able to photograph and we were fortunate to be quite close.  The mating season was over so he wasn't with any hens and he wasn't strutting or fanning his tail feathers.  Nonetheless, he stood for a nice portrait and we can see the beard on his chest.  This photo was shot about mid-morning but the thick overhead canopy limited the light that reached the forest floor.
400mm lens, 1/400 second at f/2.8, ISO 5000.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Fawn Whitetail Deer and Doe

This photograph shows a playful fawn whitetail deer getting rambunctious with its mother.  I was positioned across a creek and the two deer stayed in front of me for about 5 minutes.  The doe was trying to eat and the fawn was continuously scampering about and sometimes leaping onto the doe's back.  It was a lot of fun to watch.  This happened about a half hour after sunrise but the deer were under a thick canopy of trees.  There wasn't much light there so it was a good test for the new Canon 1DX MkII camera and a very high ISO setting.  400mm lens, 1/400 second at f/2.8, ISO 16000.
There certainly was noise in the image but that was reduced quite a bit during the raw processing.  I wouldn't make a large print, though, unless the viewing distance was expected to be fairly long.  Anyway, it was great to capture such a fun image.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Wood Chris-Craft Boat Speeding Away

This is another photograph from the series we shot of the 1929 Chris-Craft wood boat.  Boats like this design have pleasing curves that are shown very well from this angle.  Plus, the line of the gunwale/rubrail from the transom to the bow adds a nice diagonal that makes the overall image more visually attractive.  The only drawback to this angle is that the overall length of the boat is not well shown.  Plus, there is some compression of the subject due to the long focal length of the lens.  But the background is quite clean and uncluttered so the boat shows well against the sky and water.
100-400 lens at 400mm, 1/1250 second at f/5.6, ISO 400.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Chris-Craft Wood Boat Going Fast

This wood Chris-Craft boat was recently restored and we had an opportunity to photograph it on the St. Clair Flats.  The boat is a 1929 28 foot triple-cockpit runabout.  We like photographing on the Flats because there are some relatively protected bays and in many places the background is unobtrusive.  On this particular morning the air was quite humid so the haze helped obscure the background.  Plus, it made the light softer.  For this crossing shot the driver was actually turning slightly so that a little of the deck would be visible.
100-400 lens at 148mm, 1/1000 second at f/5, ISO 320.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Snow Ski Racer in a Blizzard

This photo of a snow skier at a gate during a slalom race is unusual.  The wind was blowing steadily at about 35mph with occasional gusts to 50mph.  This shot was taken during one of those wicked gusts.  The wind was knocking the camera off target and knocking me almost off my feet.  The skier likely had it worse as she couldn't see very far down the course.  Another challenge was the constantly changing light levels that forced me to continually change the exposure settings.  This race was during the state finals and had it not been such an important race it likely would have been rescheduled.
400mm lens, 1/2000 second at f/3.5, ISO 320.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Giant Slalom Race-Impending Crash

Look carefully at the snow skier as she approaches a gate during a giant slalom race.  The ski on her left leg is in mid-air.  There likely was considerable pressure on the binding as she entered the turn and it broke loose from the boot.  The next few frames captured the rest of the fall but this photo shows the actual cause of the crash.  The fall itself wasn't very exciting but this one photograph shows the impending doom and is the most exciting one of the series.
400mm lens, 1/2500 second at f/3.5, ISO 100.

Monday, March 28, 2016

Head to Head Snow Ski Racing

Here is another photograph from a duals ski race with two skiers racing head to head.  It is tricky to get both skiers in the same frame.  In the two frames previous to this one I was only getting the more distant skier (she was slightly ahead) but as they passed my position I was able to get two more frames that included both of them.  This image is pretty good representation of exciting head to head racing.  Usually I shoot the alpine ski races with a fixed 400mm lens because I am getting only a few gates with a single skier.  For this duals race, though, I used a zoom lens because it allowed me the flexibility to zoom in on one skier or go wider to get both athletes in the frame.  In the shot above I had backed out the zoom all the way as they flew past me.
100-400 lens at 100mm, 1/2000 second at f/5.0, ISO 250.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Airborne Giant Slalom Skier

We photograph many downhill snow ski races during the winter season and this is one of our favorite images.  This skier is racing on the giant slalom course and as he rounded the gate he became slightly airborne.  The dark trees in the background allow us to clearly see that the skis are off the snow.  Also, the angle of the skier's body and legs gives us a nice diagonal line that helps make the image dynamic.
400mm lens, 1/2500 second at f/3.5, ISO 200.

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Head to Head Ski Race

This photograph shows two alpine snow skiers competing in a head to head giant slalom race.  The racers start simultaneously on side by side courses for crowd-pleasing action.  The skiers in this image are very close in speed and very close together on the course.  It makes for a dramatic photo to depict this kind of duals race.  As close as they are, though, only the nearest racer is in focus.  We were photographing from quite close to the course so there wasn't enough depth of field in the lens to allow both of them to be sharp.
100-400 lens at 135mm, 1/3200 second at f/5.0, ISO 200.