Your best animal shots!

[Sporgon]

This past summer, while I was photographing birds at one of our local wetland preserves, a fairly large group of female deer, ranging in age from yearlings to several years old and maybe a couple elders, wandered up for a

Beautiful pictures !

(You must have aquired your 5DIII and 300/2.8 to grab those, yes ?   .   )

[Click]

This past summer, while I was photographing birds at one of our local wetland preserves, a fairly large group of female deer, ranging in age from yearlings to several years old and maybe a couple elders, wandered up for a drink.

They were all around me, and often too close for the 840mm focal length I was using at the time, so I apologize for the tight crops...some of these have had some rotation done to level them, but are otherwise as framed in camera:

Beautiful light in your pictures.

[sjbradbury]

This little guy was posing for me in Montana this summer.


Western Chipmunk by Heavens-Reach, on Flickr

[Click]

This little guy was posing for me in Montana this summer.

Cute. Nicely done.

...And welcome to cr 

[lvanzijl]

[TheJock]

It's amazing what you see behind a petrol station in Dubai, still fuzzy, man I really need to get some practice in!

[Click]

Great shots lvanzijl.  Well done.

[Pinchers of Peril]

Zoo trip

[Pinchers of Peril]

more zoo

[Pinchers of Peril]

last one

[jrista]

This past summer, while I was photographing birds at one of our local wetland preserves, a fairly large group of female deer, ranging in age from yearlings to several years old and maybe a couple elders, wandered up for a

Beautiful pictures !

(You must have aquired your 5DIII and 300/2.8 to grab those, yes ?   .   )

Thanks! And actually, 7D + 600/4 + 1.4x. I was actually photographing birds, and the deer just showed up. I actually wish I hadn't had the TC, as framing was really tight. I was afraid that if I spend the time to remove the TC, though, that I'd miss the deer.

The 5D III is still at the top of my list, and the 300/2.8 is right after that. The 600/4 L II just took everything out of me this year. I am also trying to start two businesses...one to sell my photography, and eventually maybe sell personal photography classes to teach people how to photograph wildlife, birds, and do astrophotography. The other is my main business for developing web sites and maybe doing backend software development. Those have consumed all my time and are consuming all my money...so I don't know when I'll be able to get the 5D III. 

[jrista]

This past summer, while I was photographing birds at one of our local wetland preserves, a fairly large group of female deer, ranging in age from yearlings to several years old and maybe a couple elders, wandered up for a drink.

They were all around me, and often too close for the 840mm focal length I was using at the time, so I apologize for the tight crops...some of these have had some rotation done to level them, but are otherwise as framed in camera:

Beautiful light in your pictures.

Aye! The light that time of year was just amazing...it was like photonic cream...soft, light yellow, smoothed over everything. Loved it.

[jrista]

This little guy was posing for me in Montana this summer.


Western Chipmunk by Heavens-Reach, on Flickr

Cute! And razor sharp! What lens/camera?

[jrista]

Stunning shots. Absolutely love that first one.

[jrista]

Hi Jrista.
That must have been a fabulous experience, shame about being too so close they were inside your minimum zoom range, oh well sometimes it may not be just about he pictures. Great as they are!
My guess for these two pictures is, "Was that a twig or just that bloke with the Canon?"
Regal animals, thanks.

Cheers Graham.

Thanks! It was pretty exciting. The young yearlings are always curious. Both the males and the females, when they are only a year old or less, don't fully know to fear humans. So, they will look at you with the most curious of faces, and sneek in closer and closer, until they are maybe 15-20 feet from you. Then they get a little scared, start stomping the ground, and will usually take off, prancing about for a while, before they feel safe enough to come back in for another close look at that odd camo-covered creature making clicking noises (i.e. "Was that a twig or just that bloke with the Canon?"). 

As for the lens, no zoom range. It was the EF 600mm f/4 L II prime, with a 1.4x TC attached. To maximize IQ, I've pretty much done away with zooms...too many compromises. The TC costs a little bit in IQ, but with a lens like the 600/4, it is still worlds better than the 100-400mm zoom, for example. I thought about removing the TC, but sometimes deer just move through really fast, and in the time it takes to change out or remove a TC, they can be gone. So, I just took the shots as they occurred.