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October Lunar Eclipse

2014 Hunter’s Moon eclipse.

Shooting from my apartment’s parking lot, I went outside a little before 03:00 to see the already full moon already partially eclipsed. I quickly set up my gear, and began to shoot.

I know I have said before, but I’ll say it again: the moon is bright. It is the second brightest object in the sky, behind only the sun. Even a sliver of a crescent moon is significantly brighter than the the sky’s third most luminous object, Venus. When photographing a regular full moon, the dark sky that surrounds it can be deceiving to camera and observer. This makes it more of a challenge to properly expose. In most cases, you need a fast shutter, and will need to under expose significantly to capture the details in the moon’s face (if not shooting in manual mode). The opposite is true for a lunar eclipse. The strategy to use here is the technique used for shooting the Milky Way on moonless nights.

In my research to understand the relative brightness of a lunar eclipse, I learned about the Danjon Scale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danjon_scale

Set-up:

My initial set-up consisted of the following:

– 1D4 – bad ISO performance compared to 6D and 1DX, but has advantage of 1.3 APS-H crop sensor for additional “reach. This turned out to be a bad choice because good ISO capability is helpful to capture the dim moon.

– 600mm f/4 II + 2x III extender = 1200mm, but with the 1.3 crop on 1D4, this combination would be equivalent of a 1680mm lens on 35mm. This would help fill the frame nicely!

– Gitzo 3 series tripod with RRS Panning head and 15 lbs weight tied to the hook. This is a critical step to stabilize the support. With 1680mm of equivalent optics, the slightest vibration wrecks havoc on any image.

After using this set-up, I quickly realized that I needed more light.  The f/8 (with 2x teleconverter) just wasn’t fast enough. I removed the extender and opened the 600mm to f/4. Then lost some optical reach by switching bodies to the 6D.  This would give me cleaner high ISO performance and some more resolution (20MP vs 16MP) for cropping.  I tooks some shots with these settings, before taking a few clicks with the 1.4x extender.

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Elk Rut: Action in Jasper

The Elk

I arrived to Jasper at 9:30 the next morning, found a campsite in Whistlers, and met up with Joey and Sarah in the afternoon…and began to find some elk….

Out of all the days in Jasper, Sunday 9/21 was the most productive on all accounts. I saw and photographed my first “real” rutting action at the Lagoon at sunrise.  Then at sunset, we were on a different bull along in the Athabasca River, near the Jasper Fairmont. Out in the flood zone, we were in the middle of it all, 3 or 4 competing satellite bulls bugled in various directions, near and far, agitating the alpha with the harem. He didn’t get lucky down by the river, but the light and action there was phenomenal. However, after calling it quits, as we walked back to our cars, we came upon this bull getting lucky with a cow on the lawn of the Jasper Fairmont Lodge. Two matings in one day, I was beginning to feel spoiled!

I can honestly say that photographing these hormonal elk may be equally as dangerous as bear photography. The fact that they are deer may lull you into a false sense of security. Its true that elk doesn’t have the teeth and claws to maul, but they are well equipped to rake and stomp. Joey’s advice on the matter was to always have an exit strategy when going in close, never leave yourself exposed.

This was sage advice. These hormonal beasts were fickle and prone to irrational spurts of sudden aggression. At one point while viewing a bull and his harem, the bull casually got closer to a group of us. We reacted immediately by increasing the space.  On both sides of the bull’s path were stone piles, about 4m high with stones the size of basketballs. On my side, two of us scurried up one of the piles, while the man across the path scrambled up the other one. As the bull slowly passed us by, he suddenly charged at the other man, who fortunately still had room to scramble even higher.

In terms of photography, the conditions in the morning were better for moody shots with backlit smokey bugle vapor puffs.  The evenings were better for dramatic and rich light, but no smoke breath. It was also much colder in the morning, around the freezing point, while the afternoons were still hot from the day’s heat.

People

Each wildlife trip has its own unique way bringing a variety of people together, and Jasper was no different. Wildlife is unpredictable, and it is the people involved that distinguish a good trip from a great one. As is often the case, wildlife photo trips are made special by the beautiful locale, wildlife and people that are there. When you have good people to chat and connect with during the lulls in action, I find the overall productivity will increase. And the people who participate in the Jasper Elk Rut may have the strongest sense of community that I have yet experienced.  The crowd was a nice blend of full-time and retired professionals and semi-pros, skills ranging from beginner to expert, and and non-photographers alike.  The collective knowledge of this group was impressive. Many were veterans of the Jasper elk rut, people who understood elk.  Many of my most inquisitive questions were not only entertained, but graciously answered….which is not something that normally happens!