Today was so frustrating ..

[Lan-Lord]

I hiked up into a really good spot. It is always my "can not fail" location for getting in close to good looking deer. I got there really early and settled down. I was wanting to get some good photos of bucks with velvet. So far I have not captured too many good ones (ones worthy of printing a big print or making my calendar) Well my location paid off.. I saw several nice big velvety bucks, unfortunately my camera equipment is not up to par for low light shooting. It was so frustrating.

here are a few that came out. They have had a lot of photoshop and croping. There were so many more that would have been awesome if only my shutter could have been faster and my iso's could have been cleaner.... Take a look at the pics and then scroll to the bottom, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

on my way out I saw a nice herd moving through the pasture, I snapped a couple shots just so I could zoom in on it at home to see what was in there. I think I counted 6 bucks total in that group.

So anyways, today would have been awesome if just a handful of shots came out nice.. out of 230 photos, really not one came out well (the above shots are really pretty poor, good for posting on the web and looking at head gear, not so good for printing as an 8x10 and what not though) So I talked it over with my wife, and we decided that we are going to look into getting a loan from the bank and I am going to get a DSLR with some serious glassware on the end of it

So hopefully I can get a system and figure out how to use it well before the rut comes this year. I will keep you guys informed and hopefully there will be some nice results to show for it.

 

[treekiller]

Those are very nice pics lan-lord.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[wildebeast]

Very good photos lan-lord. I could never get that quality with my camera.

cliff

 

[Lan-Lord]

well I went back this afternoon and had a little better success capturing those rag heads.

These 3 guys were bedded down for what seemed like eternity..

I call these guys the trophy club, they always hang out together

doh! they saw me. We've all seen this sight before (unfortunately)

I still want a new camera though ~~

 

[Jim Thompson]

Lanl,

Never hurts to try, cannot imagine how many bad pics I have deleted looking for good pics.

Keep em coming. Although I must say that I am very jealous of your big buck location!

Jim

 

[Lan-Lord]

oops, forgot to post this one too from this morning. This is of the herd I saw in the big pasture. Not great quality but you get the idea.

 

[OhioBowHunter]

Lan-Lord,

Excellent pictures, I enjoyed them very Much, Your photos and others are the main reason for my Interest in this new found Hobby of mine.

I too am jelous of your BIG BUCK location... whats the deal with that.. You seem to get alot of HIGH Quality Bucks.

Whay Digital SLR Camera will you be Considering... I been looking at the Cannon EOS-10D Myself...

and several various lenses and a Teleconverter that should take me out to 600m.m.

Your thoughts

Dan

 

[BuckSnort]

Awesome photo's lan-lord

Thanks for sharing.

 

[spectr17]

Sweet lan-lord

I know the feeling well you described. You're in the right spot, the animals show and you take a couple hundred pics and once you get them on the puter you may find 3 or 4 worth a hoot. Makes you wanna cry that the others didn't turn out.

 

[Lan-Lord]

Hey OhioBowHunter,

Im looking at the 10D also. I am hesitant right now with the front focus/back focus problem though. I have heard that it is only a small percentage of the cameras that have that problem though. But from what I have seen, there are quite a few cameras that have the problem. But the amount of features, and the really clean high iso functionality is really what I am going for. The Canon 10D has nice and clean shots at 800 and even 1600 iso. That is what I need for the low light shots.

What glass to buy is really troubling me. I am thinking that 100-400m f/4L is what I will need, and I can add a 1.4 tc to that. I am not sure if that lens is too big for comfort or not though. I have talked to one guy who said I dont need anything more than 100-300mm. That would suit me well for portability and even hand held shots, but I dont think it is going to have enough power to shoot 100 yards. I just dont have any idea what I need to accomplish what I want. I do know that I dont want a lens so big that I dont want to use it because it is so big and cumbersome.

If you can stack up 600mm that would be a nice setup. Are you thinking of using 2 teleconverters? or just one? (can you use 2 tcs?? I just assume that you can, I could be off base here)

 

[scruffnbeez]

Nice shots Lan-lord!!!

Glad you shared them. Wish I had a place that had that many nice looking Bucks!!!

 

[TxCowboy]

Lan-lord, I've heard of that problem on the 10D you mentioned but considering the nice price, it's almost worth the risk I think? For what you get the 10D has a great price.

Do you think an F/4 lens would be good enough for low light? (I honestly dont know?) I know that in lowlight it is just tuff getting a shot and those bazooka lenses don't help the situation.lol I'll tell you who you need to check out is, Charles Alsheimer. He is an awesome whitetail photographer and in one of his books I have, he tells what all lenses he uses. It's old so he may be using digitals by now but I'll look at it when I get a chance and see what lenses he lists.

http://www.charliealsheimer.com/

 

[Lan-Lord]

Hey TxCowboy,

Actually, I know that the f/4 lens will not make me happy. Having the higher iso's will help, but I think I am going to go with the Canon 400mm f/2.8L IS prime. (yikes! am I really going to drop that much money into a lens??) I am looking at also getting the Canon 28-135mm IS lens to use for the closer shots. (will have to add the 1.4 tc) The 10d has a 1.6x crop factor, so doing the math, I can get out to 896mm if I use the 400mm lens x 1.4mm teleconverter x 1.6x crop factor. That is going to give me so many opportunities to get more photographs of deer. I see deer in the distance so often, but they are too far to get a good shot with my 707+1.7 teleconverter. (My 707 has 190mm x 2x digital zoom (yuck) x 1.7mm teleconverter which is a total of 646mm)

I was thinking that my Sony F707 has a 2.8 lens on it and there is no way I can go with a slower lens in low light. When I set the 707 up at 400 iso, I can get pretty good shutter speeds (but ALOT of noise), so I figure if I can shoot iso 400 or 800 with alot less noise with an f/2.8 lens on the 10d, I should be able to pull off some good low light shots.

I have been concerned about the front focus and back focus issues with the 10d, but I figure that I will just have to get the 10d from a place that has a no hassle return policy. Hopefully I wont have to deal with that. I will keep you guys informed with whats going on.

Boy Charles Alsheimer has a cool job, I wonder how he got to where he is. If you come across his equipment list I would be interested to know what he shoots with.

 

[TxCowboy]

Lan-lord, I understand where you are coming from. You can afford an f4 lens but you probably can't afford an f2.8. Talk about dropping some serious change!! I bought an Olympus E-10 a couple months back because it's what I could afford. I would really like to get a Canon or Nikon DSLR but I just can't afford the lenses. I could probably swing the body price but that glass ain't cheap.lol Actually, the 10D is the best deal I've seen out there. The good news is the price on DLSR's is coming down every day but the bad news is the lens prices aren't.

Ok, I found Alsheimer's equip. list. It is in the back of his book Hunting Whitetails by the Moon which is a great book. It was published in 1999, so I have no idea if he is shooting digital by now or not? Here is what he says he uses.....

All Nikon 35mm bodies and lenses. He relies on four lenses for whitetail photography.

35-70 mm f2.8 (auto focus)
80-200 mm f2.8 ED zoom (auto focus)
200-400 mm f4.0 ED zoom
500 mm f4.0 (auto focus)

He says he uses the 80-200 mm mounted on a tripod or gunstock. The 200-400 mm and the 500 mm are heavy and he always uses them with a tripod. He says the 80-200 mm is his workhorse and favorite lens. He goes on to say that a 300 mm, 400 mm or even a 500 mm lens are really necessary for true serious whitetail photography though.

Tripods
Lightweight: Gitzo G1228 with a Slik Pro ball-head
Heavyweight: (used for all long lenses) Gitzo 320 with an ARCA ball-head


So there you go! I hope his setup info helps you. In a perfect world we would all be rich and money would be no object.

 

[YH88]

Nice Pictures..Thanks for sharing