The lake I live on had a beaver family on it from around 2006-2008. In the summer of 2008, they were trapped and relocated away from people and private lakes. They destroyed many lakefront trees which would fall into the lake and then provide them food for weeks. It also provided good bass habitat underwater. My next door neighbor had a tree taken down by the beavers at which time the beavers would chew off the branches, swim them to my yard and eat all of the bark off of them as well as the leaves right on my shoreline. I had just started digital photography around late 2006 with point and shoot Panasonic Lumix cameras and then I eventually bought a Canon rebel XTi. I upgraded to a 40D in early 2008 when I had my first big glass, a 300 f2.8 of course with the first version 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. The following images were taken from late 2006 to March 2008 in my own backyard. I setup at dusk about 25 feet away from the shoreline and the beavers would swim to and then crawl on my property with branches to eat. I used the onboard flash from the 40D on most of the shots, along with a ball head/tripod. I was quite green and I wish I had used a smaller aperture for more dof at the time but I did not know of such things at the time. For the repost police: I posted a few of these before in 2008 from a CS2 edit. The 40D shots were reworked in ACR from the original raw files and then in CS6, and the Panasonic jpegs were processed with CS6. Almost all shots are full frame. If it's clipped, It's because it came too close to my hidden position.
Herb
#1 One of the few shots I have of their tails, from my deck
#2 moving from lower elevation spillway pond up to main lake, FF Lumix 10 megapixel 12x
Wow Herb, what a great animal to cut your digital teeth on These are a real treat for lots of reasons. I've never had the pleasure of seeing one of these in the wild and the quality you got back then was just fine. I'd really be over the moon to have these on my hard drive....and damn the repost police
Eric
Herb, You inspire me (others do as much...). Just superb. I thought #3 had a piece of cheese (we all know different of course, surprised not a glass of red wine next to it...). I luv looking at your submissions and all the others. It amazes me what all can capture and show. I won't go into names, but as a newbie, there are so many that blow me away with their skills, captures, the so orgasmic pics (hope I can say that.. probably be banned forever but using word to describe how I feel) that this forum offers. Anyway, I am stroked. I wish I had a lot more time to just stay online 24/7. But if I was, guess I would not be out pic taking. Plus a job, etc. bummer. Anyway, I said my peace for now...Chuck
Nice to see how we've all progressed, not only in gear, but knowledge Herb.
The colors in the Lumix #2 seem oof...
Other than that I am most troubled ;-) by the blown highlights of the branch in #3 although it is my favorite...
Great post,
Mark
The third one is my favorite, glass of wine, lol I also was following a beaver pond some years ago as the road crews would break the dam, the beavers would fix it overnight. I too was green and focal distance deprived to get the best shots at f4. They are pretty skitterish so I didn't get really good results such as yours...
eyelaser wrote:
Wow Herb, what a great animal to cut your digital teeth on These are a real treat for lots of reasons. I've never had the pleasure of seeing one of these in the wild and the quality you got back then was just fine. I'd really be over the moon to have these on my hard drive....and damn the repost police
Eric
Thanks for the reminder Eric. I had these on a CD. 2008 was my pre HD days. I have about 100 DVD/CD's with RAW images from 2008. I really need to just upload them to a HD.
I haven't seem many beaver before or even after this time period, so I consider myself lucky in that way. I remember fishing and pulling the boat out by the boat ramp, which was near the spillway and lower pond where they'd come from. They would swim right next to the boat and slap their tail real hard and loudly. It scared the crap out of me, I was thinking it was a giant fish until they'd come back up on top and circle around afterwards watching to see if I left yet.
cmxchuck wrote:
Herb, You inspire me (others do as much...). Just superb. I thought #3 had a piece of cheese (we all know different of course, surprised not a glass of red wine next to it...). I luv looking at your submissions and all the others. It amazes me what all can capture and show. I won't go into names, but as a newbie, there are so many that blow me away with their skills, captures, the so orgasmic pics (hope I can say that.. probably be banned forever but using word to describe how I feel) that this forum offers. Anyway, I am stroked. I wish I had a lot more time to just stay online 24/7. But if I was, guess I would not be out pic taking. Plus a job, etc. bummer. Anyway, I said my peace for now...Chuck...Show more →
Hi Chuck. Thanks so much for the kind words. N & W is a great forum for learning and sharing ideas and images with some of the best wildlife photographers there is. There are a lot of great photographers here that are very willing to help most newbies and anyone else if they simply ask.
Mark Cronin wrote:
Nice to see how we've all progressed, not only in gear, but knowledge Herb.
The colors in the Lumix #2 seem oof...
Other than that I am most troubled ;-) by the blown highlights of the branch in #3 although it is my favorite...
Great post,
Mark
Hi Mark. As far as the Lumix colors: my hands are tied as these are jpegs only. Maybe the camera's rendition of WB in AWB is inaccurate. I guess I could open the jpeg in ACR and warm or cool the WB or use color balance to adjust one way or another ? Is there a color cast or something or a WB issue ? I selected the branch in #3 and pulled the center point down in curves, ultimately reducing the exposure on just the branch. It was such a small element and adjustment I just replaced the image completely with the newer one with that adjustment. Thanks for the comments sir.
Nice back story Herb I know how dedicated you are and how far you have come leaves a lot of hope for me .To bad they are not still there but if they were the trees around the whole lake may be gone
philfra wrote:
The third one is my favorite, glass of wine, lol I also was following a beaver pond some years ago as the road crews would break the dam, the beavers would fix it overnight. I too was green and focal distance deprived to get the best shots at f4. They are pretty skitterish so I didn't get really good results such as yours...
My next door neighbor had a tree taken down by the beavers at which time the beavers would chew off the branches, swim them to my yard and eat all of the bark off of them as well as the leaves right on my shoreline. I had just started digital photography around late 2006 with point and shoot Panasonic Lumix cameras and then I eventually bought a Canon rebel XTi. I upgraded to a 40D in early 2008 when I had my first big glass, a 300 f2.8 of course with the first version 1.4x and 2x teleconverters. The following images were taken from late 2006 to March 2008 in my own backyard. I setup at dusk about 25 feet away from the shoreline and the beavers would swim to and then crawl on my property with branches to eat. I used the onboard flash from the 40D on most of the shots, along with a ball head/tripod. I was quite green and I wish I had used a smaller aperture for more dof at the time but I did not know of such things at the time. For the repost police: I posted a few of these before in 2008 from a CS2 edit. The 40D shots were reworked in ACR from the original raw files and then in CS6, and the Panasonic jpegs were processed with CS6. Almost all shots are full frame. If it's clipped, It's because it came too close to my hidden position. 
These are a real treat for lots of reasons. I've never had the pleasure of seeing one of these in the wild and the quality you got back then was just fine. I'd really be over the moon to have these on my hard drive....and damn the repost police 
Anyway, I am stroked. I wish I had a lot more time to just stay online 24/7. But if I was, guess I would not be out pic taking. Plus a job, etc. bummer. Anyway, I said my peace for now...Chuck
Maybe the camera's rendition of WB in AWB is inaccurate. I guess I could open the jpeg in ACR and warm or cool the WB or use color balance to adjust one way or another ? Is there a color cast or something or a WB issue ? I selected the branch in #3 and pulled the center point down in curves, ultimately reducing the exposure on just the branch. It was such a small element and adjustment I just replaced the image completely with the newer one with that adjustment. Thanks for the comments sir.