Tin Man Lee
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 Bobcat, barn owl, kit fox, red fox, polar bear, brown bear and more with Canon 1DX and 1DX Mark II | |
Dall sheep, Denali National Park.
1. We were visiting Denali National Park in Alaska in July 2012. Visitors were only allowed to take the park shuttle bus to tour the park in a fixed route instead of driving in our own car.
2. Usually a round trip on the bus takes about 10 hours. If there were wildlife sightings, the bus may stop, and we were only allowed to take pics from the bus thru the window openings. Very rarely were we allowed to get off the bus, unless you decided to NOT get back to the bus. Then you had to wait for the next bus to come, which may take a long time.. and no guarantee if the next bus would be full. I suggested that to my mom. But she wouldn\'t even buy my idea of waiting by ourselves in the bear country wilderness.
3. We stayed at the park for 3 whole days-- which means we took the 10 hour bus tour each day for 3 consecutive days, which was of course my idea of combining family vacation with photography opportunity, in another words, being selfish. I went with my folks. They thought I was out of my mind to go for 3 days instead of just half a day, especially because the seat wasn\'t quite well cushioned.
4. It was raining for the 3 whole days we were there. The sky was heavily overcast. It was quite dark. Not good for photography when its dark. But there were hardly any wildlife sightings anyways.
5. We really hoped (well, its only me, because my folks have never heard of this species of animal before) to see the dall sheep. The dall sheep looks magnificent, with the big horns that look like bighorn sheep, but with a pure white body to adapt to the arctic snow. However, the only sightings of dall sheeps in these three days were extremely far away, like miles away.
6. Our driver would point up to some tiny white spots miles away on top of the mountain and said they were dall sheeps, and we would think ok fine we would still take a few pics and tell our friends those tiny white spots in our photos were dall sheeps.
7. So two and a half days passed by quickly (actually rather slowly). I didn\'t click my camera once, except taking pics of my folks using my iPhone.
8. Then something extraordinary happened near the end of the 3rd day. The rain finally stopped for a minute. A ray of sunlight shined thru the thick cloud and the place was bright for the first time. We even saw a rainbow. We were driving pass a cliff, a very dangerous small road, called Polychrome Pass. I almost wanted to take out my camera just to get a shot of the beautiful rainbow.
9. Then out of nowhere, a dall sheep ram (male with the big horn) climbed to the top of the cliff and sat down, where there was a field of green grass and flowers. I almost jumped up because this was my first close encounter with this elusive species! He was very close to our bus to our left. But the rainbow was way behind our bus.
10. After I took a few shots of the dall sheep portraits with some crappy white and gray background from our bus window, I was all smile, mission accomplished, I got a full frame photo of the dall sheep! But something suddenly came into my mind. I remember that I saw a stunning photo by the world famous photographer Galen Rowell at the Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop last October. I was so touched by his story of risking his life to run for miles in Tibet (altitude over 25,000 feet) to get the perfect angle where the rainbow was on top of Potala Palace.
http://www.mountainlight.com/posters.html
(click on \"rainbow over Potala Palace to see his photo)
I was deeply inspired by him. Now that I saw the rainbow. And then I saw the Dall Sheep Ram. And also somehow by the weirdest reason I thought of this famous potala palace with rainbow photo by Galen Rowell... so what\'s the connections here, Tin Man?? Think....! Why?
11. Then I got it. Knowing that the rainbow may disappear in any second, I begged our driver to let me get off the bus to get a quick shot. She was so kind and allowed me. Several passengers got off the bus too and they stood by the side of the bus to take some pics of the dall sheep. For me, I instead took my 500mm lens with 1.4 converter and the camera and sprinted like a mad man along the edge of the cliff for about 200 feet. Then I looked back at the dall sheep. There, the rainbow was right above the dall sheep, and the rainbow was surprisingly right against a dark colored mountain (if the rainbow was in front of white clouds, it would be a lot more difficult to see the contrast and colors). So the rainbow was highly visible. And with the 500mm lens, the rainbow size looked perfect, shinning right onto the dall sheep.
12. I knelt down on the ground on the edge of the cliff, (the dall sheep was on top of another cliff very close to mine), using my knee as the support for my heavy lens. I used spot metering and chose the grass as the neutral tone to set the exposure. Since the dall sheep was white, I decreased exposure for 2/3 of a stop to avoid blowing (overexpose) the white colors of the sheep. My setting was ISO 800, f9, 1/1250s. I used a high shutter speed because I didn\'t want to risk having a blurry picture with any motion of my body or the dall sheep.
13. From the viewfinder, I saw the most amazing and colorful image I ever seen in my own camera. I saw the 7 colors of the rainbow so clearly against the dark background, the pure white Dall Sheep Ram (as if the 7 colors combined to form the white), the greens on the cliff, the purple and yellow flowers, the grey rock, the orange rock (that\'s why the name Polychrome Pass). I clicked on the shutter. I couldn\'t believe I could ever see something like this. This was really the first time I pre-visualized a photo by first considering the components appearing in front of me and borrowed the idea from some great masters. All I got was just a few seconds to execute the idea.
14. Again I was kicking myself of not bringing a shorter focal length lens-- the 70-200. It might also make a interesting perspective. But our bus had to leave and I didn\'t have time. The dall sheep just sat for a short time and walked away and disappeared quickly. I was happy I actually got some shots.
15. I walked back into the bus. Since I sat at the back, I had to walk thru the whole length of the bus. I was reviewing the photo I just took in the LCD at the back of the camera. I could not breath for quite many seconds and my arms were shaking.
16. That was the only shot I took for the whole 3 days in Denali National Park. And my parents never complained again about why we were there for 3 days.
Brown bear and cub, Canon 1DX, 600mm
It was a slow day at Lake Clark when the two spring cubs were sleeping most of the time. We just sat there and watched them sleep for several hours. Suddenly, one of the cubs woke up and seemed lost. The mother walked towards her and the cub gave her a nose kiss. It only lasted for a second or two but it made the whole trip worth it.
Wood duck, Canon 1DX, 600mm
Grey fox (wild), Canon 1DX, 600mm
Gray fox and island fox looks alike except gray fox is a lot bigger, and quite a lot harder to see in day time.
But I was told by a good friend that sometimes they showed up in dawn or dusk near a campground in a forest.
We waited from dawn.
And waited for 13 hours because the fox decided to show up at dusk instead, which we were still very thankful for.
I think the wait was worth it.
Great horned owl, (wild, not baited, not called), Canon 1DX, 600mm
Very rarely the great horned owl would land on the ground to hunt right before sunset. This time he landed within photographic distance. He was so focused on looking for insects or voles that he completely ignored my presence.
Polar bear, Alaskan Arctic
I have written a blog about this encounter (written in both Chinese and English, scroll down for English):
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/polarbear/
Black-browed albatross, Saunders Island, Falkland Islands, Canon 1DX, 100-400mm
Have written a eBook about this encounter:
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/falkland/
Polar bear, Alaskan Arctic
I have written a blog about this encounter (written in both Chinese and English, scroll down for English):
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/polarbear/
red fox, Yellowstone National Park
I have written a whole blog for this encounter:
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/yellowstone-national-park-in-the-winter-my-6-unusual-encounters/
Barn owl, (wild, not baited, not called), Canon 1DX, 600mm, 1.4x TC
I have also written a blog about this encounter:
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/my-quest-for-barn-owl-7-unforgettable-experience/
Bobcat, Yellowstone National Park, Canon 1DX, 600mm, 2x TC
I had this weird dream that somehow this might finally be a good bobcat year for me, after my years of not-quite-successful attempts. Long story short, it happened, and happened much earlier than I thought, well, only after I accidentally fell onto the ground from the snowcoach (slipped on a 3 feet high step) and hit the back of my head and my ear pretty hard, tripod not working, teleconverter dead, near heart attacks sprinting in 3 feet snow in 8000 feet altitude for miles, fell down numerous time and lost one snow boot while trekking through snow, camera and lens got detached and I lost my camera which got frozen in deep snow (luckily recovered later but that\'s another story)... you know the typical things that happen to me in every trip.
Apart from the mishaps, I am so grateful I finally met great friends I longed to meet, ran into a magical old friend which changed the fate of this trip, and made some amazing new friends.
Barn owl, (wild, not baited, not called), 600mm, 1.4x TC
Again, you can read more here:
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/my-quest-for-barn-owl-7-unforgettable-experience/
Brown bear, 600mm
Burrowing owl, Canon 1DX Mark II, 600mm, 1.4x TC
Burrowing owl, (wild, not baited, not called) Canon 1DX Mark II, 100-400mm
I have written a blog here:
http://tinmanphotoblog.com/1dxmk2_owl2/
Brown bear, Katmai, 500mm f/4
Endangered San Joaquin Kit Fox (wild), Canon 1DX, 600mm
I\'ve just finished a free PDF eBook on wildlife photography. Check it out below.
<a href=\"http://www.tinmanphotoblog.com\"> http://www.tinmanphotoblog.com </a>
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