Each month I ponder what to use for a photo lesson. Some months the pondering takes longer than others. My mind is going several directions this time. I’ll begin with a recent “discovery.”
I don’t get many opportunities to photograph elk. When big bulls came into the meadow, hope rose. When light began to fade, heart sank…until…
In the last fifteen minutes, forty-plus elk had come within 150 or 200 yards/meters. I wanted pictures—some bulls were huge!
Experience told me this was a good time for failure due to a slow shutter speed. My lens was a 600mm Sigma, and the widest aperture was f/6.3. I was under pressure and fast loosing light on this cloudy evening. What could I/should I do?
Spin the ISO up, and watch the shutter speed. For whatever the reason, I could not appreciate a shutter speed slower than 1/200.
I kept increasing the ISO, as darkness galloped closer and closer. Would this work?
Before I tell you I used 40,000 ISO, let me mention that the 600mm lens loves to jiggle when the shutter is depressed. I switched to a 2-second delay, and took photos by tapping the screen where I wanted the focus to be. (I’m using a Canon R5, so one option I have is taking photos by touching the screen, and, in doing so, the focus adjusts to that spot.) The bulls in the herd were very active and bugling almost non-stop. Sometimes the bulls would stop to bugle; other times they multitasked and did that while pursing the cows.
My finger was busy going tap-tap-tap every several seconds, in an effort to capture a sharp photo that would hopefully work. To begin with, I’d tap the bull’s face, trying to lock on the eye. But, if the bull didn’t stay standing, I knew that wasn’t working, even though I did not take time to check a preview. Part of the time, I tapped the cow walking in front of the bull, to lock focus and start the 2-second delay, hoping that the bull would be at that spot when the camera fired.
I feel like this shot was one of those. Why? Because the bull is nowhere near the center of the frame. I suspect I tapped the focus on the young cow, and they kept walking until my camera froze the bull in this pose.
So, I suspect you can understand why I was eager to see if this unusual technique and 40,000 ISO could produce acceptable results. We were not home long before I had jumped right in, using a blend of Photoshop and Topaz software to process.
Several of my goals included getting rid of the digital noise from the ultra-high ISO, sharpening, and warming up the cold blue lighting from the low-light conditions. Did it work?
And did those whitetails photobomb the shot?
