Risk & Reward....Or Not! ICF 2010 Pro Tour Scoring

I've just been able to see my actual scoring results from the Images for Conservation Pro Tour of Nature Photography Contest that I competed in this past April. You may know from my earlier blog entry that I placed 2nd.

Deciding what image to place in my final 75 image portfolio from the nearly 17000 photos I took during the month is a daunting task. I had quite a bit of help in deciding but in the end it was my choice. I tried to capture some images that were a different than what other contestants may enter. I decided to take a big risk on a few of my entries and hoped for the best. You really never know how the judges will react to these type of images., With several photos I was burned,but on a few others I was rewarded.

This image was entered in the Plants and Landscapes Catagory. Faced with the ever present winds of South Texas I decided to use the wind rather than fight it. I took a number of exposures at different shutter speeds to find a result I thought pleasing. Some were quite abstract other didn't really show the wind motion enough. This image I thought had a nice balance. Nearly everyone I showed this to really liked it and a few said they would love a print of this on their wall. The 3 judges for the ICF Contest thought different scoring this image very low. In fact it was the lowest scoring photo of my entire portfolio.


This is another image from the plants and landscape catagory. I thought including a little wildlife in the scenic may add some visual interest. Here I was looking for a strong graphic image. Again I was not rewarded for this entry.


I had only one chance to photograph a bobcat during the month. The bobcat made a kill in front of my blind that I had setup on a water drip to photograph birds. The bobcat never came out from the high grass so I never was able to get a real clear look at him. The bobcat has it's prey (barely visible) in it's mouth. I debated long and hard on this one and finally decided to include the image in my final portfolio not expecting much. Much to my suprise the judges liked the photo and it was scored as one the the top 20 in the wildlife catagory earning me an extra $500.

I had about a 2 minute window of opportunity to photograph Javelina during the contest. The animals were on the move and I was able to get ahead of them, find a clearing, and fire away as the herd came through. I was just a bit to close with my 300mm and would have liked more room in front the mother. I wasn't going to enter the image in but everyone I showed it to loved the baby jumping. They really didn't seem to care about the poor placement of the mother in the frame. I went ahead and submitted the photo and again was rewarded with this image being amongst the top 20 images in the Wildlife Catagory.

Yellowstone in Winter

Canon 5DmkII, EF24-105mmL, 3 image HDR

I've just returned from my "Winter Wolves of Yellowstone Tour". We had a full compliment of participants and came away with some great images. In this image of the Yellowstone River just above the Upper Falls I decided that due to the contrast range I would need either to use a graduated neutral density filter to hold detail in the sky or to process the image as an HDR file. I used the program Photomatix which is excellent. I bracketed 3 images with my exposure compensation set at -2, 0 and +2 while carefully checking my histogram to see if I captured detail in both the highlight and shadow areas of the image. The result seems very true to what my eyes saw.

Canon Eos7D, EF500mmF4IS

The raven image was captured handheld with the 5oomm F4IS. The raven landed on a snowcoach and allowed us to approach very close. I decided that portraits were my best option. My new Canon Eos 7D captured very good detail and the IS of the 500mm allowed me to capture a sharp image at 1/125 while handholding a heavy lens.

Canon Eos 7D, EF300mmF2.8L

I love snow covered and frosty bison. We located a herd of young bulls near Lava Creek. Using my excellent EF 300mm F2.8L on my 7d I was able to capture this wintry scene. When photographing a dark subject in the snow you must be careful with exposure so you don't overexpose your highlights while maintaining detail in a dark subject. With the size of the subject having a dramatic affect on your camera's metering in the automatic modes I decided to expose manually. I just metered a section of snow and opened up 2 stops giving me good results.

New Camera Canon 7D

Canon Eos 7D, EF 500mmF4IS

Golden Eagle in flight, Bighorn Basin

I received my latest camera on Tuesday the Canon 7D. This is Canons latest APS-C or 1.6x cropped sensor offering. There are many sites reviewing the camera and listing it's specs so I won't bother going into that. I spent some time learning the camera and reading the manual. Overall the camera is similar to the 50D which I had prior. Canon has included some really useful upgrades and revamped the AF system so I have high hopes for this camera. I spent some time using the MFA (micro focus adjustment) feature and fine tuned my lenses. Some we're spot on other required some adjustment.

I've been revamping my camera system lately. I sold off my 50D and my 1DmkIII. The 7D is a replacement for the 50D and I hope to have the brand new Canon Eos1Dmk4 before the start of the 2010 Images for Conservation Pro Tour Photo Contest in which I will be participating. In past contests I've always had cameras which each sensor size Canon produces, full frame, 1.3X and 1.6x crop. That strategy has worked very well for me.

Canon Eos 7D, EF500mmF4 IS, 1.4x teleconverter
Rough Legged Hawk, Bighorn Basin Wyoming

I was able to get out yesterday morning with the 7D for some photography.. A beautiful golden eagle provided me with a good opportunity to test the AF tracking of the camera.The 7D performed very well. The 8 FPS allowed me to capturet many different wing positions as the eagle flew by. Also with the 18mgpx sensor I was able to crop the image and retain great detail. So I'm off to a good start with the new camera. Next week in Yellowstone I'll really put it to the test.

Trip Report Arches and Canyonlands National Park

Canon Eos5DmkII, EF16-35mmF2.8L @ 16mm

I just returned from a quick trip to Utah for some winter landscape photography in the slickrock country around Moab. I really wanted to photograph this beautiful area with snow cover which I've never done. Images I've seen from the area with fresh snow are quite stunning. I was accompanied by Lynn Richardson my good friend and gallery partner. With only 4 full days of photography we really hoped that the weather would cooperate. Landscape images in this redrock country really need sweet light. The weather forecast was favorable when we left home but as often happens the weather and the forecast got worse as the week went on.

The above image was taken on my first morning in the Windows Section of Arches National Park. This is Turret Arch. The arch is often photographed through the North Window which is the iconic image from the area. I chose a composition not often seen. By using the rocks in the foreground I was able to achieve depth and balance in the image. I tried very hard to come up with compositions different from the norm during the trip and believe this was achieved.

This next image was taken from directly under the North Window. Again I was looking for an unusual composition. I wanted to show the graceful span on the arch and the beautiful sky. The underside of the arch was very dark and shadowed. To compensate for the high dynamic range presented in this image I shot 3 exposures -2, 0 and +2 compensation and processed the image in Photomatix a wonderful program for HDR image processing. By doing this I was able to show the detail in the shadowed section of the arch while not to overexposing other parts of the image. With so much to photograph in these 2 amazing parks the 4 days we had didn't make a dent in the list of locations we wanted to viist. We tried our best and I'll show some more images soon. Saturday I'm off to Yellowstone National Park to lead my winter photography tour and I'll try to post to my blog while I'm there.