North to Montana

It’s really not a very lengthy trip  for me to visit Montana.  I live only 30 miles from the border.  This trip, to photograph migratory birds at several National Wildlife Refuges, took me to Northeastern Montana an area that locals call the highline.  My first stop was Bowdoin NWR.  It’s a good-sized refuge with  nearly16000 acres surrounding Lake Bowdoin.  Water levels seemed quite low this year with many of the marshy areas dry.

Lake Bowdoin at Sunrise

Here’s a sunrise image taken from the 15 mile wildlife tour loop.  Some species of birds that I was looking for were present in much lower numbers than expected or not there at all.  I speculate that Northern Montana was having a very late spring and some species still haven’t arrived.  Here’s an example of the type om images I was able to capture.

Stilt Takeoff

Flying Phalarope

Ring-necked pheasant

Breeding season was going strong for the pheasants and these colorful males were everywhere showing off for the ladies.

Marbled Godwit

Common Snipe

Just as the sun was about to go down I found this common snipe calling from this fencepost along the wildlife tour loop.  Unable to approach any closer I put my 2x teleconveter on my EF800mm F5.6L lens.  Since my Canon 1d4 cannot autofocus at F11 I used a trick that’s not well-known.  Focusing in live view is possible with this combination.  It’s a bit slow but very accurate.  Works great with static subjects.

Medicine Lake NWR

I then traveled several hundred miles to the east to visit Medicine Lake National Wildlife Refuge.  I had not been to this refuge before and was very anxious to try to photograph upland sandpipers and chestnut-sided longspurs which are supposed to be abundant on the refuge.  When I arrived it was obvious that spring was lagging ever further behind here.  I never did see either of these species and birds numbers seemed low.

Blue-winged teal drake

Eared Grebe

I ended up leaving a few days  early.  I didn’t get everything I was looking for but overall I came home with some great images.  I’d really like to visit Medicine Lake another time.  It’s beautiful country and if you could hit it right it should be a very productive place to photograph.

We Own the Night

Canon Eos 5d mk3, Rokinon 14mm F2.8, ISO 3200, 25 seconds @ F2.8

Needing a break from editing eagle photos from my “Bald Eagles of Alaska” tour I travelled to Petroglyph Canyon on the Wyoming/Montana border yesterday evening.  I had yet to use my new Canon 5D mkIII camera for night images and was anxious to see how it performed compared to my 5D2 and 1Dmk4. 

Canon Eos 5d mk3, Rokinon 14mm F2.8, ISO 3200, 25 seconds @ F2.8

The beautiful remote canyon has lots of interesting ghost trees, rock spires and hoodoos that make great foreground elements for starscapes. 

Canon Eos 5d mk3, Rokinon 14mm F2.8, ISO 4000, 25 seconds @ F2.8

I found this striking pine tree perched on top of a sandstone outcrop and decided it would make an interesting composition.  I used ISO’s ranging from 3200 to 6400 during the shoot and was very impressed with the noise performance of the 5DmkIII.  All ISO values were usable.  I had the camera set to shoot RAW+Full Size Jpeg.  I had high ISO noise reduction set to standard and long exposure noise reduction set to Auto.  These settings will only affect the Jpeg file and the resulting Jpeg files were excellent.  I was able to achieve similar results by processing the RAW files.

Canon Eos 5d mk3, Rokinon 14mm F2.8, ISO 4000, 25 seconds @ F2.8

For this image I painted the rock outcrop with a LCD flashlight bounced off another rock outcrop behind me.  For this shoot I used my Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens.  This is a low-priced alternative to the expensive Canon version.  I’ve been very impressed with the resolution the lens delivers.  Of course the lens is manual focus, and you manually have to stop the lens down but I don’t find it to be a big problem for my use.

Canon Eos 5d mk3, Rokinon 14mm F2.8, ISO 6400, 25 seconds @ F2.8

Canon Eos 5d mk3, Rokinon 14mm F2.8, ISO 4000, 25 seconds @ F2.8

 

“Bald Eagles of Alaska” Trip Report

“Bald Eagle at Sunset”

This marked the 20th year that I’ve been travelling to Alaska during the late winter to photograph bald eagles and my 4th “Bald Eagles of Alaska” photo tour.  I had a wonderful group of enthusiastic photographers along with me this year.  Thank you Don, Mike, Hank, Murray, Sharon, and  Norm.  I really enjoyed your company.   We had amazing weather this year.  For the 1st time I can ever remember we had clear skies the entire tour.  This can be good but also bad in some ways.  We had 2 photography sessions a day and made sure to get out before sunrise and then again in the late afternoon to take advantage of the best possible light.

The clear skies gave us numerous opportunities to utilize the amazing scenery in our eagle imagery.

With the great lighting conditions we were able to keep our shutter speeds high allowing us to capture amazing eagle acrobatics.  We’d capture thousands of images during each photo session.

Nearly every afternoon we had a great sunset and we would then concentrate on photographing the eagles flying against the beautiful colors of the sky and setting sun.

For 2014 I’ll be running back to back tours in March, the 11-16th and the 16th-21th and I’m already looking forward to it.  To join me in 2014 visit my website at franzfoto.com to sign up.

Weekend of Wolves

I had recently heard from a friend of mine that he’s seen fresh wolf tracks in along a road that goes through a beautiful mountain valley not to far from my house.  This area is located in the Shoshone National Forest east of Yellowstone National Park.  The rugged Absaroka Mountains surround the picturesque valley.  This past Friday afternoon I took a drive to have a look myself.    After leaving the highway I had only driven a couple of miles when I saw something standing on the road a few hundred yards ahead of me.  Pulling up my binoculars I saw 2 black colored wolves feeding on a freshly killed calf elk.  I then saw seven more wolves on a hillside not to far off the road.

The wolves moved away from the elk and I was able to get a series of nice images of the wolves.  There were 5 gray and 4 dark colored wolves in the pack and one wolf had a radio collar.

This next image, though it’s not a great photo, shows all 9 wolves in the pack.

The reason the wolves are in this valley is food.  The area is a major winter range for several thousand elk, the primary food source of wolves in this region.  Later that afternoon I located another elk kill  indicating the wolves have been in the area for a while hunting these elk.  I would guess they’ll stay in the area untill the elk migrate back into the high country this spring.

On Sunday my wife Lorri and I rode up to look for the wolves again.   Even though it was the middle of the day we quickly found them not far from where I photographed them on Friday.  I got this shot of one of the wolves when it crossed the road in front of us.

I plan  to get up there again this week for another chance to photograph them.

Canon EF600mm F4L IS mkII vs. the Canon EF800mm F5.6L IS

For many years my primary long lens for my wildlife photography was the Canon EF600mm F4L IS.  It served me well and overall was an excellent lens.  In 2010 I was able to borrow the new (at that time) Canon EF800mm F5.6L IS for the month long Images for Conservation Pro Tour  Contest in the Borderlands of Texas.  I quickly fell in love with it.  It was much lighter and faster focusing than my 600mm with even better image quality and I decided to acquire an 800mm as soon as possible.  I’ve been very happy with the 800mm over the last few years.   Canon then recently introduced an upgrade to the 600mm F4 IS with improved AF, image stabilization, optics, and they dramatically reduced the weight of the lens making it significantly lighter than my 800mm.  It ‘s getting rave reviews and I’ve seen some photographers state the new 600mm with a 1.4x converter is superior to the 800mm without a teleconveter.  I was somewhat skeptical of that observation.  On my recent “Winter Yellowstone” Photo tour one of my clients had the new 600mm mkII with him and he graciously allowed me to try it out.

One morning during  the tour we found this moose, a good ways off the road, feeding on some willows.  I was able to compare my 800mm F5.6L IS without converter to the new 600mm mkII with a Canon 1.4x Mk III.  I used my Canon Eos 1D mk4 camera on each lens.  The image above was taken with the 800mm.  Below I will show 100% crops from the straight 800mm  and the 600mm + 1.4x converter giving similar focal lengths of 840mm vs. 800mm.   All images were taken @ F5.6

This image is the from the straight Canon EF800mm F5.6L IS, no teleconverter

This image is from the EF600mm F4 L IS mkII + EF1.4x mk III teleconverter = 840mm. 

I took 4 shots which each lens to make sure I had a good sharp example of what each lens was capable of.  In this quick test, under typical field conditions I encounter during my photography, the bare 800mm was somewhat better optically than the 600mm with the 1.4x teleconverter.  For my wildlife photography  in which I often photograph bears and wolves at a good distance, the 800m is a better choice.  I was impressed with the AF responsiveness  of the new 600mm with the 1.4x.  It was much better than I recall having with the old 600mm and 1.4x converter.  At this point I think I will stay with my 800mm. I sure wouldn’t take any financial loss to make a switch.  Also  having the EF500mm F4L IS in my bag it makes more sense for me to keep both a 500mm and 800mm.  I will likely upgrade to the new 500mm lens which is even lighter and will really compliment my 800mm.

“2013 Winter Yellowstone Photo Tours”

Bobcat on the Madison River

I’ve just returned from 2 weeks in Yellowstone National Park leading my annual winter photo tours.  I had 2 great groups and we worked as hard as we could to capture memorable images.  If there is one thing I’ve learned about Yellowstone National Park in the 30 years I’ve been photographing there is that every year is different.  Last year was probably my best year ever for wolf photography but this year we only had one brief chance to photograph wolves.  Red fox were scarce and we saw less coyote than in previous years but as you can see by the above image we had a great bobcat photo opportunity.

I would say the snow levels were somewhat below average and temperatures were above average.  As usual the interior of the park was beautiful and it was very quiet with seemingly few winter visitors.

Pouncing Coyote

We captured this hunting coyote along the Madison River on one of our chartered snowcoach trips into the interior of the park.

Frosty Bison

This frosty bison was photographed near Roaring Mountain on a cold morning in the interior.

Bald eagle with trout

We found this bald eagle eating it’s breakfast along the Madison River.  I captured this image handholding my EF800mm F5.6L  and Canon 1D mk4.  Having preset my ISO to 800 for the light conditions I was able to achieve a high shutter speed to freeze the action as the eagle took off.

Barrow’s Goldenye

While photographing trumpeter swans on the Yellowstone River I heard the distinctive whistling wing beats of an approaching goldeneye and was able to quickly achieve focus on this beautiful drake.  I was again handholding my 800mm lens and 1d4 to capture a nice series of this rarely seen duck in flight. 

Morning Moonset

One morning driving into the park from Gardiner I noticed the crescent moon setting over the canyon rim.  I quickly found a pull off and we did our best to capture this striking scene.  DOF problems made it difficult to achieve sharp focus on the FG tree and the moons so I advised the group to make a sharp image of the tree and another with the moon in focus and then combine in the images in post processing.  This image was a single image where I stopped down as much as I dared (1/15th @ F16) to try to get both principle elements in focus.  Shooting with my 800mm lens the DOF was very shallow and I didn’t quite get the tree as sharp as I would have liked.

Bighorn ram

On a beautiful sunny morning we found a pair of bighorn rams along the Yellowstone River near Junction Butte.  For this image I noticed the ram was in spot light.  I really love this kind of lighting.  I found some out of focus FG vegetation and shot right through it to highlighting the ram even more.

 

Visions of the Absaroka-Beartooth Front

Summer wildflowers at Gardner Lake

 I very excited to have a number of my images (10) in an  exhibit of photographs featuring scenes from Wyomings wild and wonderful Absaroka Front.  The exhibit will be displayed in Washington, D.C., and other venues over the next few months.

“Visions of the Absaroka-Beartooth Front: Stewardship and Collaboration,” is sponsored by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.  It will be on display for the next five months in places ranging from Cheyenne and Cody to the nation’s capital.  The photos focus on culture, lands and wildlife, according to GYC.

Images from award-winning photographers D. Robert Franz of Cody and Dave Showalter of Colorado will be on display at Little America Hotel in Cheyenne starting Jan. 24, to coincide with the legislative session.  The images will be stunning  24×36″ metallic prints.

It will move cross country in late February for a two-week display in the U.S. House of Representatives’ Rayburn Office Building in Washington before its five-day finale in Cody at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in mid-May.  The exhibit is the culmination of a collaborative effort that includes GYC, county commissioners, state and federal agency staff, and state and federal legislators.

Sen. Hank Coe and Rep. Sam Krone, both of Cody, are hosting a reception at Little America. Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, is hosting a reception Feb. 25 in Washington.

Here are a few more of the images I have in the exhibit.

Grizzly bear

Legend Rock Petroglyphs

Sage Grouse along the Absaroka Front

Petroglyphs from the Legend Rock

Wyoming Wolf Pack in Winter