moose sighting

[Curtis Cunningham]

This morning (~7:30am PST) I looked out the front of my house and there across the road was a momma and baby moose wandering in the bushes. Thankfully it wasn't snowing too heavily yet so I managed to get a few images.

I shot at 1/5s @ 5.6 (1600 ISO) and am wondering if there's anything I can do in the future for situations like this to improve the image. I don't think flash would do anything because the subjects are too far away. And 1600 is as high an ISO as I can get with my camera.

Here's a collage of what I shot:

[Dennis_Vied]

Well, there are flash extenders, but they are so narrow that they wouldn't do you much good in this situation. They cover only about a 300mm lens angle.

I would take the image into Photoshop and apply a little shadow/highlight to it to open up the shadows a bit. There's probably going to be some noise, but then, hey, that'll fit right in with the snow and all.

With a grab shot like this, you take whatever you can get.

[michaelnotar]

IMHO, flash extenders are crap, clumsy, and not worth the trouble. even if you get a good one, they are hard to align and keep aligned.

for this shot i would lighten it up with curves. snow scenes are nice when light and airy, low contrast just like they are in real life. also a little too much color for me, try desaturating the master channel a good 10-20%.

[DougAxford]

That's an easy answer. Just walk right over and say hi.

One of my life's most precious moments is being alone in the bush 30' from a bull moose and staring into each other eyes for 5 minutes waiting to see who blinks first. No camera with me, shucks.

[Noel_Carboni]

Nice shot in difficult lighting! You did about as well as you could have here. MAN that looks cold!

-Noel

[AKPhotos]

You could have walked outside with some Carrots and you might have gotten some close shots. LOL

What I do here in Alaska, is shoot about a stop under, depending on the lens. I am not sure what body and gear you are using, but that will have some effect on it of course.

I get moose in our yard and neighbors yard, as well as on the roads, and thats the scarey times, and the best thing to do is sometimes zoom in and take the grain if you have to to get the shot...

I got some Eagle ones the other day in my yard and also on the way to Anchorage. They are all on my new site I just got up tonight. Check it out.

Photo Tours and Workshops on the Kenai Pennsula, Alaska Pictures on each page as well as a photo gallery. Im not even 10% on uploading my images to the gallery yet, put I got some of my favs so far up there.

Hope this helps.

Thanks
Kevin in Alaska