The Battle, a happy accident.

roaddog52 · October 8, 2015

While hiking in the Gibbon River area near Madison Junction in Yellowstone, I heard these two large bulls bugling. Making my way through the woods , they were just starting to challenge each other when I came out of the trees. In my excitement I failed to set my shutter speed correctly and this abstract image is the result.

Comments, and or critique is sincerely valued.

Larger, https://roaddog52.smugmug.com/Photography/New-Images/i-7MpVCCW/0/X2/IMG_6744-X2.jpg

Phil

Stumblebum · October 8, 2015

I saw k-dog do it, and I tried lowering my shutter to create these kind of shots.
I think 1/150 or so might be the right one as with 1/100 I thought it was too blurry and soft but that probably also depends on how fast the subject is moving.
This is the right idea though......more artsy that way!

kdog · October 8, 2015

Cool! Yeah, I love these kind of shots and they're really hard to do. Usually when you do them, you are panning with the animals to try and keep their bodies sharp while their legs are all blurred showing the motion. This is a special case because you had two animals running towards each other so your camera would be stationary. I don't think any of us would have the guts to try this on purpose with a once-in-a-lifetime shot like this. Because of that, you've really got something special here.

Here's a link to a recent shot in Africa taken of wildebeasts running at 1/13s. I'm not entirely happy with this, I think my shutterspeed was too low (to Taz's point). But it gets the point across. http://www.desertilluminations.com/Vacation/Africa/i-BKt2bjH/1/X2/FD3_9995-X2.jpg

roaddog52 · October 8, 2015

Stumblebum wrote: »

I saw k-dog do it, and I tried lowering my shutter to create these kind of shots.
I think 1/150 or so might be the right one as with 1/100 I thought it was too blurry and soft but that probably also depends on how fast the subject is moving.
This is the right idea though......more artsy that way!

kdog wrote: »

Cool! Yeah, I love these kind of shots and they're really hard to do. Usually when you do them, you are panning with the animals to try and keep their bodies sharp while their legs are all blurred showing the motion. This is a special case because you had two animals running towards each other so your camera would be stationary. I don't think any of us would have the guts to try this on purpose with a once-in-a-lifetime shot like this. Because of that, you've really got something special here.

Here's a link to a recent shot in Africa taken of wildebeasts running at 1/13s. I'm not entirely happy with this, I think my shutterspeed was too low (to Taz's point). But it gets the point across. http://www.desertilluminations.com/Vacation/Africa/i-BKt2bjH/1/X2/FD3_9995-X2.jpg

Thanks guys for the input. This was literally an accident as I wasn't paying attention, and was going for a much cleaner, albeit static shot.

Nice capture k-dog. You weren't by chance in Yellowstone last week were you. I passed a car with "k-dog" plates near the Madison River.

Phil

kdog · October 8, 2015

roaddog52 wrote: »

You weren't by chance in Yellowstone last week were you. I passed a car with "k-dog" plates near the Madison River.

Phil

That wasn't me this time, but grab those plates for me if you see them again.