Bighorn Sheep - finally

Dixie · March 23, 2007

A few of you may remember my quest for Bighorn Sheep about a year and a half ago while I was in Rocky Mountains National Park. I never saw them and ended up having to post a photo of a stature of a bighorn. :wink

I recently went to Joshua Tree National Park and while I was taking a tour of the Desert Queen Ranch (aka: Key's Ranch), some bighorns found me. I was ready and here are a couple of the photos.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Click on the image for EXIF data.

kdog · March 23, 2007

Great shots there, Dixie. Congrats on bagging the bighorns. Evidently they can be found in the mountains near my home, so I'm always keeping my eyes open. No luck yet though. I wouldn't mind seeing more pictures of the Keyes Ranch either if you're so inclined.

BTW, were you using a tripod? Otherwise, it seems you were taking a chance with the 1/200s shutterspeed. Either way, it seems to have worked out fine though.

Regards,
-joel

Dixie · March 23, 2007

kdog wrote:

Great shots there, Dixie. Congrats on bagging the bighorns. Evidently they can be found in the mountains near my home, so I'm always keeping my eyes open. No luck yet though. I wouldn't mind seeing more pictures of the Keyes Ranch either if you're so inclined.

BTW, were you using a tripod? Otherwise, it seems you were taking a chance with the 1/200s shutterspeed. Either way, it seems to have worked out fine though.

Regards,
-joel

Joel,

Thanks. They were handheld, but using IS. I do have quite a few that I did at the ranch. I'll try to get some processed and placed in the Field & Street Forum by the first of next week.

riddim_maker · March 23, 2007

nice and crisp, great composition especially #2

ShepsMom · March 23, 2007

Great shot Dixie, love the clarity and colors. Nice catch, it's a beauty!!

Ann McRae · March 23, 2007

Hi Dixie

I really like the second one - if you want Big Horns, you should come on the preshootout!

ann

Skippy · March 23, 2007

Dixie wrote:

A few of you may remember my quest for Bighorn Sheep about a year and a half ago while I was in Rocky Mountains National Park. I never saw them and ended up having to post a photo of a stature of a bighorn.
I recently went to Joshua Tree National Park and while I was taking a tour of the Desert Queen Ranch (aka: Key's Ranch), some bighorns found me. I was ready and here are a couple of the photos.
Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
Click on the image for EXIF data.

I got to see the Bighorned Sheep on a previous trip to USA too Dixie.
The horns are very impressive and the size of the sheep too.
I was expecting sheep like we have here at home in Oz, not like these things, they are huge.

Good capture Dixie

.........thanks for sharing....... Skippy
.

Maestro · March 23, 2007

I really like the second one with the bush in the foreground and the boulder in the background. In the first one, did you do something to the color? It seems overly orange on my monitor and a bit bright, but perhaps it is just my monitor. It looks like you were dealing with some harsh, direct light.

Danspage · March 23, 2007

Great job!

Ok you had a hard time finding Bighorn sheep. I never had much luck in Rocky Mt Park. If you want an closer place to find the sheep and goats try Mt Evans Co.

I only have a handful of good sheep photos.
Mono pod, nikon d200 55-200mm nikon at 200mm 100ISO f7.1 1/1000 sec.

The goats are much easer to get close to and I see the goats more often. I take a day trip to Mt. Evans about 2 to 3 times a year.

Hope to see you on Mt Evans some day.
Check out my web page for more.

dallas · March 24, 2007

Nice shots Dixie, but a little hot with the highlights on my monitor.

Harryb · March 24, 2007

Congrats Dixie. The shots look pretty good especially considering the lighting you had.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

riddim_maker wrote:

nice and crisp, great composition especially #2

Thanks, Russ.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

ShepsMom wrote:

Great shot Dixie, love the clarity and colors. Nice catch, it's a beauty!!

Thank you. Your comments are appreciated.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

Ann McRae wrote:

Hi Dixie

I really like the second one - if you want Big Horns, you should come on the preshootout!

ann

Thanks, Ann. I will consider the preshootout. I will arrive in Seattle to pick up my car after my Alaska land/sea cruise on or about Sept. 18th. I made a post to your thread on the pre/post shootouts and recommended that you start to separate threads - one for the pre and one for the post. That is less confusing for us old guys.

What I read about the pre/post shootouts sounds interesting. Thanks for all your work on both.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

Skippy wrote:

I got to see the Bighorned Sheep on a previous trip to USA too Dixie.
The horns are very impressive and the size of the sheep too.
I was expecting sheep like we have here at home in Oz, not like these things, they are huge.

Good capture Dixie .........thanks for sharing....... Skippy
.

Thanks, Skippy. Too bad you are on the 07 Shootout. There are also suppose to be bighorn sheep there as well.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

Maestro wrote:

I really like the second one with the bush in the foreground and the boulder in the background. In the first one, did you do something to the color? It seems overly orange on my monitor and a bit bright, but perhaps it is just my monitor. It looks like you were dealing with some harsh, direct light.

Thanks, Maestro. I took a closer look at both photos and re-processed both so the original photos above have changed (as of Mar 24th). I was rushing through them when I processed both from RAW and was off on both. Thanks again for bringing it to my attention.

...and yes, the light was very harsh. They only have two tours a day to the ranch with one being at 10 AM and the other at 2 PM. No sweet light for either of those tours so I had to work with what I had. I found out the last day that I was there that I could have made arrangements for a special photographer's tour when the regular tours aren't going on. Next time I'm there, I am going to give that a go and maybe they will be flexible enough to allow the photographer some input on the time of day.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

Danspage wrote:

Great job!

Ok you had a hard time finding Bighorn sheep. I never had much luck in Rocky Mt Park. If you want an closer place to find the sheep and goats try Mt Evans Co.

I only have a handful of good sheep photos.
Mono pod, nikon d200 55-200mm nikon at 200mm 100ISO f7.1 1/1000 sec.

The goats are much easer to get close to and I see the goats more often. I take a day trip to Mt. Evans about 2 to 3 times a year.

Hope to see you on Mt Evans some day.
Check out my web page for more.

Dan,

I didn't find the bighorns on my last trip to RMNP, but I did get some great shots of some elk sparring and locking antlers while I was out there waiting for some bighorn to come wandering by.

Maybe I will get a chance to try out Mt Evans either on my way out for the 07 Shootout or on my way back. I will be heading out early since I am dropping my car in Seattle before flying up to Alaska and taking a cruise back down to the lower 48. Then I'm going to the shootout. So maybe in late August on the way out or late Sept or early Oct on my way back I can work in Mt Evans. Besides it's close to RMNP and I wouldn't mind spending another few days there as well.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

dallas wrote:

Nice shots Dixie, but a little hot with the highlights on my monitor.

Totally agree. Most of it was my hurried post-processing. I redid them this morning (Mar 24th) so the photos above have now changed to show the latest.

Dixie · March 24, 2007

Harryb wrote:

Congrats Dixie. The shots look pretty good especially considering the lighting you had.

Thanks, Harry. The lighting was harsh, but I could have done a better job with the PP. I re-worked them today and the new photos are now showing above.