Snarls - Snow Leopard and Bobcat - up close and personal at Triple D

[retief]

My first image post, let us see how it goes. My wife Nancy and I were at the Triple D Game farm in Kalispell MT a few weeks ago to photograph animals in the snow. These included a Snow Leopard and a Bobcat, along with others. For those who don't know of Triple D I highly recommend taking a look.

Here are just a couple, as the title says "up close and personal", and when you can end up as close as 15-20 feet to some of these animals, it is quite an experience, when there are no barriers.

Snow Leopard:


Bobcat:


More from this trip can found here, Triple D in Winter

Let me know what you think, lot's more to come.

[rpcrowe]

Great shots... Showing these beautiful animals in a very natural environment. Wonderful expressions on their faces...

Being picky, I might suggest selectively lightening the eyes and adding a tad bit of contrast, especially in the leopard shot.

Additionally, IMO, your logo on the snow leopard shot is in an awkward position and keeps competing for my attention since the line of the animals face and body is pointing towards it. The logo on the bobcat shot is far less conspicuous and doesn't compete for my attention...

[Mike Buckley]

That must have been an incredible experience. Considering the pricing, it should be.

I especially like the first one, though well done on both! Agreed with Richard's comments.

[retief]

Thanks for the kind replies.

As to the watermark, this is always a bit of an issue. I notice that I have a different one on the Bobcat, haven't updated yet, I generally apply them to an entire folder on my site, but can do them individually as well. Always a pain to figure out what is "less distracting" while maintaining some semblance of protection, which is specious at best.

On your "nit picks", good catch, I would like to ask you a favor. Could you go direct to my site and open the image to compare? I am looking at them side by side and I think, but could easily be fooling myself, that the rendering here looks slight duller with less contrast, but I would like another opinion prior to bumping the image up a tad. Good catch, and one I waffled on prior to loading it to my site in the first place.

Great shots... Showing these beautiful animals in a very natural environment. Wonderful expressions on their faces...

Being picky, I might suggest selectively lightening the eyes and adding a tad bit of contrast, especially in the leopard shot.

Additionally, IMO, your logo on the snow leopard shot is in an awkward position and keeps competing for my attention since the line of the animals face and body is pointing towards it. The logo on the bobcat shot is far less conspicuous and doesn't compete for my attention...

[Mike Buckley]

When I toggle back and forth between the image displayed here and at your web site, I detect no difference.

[retief]

Mike, this truly is an amazing place to visit. As to the price, one thing to consider is what would it cost to travel to a place, and let us consider a less exotic animal than the Leopard, to photograph Bobcats or Lynx in the snow? Or better yet as we did on our first trip, baby Bobcats? I am guessing that when all was said and done, you would have spent several hundred dollars minimum to get there, plus the time to hope you found the subject, places to stay, etc. When all is said and done I would guess you would be into the $500-600 range at best, and worse if you had to wait days. On this trip, it was 9 species guaranteed, $1500 for both Nancy and I to photograph. With airfare, food, etc., still well under $3,000. That puts us just over $300 per, and we don't have to wait around and hope. Yes, it is not "fully wild", but I can tell you from chasing Wolves in Yellowstone, it is awfully nice to not be hundred of yards away.

Thanks for the nice comments, after 11,332 images over the 4 days we were there, we have plenty more to come.

[Rebel]

Awesome shots, wouldn't like to mess with one of these

[rpcrowe]

I looked at your images and they are really magnificent (but again, some of them suffer from that large and intricate logo).

Bill, I am not sure what type camera you are using but, with wildlife and my Canon cameras, I like to shoot with flash. Not really for flash fill but, mostly to attain catchlights in the animals eyes.

The little Canon 270EX II flash, hotshoe mounted and at a -1 or -2 stops FEC often provides catchlights but, doesn't interfere with the general exposure. The built-in flash would provide similar catchlights but, I like the 270EX II (or even the 270EX) because it has High Speed Sync capability. With HSS, I am not restricted to shooting at the maximum camera sync speed (which for my 7D cameras is 1/250 second while it is somewhat slower on some other cameras). The 270EX II with a fresh set of batteries and shot at a minus FEC has an extremely fast recharge time. It is also so light that I don't even realize that it is on my camera.

Of course, when I need actual fill light, I go to a larger hotshoe flash. I have several, ranging from the older 420EX to the 600EX RT. I have a FlashXTender when I am shooting with a long lens and need even more concentrated light.

I am not a wildlife photographer because, truthfully, I don't have the patience nor the tracking or observation skills needed for that type of photography. However, your images have started the juices churning to visit the Triple D.

Thanks for posting...

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[IzzieK]

Interesting shots of the wild. My fav is both. They have different angles and characteristics and action, the first one being the snarls. Also thank for detailing your trip expense.

[Krawuntzel]

Excellent pictures of the cats. As said by others "the focused eye" is too much focusing my eye
And a question: are the snow leopards over there this dark? I have only seen much "lighter" furs.
Erwin

[Stagecoach]

Love the attitude of No 1, as for catch lights coincidentally I have just spent the evening attempting to learn how to add them.

[deetheturk]

Wonderful captures Bill, looking forward to seeing more!

[retief]

Sorry for late responses, my bad.

Richard, one reason I don't use flash is that it can be disturbing, not only to the animals in these situations, but to the other photographers as well. I always try to get a catchlight, but being nature, sometimes it does not happen. Also I find that often with flash you can see a double-catchlight, which looks unnatural. Of course I could always add one, and that is not a bad idea. Thank you so very much for your kind comments.

Thank you all so much. I am actually looking at shrinking my logo a bit, much as I want to do something to maintain copyright, it is always a delicate balance. And the only way to insure it won't just be cropped out, is to cover the most important bits, a never ending battle.

[bnnrcn]

Great captures

[Manfred M]

As to the watermark, this is always a bit of an issue. I notice that I have a different one on the Bobcat, haven't updated yet, I generally apply them to an entire folder on my site, but can do them individually as well. Always a pain to figure out what is "less distracting" while maintaining some semblance of protection, which is specious at best.

Bill - watermarks offer NO real protection and take no time to remove. I was going slow and it took me around 2 seconds.




In my opinion, watermarks do nothing for your image other than ruin it. I can see a legitimate reason to either sign or put a logo on the image in a fairly unobtrusive way.

[retief]

Thanks, Binnur!

[retief]

Bill - watermarks offer NO real protection and take no time to remove. I was going slow and it took me around 2 seconds.

In my opinion, watermarks do nothing for your image other than ruin it. I can see a legitimate reason to either sign or put a logo on the image in a fairly unobtrusive way.

This is always a tough one. To make the notice as "non-removable" as possible it needs to be in the most obnoxious part of the image, which as you note rather ruins the "viewing" experience. If you look at Tom Mangelsen's site, for example, you see rather unobtrusive watermarks, so you do make good points. As I had noted prior, I was looking to do a smaller one, which I was updating last night.

In the case you show the "removal" will be simple, as the Logo was on an non-detail area. Tougher when on fine detail.

[marlunn]

awsome photos, love the subjects a lot - as to watermarks, the reality is that people who steal images can clean them off easily. So my personal view is I watermark mine as least impacting on the image as I can with the view that if a person steals the shot and removes it - thats theft with intent - no defence on 'I did not know'. So you have a strong case against them should you ever need to and not have ' disrupted' your legitimate audiences enjoyment of your art.