Deer moments

[LaFoto]

Scanned from prints, prints in themselves disappointed me, like do all the photos taken with my repaired 35mm Canon right now, mostly so those taken at fully extended zoom lens (300mm), seems like I have lost my ability to take any good photos with that one...

Made into this composit, tiny... BUT: I saw them. And they saw me. And they did NOT run away like crazy in the way their colleagues had always done before. Maybe I should present them picture by picture instead?

 

[toruonu]

Nice shots but regarding the camera and the lens, then I wouldn't blame you as most zoom lenses get "soft" when fully extended to their maximum range. What you can try is the following:

1. extend to a bit less than full, for example 250mm not 300mm
2. don't shoot wide open, close the aperture by at least 1 stop, if light allows, even more.
3. try to use a tripod if possible to avoid additional blur, normal rule of a thumb if you don't have a stabilizer lens is that shutter should be 1/focus length. So for 250mm it should be 1/250s. Any slower and you probably blur the picture. With stabilizer lens you will get 1 - 2 stops slower so up to 1/60s is adequate (although quite difficult).
4. if you are prepared to spend some more film, shoot at least 2-3 frames in a row, as the camera gets more and more stable as time passes, during the first shot the motion is the biggest however I have gotten with stabilizer and using this method nice and sharp images at 1/15s and 1/20s

Happy shooting and more deer shots I'll post some mine as well in a separate thread, you brought up the urge to share mine as well

 

[toruonu]

Oh and regarding deers, they are normally quite curious. If you stand downwind from them (and not vice versa), then by moving slowly you could approach to them quite close and if you then wait, then sometimes they come to investigate themselves as well

 

[LaFoto]

I now think that at the moment when I tried to take these photos, this happened, as described in my new thread over in the Camera Questions and Answers: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=305074

Thank you for all your good tips, though. I think, my next attempts to capture deer will be in the wild animal park nearby...