More yard critters

[mondhasen]

Deer! The Huntress spooked them away from outside the back corner of her yard only to have them reappear an hour later over by the old truck.


tippity-hoof, tippity-hoof


Ooooh, for me?

There were two that munched the apples I'd thrown for the rabbit, and more pictures can be seen here on my google site: https://goo.gl/photos/Vpja7ZvGPnFaUYb48

The pics aren't great (lighting, focus), but I view these as the equivalent of Polaroids or Instamatic pics anyway. And the deer were constantly moving about: such inconsideration! The smallest one would zoom through the yard, jumping fallen trees and ducking low branches, all-out having fun, while the adults grouped together cautiously and watched all around constantly. In the end, the young'n was all out of breath and panting and just enjoying the thrill of living.

This entry was originally posted at http://moonhare.dreamwidth.org/41690.html.

Comments

[lepaggoth.livejournal.com]

...soon there's Bambi and Thumper scenes there.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

Only once do I recall a rabbit among the deer :o) It was adorable to watch it hopping along, following them in the woods.

[lepaggoth.livejournal.com]

...I don't remember if I told it before or not - once when I was on my way to work at night/wee hours of morning, I came across a deer stag complete with antlers and all, followed by big hare. They were coming from a field, about to cross the road but stopped when they saw me and both looked utterly baffled :D

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

That's a nice memory :o)

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Oh, I miss seeing deer around! Thugh they have visited one of the previous rabbiteering spots a couple times, and indeed, even a couple times in one of the outer fields near the University.

You might want to consider kind of DSLR and a good telephoto like a used Nikkor 300mm f/4D AF-S. ^_^ It'll cost a few pennies, but you've seen the kind of quality possible, and it's basically a one-time cost, good for maybe 100,000 photos until the body might need replacement (lower end shutters tend to be rated for around 100k actuations, going up as you progress through the enthusiast and pro models. Some will last much longer than that, of course. My D90 was at about 90k when I handed it on)

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

This bridge camera was the best I could afford at the time: maybe someday I'll do the do and pick up something more professional. My only concern now is that maybe my arms and hands are not quite steady enough to take these long shots, even with a better camera :o( I want fast results so I don't bother with a tripod, but just try to brace against something while shooting.

And I never really explored all these damned features the camera offers, wanting really just to aim-and-shoot. I'll bet I can get better quality if I do that ;o)

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind I don't use any stabilisation at all, beyond fences and such. ^_^ For a given length lens - in my case, 300mm - it's a very rough guide that if you stay above the reciprocal (in this case, 1/300th of a second), the shot's liable to be sharp. Most of the time, I'm able to stay comfortably above that - maybe 1/2000 on a bright day, down to 1/1000 or 1/800 as sunset approaches, maybe some cloud arriving too.

That said, there are lenses with stabilisation included, and it's spooky how well that can work. Indeed, the newest version of my lens, which also happens to be half the length and weight, due to using a Fresnel element, has such.

I've only rarely used a tripod - it's much too limiting, when you're wanting to be out and about, and spot some spontaneous moment. I did for one rented lens, the deservedly named Sigmonster (300-800mm f/5.6), as that's too heavy and much too front-heavy to be hand-holdable unless you're a bodybuilder, and it was indeed a pain in that regard - lovely lens, but first I'd have to accept I'd be scaring off any buns already there as I got the tripod set up, then attached the gimbal mount (great fun! Once set up correctly, the heaviest lens can be moved around with ease with the lightest touch, and will stay right where you want it), and finally, carefully attached the lens to the mount. Not much use for seeing a quick moment while wandering. ^_^;

The catch, of course, is the larger the sensor, the better it'll perform in weaker light, as you've got a larger area per pixel - but that also means larger lenses. (Hence phone add-on lenses being tiny, as the sensors are tiny)

Another really good aspect with DSLRs is the speed of acquiring focus - it's virtually instantaneous, versus the contrast detection method used by most P&S. (That's beginning to change with higher-end bridges and mirrorless, with some phase detection incorporated into the sensor itself) So even the fleetest of buns can be tracked.

Perhaps if you know anyone with such a setup, you could have a play with it yourself, and see if it works for you? Or possibly, even just buy an older DSLR (I began with a D90, and they're fairly cheap, used), and then rent a suitable long lens to see how it works out, so you're not committing all that much to begin with.

Actually, if you go way back in my Flickr archive, you'll notice I actually began rabbiteering with a coworker's Konica bridge, then a Panasonic TZ-5 I bought for myself. One lunchtime, though, I borrowed another coworker's new Sony DSLR, and.. yep, it was a huge difference. It was then I knew what had to be done. =:) I spent a few months researching the wild world of DSLRs (so confusing!), and eventually bought a used D90 and a new Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3. Whilst it's not really possible to get the same quality across all the focal length range of a wide-ranging zoom as with a prime (ie fixed focal length), I still found it very helpful in letting me know just what lengths I really tended to use. After a few months, I'd realised I was spending almost all my time out at 300mm, and wondered what better options there might be, winding up with a used Nikkor 300mm f/4D AF-S. I was very hesitant, spending that much on not gaining any reach, but all the reviews were glowing - and indeed, it's about as good as it gets. Long enough for wildlife, light enough to be carryable all day and hand-held for hours, very sharp, and negligible chromatic aberration (ie color fringing, especially at high contrast boundaries, like buntails).

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this information!