1.  Put your camera on high-speed continuous shooting mode.

2.  Make sure you have fast memory cards that can handle the burst mode of the camera you are using.

3.  Set your camera’s focusing mode to AI-Servo.

4. Use a wider lens.  On my 50D, I prefer my 24-105 L lens as it has a nice wide range.  On camera with a full sensor, like a 5D, I would probably opt for a 70-200.  If your lens is too tight, you will likely find that you are cutting off ears or antlers or feet.  You can always crop later, but you can’t add in later!

5.  Use either AV or TV modes.  I personally prefer AV mode.  I set the F-stop to something that will give me a nice depth of field with the animal in focus and the background a little blurry, like 5.6 or 8, then let the camera adjust the shutter speed.  You pretty much need at least 1/250 for shutter speed or you will get blurry photos.  So, if I am not getting a fast enough shutter speed, then I bump up the ISO a notch (the noise reduction in lightroom 3 is great, so don’t worry!).

Then, start shooting!  You will likely have to burn through a lot of shots before you get a winner.  I was pleased to get these shots of the dog on a recent trip to the Blue Lakes trailhead.

Hope this helps!!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

Also, a special thank you to the posters at the WhatBird.com forum for help identifying several species!

Western Blue birds

http://www.rodsimpson.com/pages/gallery/gallery.php?gallery=spring

Here is Mary getting a very nice road shot:

Cheers!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

This guy flew by us a few times, so I quickly switched to my custom settings for taking animal shots and fired away.

This turkey just walked down the path right next to us like we weren’t even there. I was snapping away and got some great close-ups, but the shots didn’t feel right when I looked at them later. When he finally ducked into the brush, I was able to get a shot that felt more natural.

Of course you have to have your gator shots. They are tough though. You are on an elevated path shooting down on them. This is really a good thing considering you are basically food to them, but it makes getting good angles difficult.

The heron came back for another pass, so I did my best to catch him. He was completely back-lit, so he turned out a little dark. However, I am really happy to have a crop sensor for these occasions. This is with my 70-200L, cropped about 35%.

And one final gator shot. Again, looking down from the elevated path. One day I will get the big glass (500mm prime or something like that). Then I will be able to get pictures of the guys lounging on the other side of the canal. But until then, I have to settle for the close ones.

Happy Shooting!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

One of the best parts of doggie photos is when you capture a great expression. I was so pleased to have caught Moab with his tongue sticking out like this. It looks to me like he is saying Spllltttthhhhh!

I have found that the secret is high-speed continuous shooting. If you snap a bazillion pictures, one is bound to turn out! I use high-speed continuous shooting plus AI-Servo mode. When I am out in this kind of an environment, with dogs and camera, I keep that shutter button down. You just never know when your animal is going to do something cute, funny or just interesting. We were at this location, at the foot of the Blue Lakes trail head near Ridgeway, Co, for only about 45 minutes, but I probably took 300 photos. Using Lightroom it is easy to flag the blurry/uninteresting/otherwise lame photos as rejects and delete them. Gotta love digital!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

We had a great time down in the San Juan Mountains over thanksgiving!  There was still plenty of snow on the ground even though it had not snowed for several days.  We spent some time around Telluride and up on Wilson’s Mesa, but had a great time taking dog photos at the Blue Lakes trail head off of route 7.  Moab and Rio were loving the snow and I was able to get some great portrait and action photos.  My technique for auto-ISO worked great, but I realized after examining my photos that playing doggies really need a much faster shutter speed (at least 1/500, or 1/1000).  Most of my action shots were just not quite crisp enough…learning every day!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

Mary and I enjoyed another great excursion to Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday.  The weather was frigid and we were hoping for some evening shots at Bear Lake.  But by the time we got to to the lake it was blowing about 30 knots and the snow was flying all around.  We hiked up to Emerald lake to check things out, and although it was beautiful, no photo ops.  We did make the obligatory stop at a nice herd of elk and got some shots.   Mary was trying out a 2x tele-extender.  I was just using the 70-200mm (which was fine since the elk were right next to the road).  All in all, a nice little break!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

Since this year (2009) was kind of disappointing regarding the color, I decided to go back to some of last years images and give them another look. I found this one which was taken on the Ridgway side of Owl Creek pass. This is of course where they filmed one of the scenes in True Grit starring John Wayne.

Anyway, the conditions were quite dramatic that day, and as we drove over Owl Creek pass, we had all kinds of opportunities. This photo (HDR of course), seemed to work well.  I would have liked to have had a bit more sun peeking through, but the clouds were very interesting.  We spent about 2 hours here shooting and waiting, and it definitely paid off.

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography

So I just love taking pictures of our dogs! This one is of Moab. We were out in front of Mt. Gothic in Crested Butte. The dogs were running around like crazy so I set the camera to TV and a fast shutter speed (1/250), and snapped away. This one seemed to have some things going for it (happy dog, in focus, tongue out, nice pose. If I could do it again, I would have stopped down a bit more to blur the background… But I am always learning!

- Rod

Rod Simpson Photography