Second Beaver shooting

I got back to the canal where the Beaver Lodge is located. I found them out and about soon after dusk. I really wish they would come out a little earlier:) It leaves little time to shoot, maybe about an hour and a half and then it’s to dark to focus. I went with the 300f4 w/o the 1.4TC and am happier with the results. I still need a Better Beamer or some kind of flash extender. I would say these are from about 60 feet away. But I did get the exposure up some, and waited for him to get up o the banks of the canal. I had the best opportunity, as an adult went to nibble on a tree they have been working on. Damn if he never turned around though, and all I got was a beaver butt. Better luck next time, now I know where that tree is. I am, over all, happier, but there is room for improvement. I wish I could use my flash diffuser, but no way for that. I also may try and get the flash up higher, but I might need a helper for that. I may have to try that next time, flash up high on the tripod and me hand holding the camera below. These shots are all of an adult, and he is pretty big. I would say head to tail he is about 2 feet and looking at him on land, I would say 30 to 40 pounds.

Coming off the bank, he had just been nibbling on a tree.


Oiling himself


Here he has seemed to have returned to a tree trunk/root that overhangs the creek.


Still oiling himself.


More Oiling

Precious shots.
Good shootin.
Tough subject.
Love the his look in #2:>)))

Thank you Gale. This is tough for me. I have a few more ideas, and I assume they are going nowhere fast, so I'll be back. I thought the shots in the position when #2 was taken were very cute. He sat there for a while oiling his fur.

Great shots. In #2 it looks like he is being tickled and can't stand it.

Thanks Dean! That's true, he does look a little like that:) Hopefully I'll get back over there Saturday and see what I can get.

Great shots Jeff. Better exposures than the first time. Perhaps I can help out some time with the SB800.

Laslo

Thanks Laslo. I'll take you up on that offer, and I'll hold down that Fox while you shot it one of these days. Hey if we are both shooting with the camera set to commander and two SB-800s remote, will they get confused:)

your sb800's would not get confused, they would do exatley as they are programed to do - GO OFF.

looks like you've been busy as a beaver - oh, no pun intended - LOL

Keep at it. I like looking at them.

I'd try bumping down a bit on the flash, its dominating the light and making your shots look a little like they are lit with the headlights of a car. That said, it may not be possible under your shooting conditions to dial down. But give it a try and see if it's sofens them up a bit. . .

Sounds like a new expression:) I was kidding about the flash confusion. But I agree with you, the look is less then appealing with the very direct flash. That's why I was talking about moving the flash up high to at least have some down lighting. My flash is firing in TTL mode, but it's maxed. When I dialed in one stop down from wide open, I lost the lighting. Like I mentioned he's about 50 feet away. I started the evening in slow sync hoping to get some of the ambient lighting, but soon thereafter my shutter speed drooped below 1/30”. So in essence, this is a “Beaver in the Flash Light.” With Laslo and a second SB-800 maybe, maybe I can improve on this.

Hey jeff, did you try bumping your ISO in order to get your shutter speeds up?

Another good thought Tony. I was at ISO400 and 1/60. But looking at the shots the only lighting was from the flash, so I was probably in Aperture priority and the shutter sync'ed at 1/60 but in fact there was less light then that. Tonight I bumped it up to 500 and the noise is getting bad with my D70.

your right, the noise does start to get "bad" but exposure is the key when it comes to higher iso's. I've taken some very usable images with the d70 and iso 600. If your off by much on the exposure, you will see more noise. also, you may try turing on the long exposure. Did you try RAW and under exposing a few and then adding a little exposure in Capture?

I agree Tony, and I typically follow the “Expose to the right” philosophy for all shooting. But in this case, I have two problems, I am limited to f4 and I need about 1/3 stop more:) And on top of that a lot of the frame is dark even when correctly exposed. How do they say the “devil is in the shadows”:) I also always shoot RAW. The first series of shots was done with the 300f4 and a 1.4TC so I was at 5.6 and they were all about a stop underexposed. That, even push processed in the RAW editor still looked crapy.