Trip Report-Smokey Mountains-Tennessee 3

Yesterday morning was lovely, I arrived early and went into the park,The Turkeys were at the entrance as normal, As they were distant i decided to come back to them later and wanted to get into a position to get some early morning landscape shots in,The mist was in a distant valley so i decided to shoot with a long lens at distance rather than make my way into the valley, A long lens will give the image compression, 'pulling' distant things together, I used the Nikon 200-400 with the D3, Shooting with a bean bag from the car, The sun was coming up to my left and just hitting the lower trees-it looked stunning with the mountains in the distance, I shot both landscape and portrait mode for the agent to choose and i shot wide (200mm) and zoomed in (400mm), Its amazing how some places can give you inspiration to shoot and this place does it for me, After i bagged some landscapes i went on to some deer and then back for the turkeys, A big male had made his way to the road side and whilst displaying with his back to me i managed to get into position so that when he turned around i was ready to shoot, He didn't seem to give a damn and carried on as if i wasn't there, When i left the park i decided to take some shots of the many streams with small waterfalls and bracketed my exposures so when loaded onto the PC i could HDR the image which i must admit to being very impressed with-more of that to come
Today could not have been more different, Within 30 mins of entering the park the day turned into night as the sky darkened (ISO 1600 i managed 1/8 sec) then loud claps of thunder, bolts of lightening striking the mountains around me and torrential rain, I stayed another 2 hrs but it never improved so i called it a day-Last day tomorrow so fingers crossed


Dave

Trip Report-Smokey Mountains-Tennesse 2

I didn't make it into the Smokies yesterday-The weather was very bad with heavy Snow showers and i had a couple od things to sort out, I had looked at the forecast for today and it looked pretty good so i was itching to get out this morning and arrived well before the gates opened,There was still snow on the mountains and a report of 12'' at the top-all in one day,The morning was bright and frosty with a thin layer of snow at the base of the mountains, As per their name the floor had a nice thick layer of mist that quickly burnt off,but not before i shot some landscapes and a couple of deer, The Turkeys were still near the entrance but still distant so i hoped that i would bump into some more further round the park, Little did i know that it would be near te end of the loop that some Turkeys popped out of the woodland but were followed (too) closely by a local photographer who literally herded them along-no point in staying there so i drove off but as i did another single turkey appeared and strutted his stuff right in front of me, I took some full body type shots before grabbing the big gun (600) which had a 1.4x and D300 attached, I had seen an image a long time ago that really impressed me of these strange looking bird, I looked through the view finder and it was full of turkey, the shutter speed was very low 1/40 but i didnt want to up the ISO so a steady hand was called for and i managed plenty of shots to make sure that i had nailed it-brilliant only 2 days in and my target was in the bag, I drove off very pleased with myself and quickly viewed a large woodpecker through the trees-a pilated-it was massive (size of a crow) and only a few feet from the floor, I tried from the car but there was too many branches in the way, I slowly got out of the car and quietly crept through the woodland only for a truck to pull up to see what i was doing and the bird flew, I carried on driving to the camp site to see if any bears had been seen, i grabbed a coffee and waited, A few American robins landed nearby so i grabbed my camera and a young lad came from nowhere and chased them off-looking very pleased with himself-dont you just love em, Once the kid had gone i carried on waiting to see if they returned, they didnt but instead another pilated woodpecker landed in the tree right in front of me, I only had the camera and beanbag so had to handhold the monster lens,after a had some shots in the bag i decided to quickly go to the car and grab the tripod,The bird hung around and as i grabbed another couple of shots it dropped out of the tree and fed around a stump close by-well all my christmas's came at once and it stayed for about 10 mins and in the shade so i didnt have to worry about blowing the bright whites, The Pilated is a bird that was high on my wanted list when i came to the states and to have one so obliging was amazing-what a morning and what a place, I cant wait for the 'fall' as this place is soo picturesque during the winter it will be amazing with the golden folage


Dave

Trip Report-Smokey Mountains-Tennesse

Yesterday i drove from North Carolina over the Great Smokey Mountains to the Tennesse side, I arrived about 2pm and dropped my cases off at the motel,I grabbed my gear and headed towards Cades Cove, I have never been before but had done my homework, Cades Cove is in the Smokies National Park and is a very historic part of the park with ancient buildings dotted around, Its very well known and extremley busy, If cades cove was a NP it would be the busiest in the States-very popular to say the least, The animals and White Tailed Deer in particular are very easy to approach and if you see an image of a WT Deer published chances are it was taken here, I knew i was out of season, the deer have rutted and lost their antlers,For deer shots its best in the 'Fall' and i have a cabin booked especially for that-Then it will be crazy with people, One thing that suprised me is that if you park up you are free to walk off trail and approach the animals, I drove around the 11 mile loop road and viewed lots of deer along with some wild turkey, Then about half way around i saw a black blob near some woodland, I grabbed the bins and it was a bear so i grabbed the gear and headed down towards it,when i got closer i looked behind me and i had about 100 people running down towards me mainly young kids shouting and screaming, The parents egging them on to get closer, Luckily there was a ranger at hand and he did his best to keep the crowd back especially when we realised that there was a young bear with it, I only had the D3 and 600, In my panic i forgot the extenders,It was good to see but because of the crowds the bears kept distant but a good start, Today i was at the entrance at dawn and waited with a couple of other photographers for the gates to open, Instantly there were Wild Turkey going through the courting process and what magnificent creatures they are when strutting their stuff,They were way too distant but i did managed to get close to one later on although he though he was a capercaille and stayed in the woodland, I also bumped into a group of deer and decided to get some shots and 2 of the deer decided to have a fight and stood on their back legs and bitch slapped each other like march hares, The weather today was very cold and late this evening it started snowing-snow is predicted for the next day or 2 and freezing temperatures,not what i expected and it will put paid to any landscapes with sky and to any wildflower photography,One thing that is here in abundance are waterfalls so i have already been having a play in the low light,The D3 and 24-70 are a match made in heaven for this and as well as full waterfall landscapes i have been doing some details stuff at different shutter speeds to get different effects, With the unpredictable weather we will have to see what happens to the wildlife but if i can i will concentrate on the turkeys whilst they are courting, I was lucky today when i found a group of deer and the main male still had a 'rack' but i bet he is the only one


Dave