After my post last week, I had several conversations with followers about my encounter with Oakley the Otter. I thought it would be novel to show how that encounter progressed in separate groups of shots from each stage. I described the encounter in last week's post, but recount it again here to add context to the images ...
It started, from about 170m, shooting with my 100-400mm and 1.4x converter at maximum zoom - effective focal length 560mm. Images are interesting enough but only as snapshots to remind me of my wildlife encounter
When shooting wildlife focal length is king and you can never have enough ... so I had to move closer. This group from about 120m still at 560mm effective focal length. Cool, but still really only of interest to me the photographer as keepsakes.
So I moved as close as I could get, about 95m away from the otter, at the edge of solid ice and I dare go no further in a line directly toward the subject if I wanted to stay warm and dry.
Now I was starting to get some images that had a bit of detail showing the otter grooming itself out on the ice in the (relatively) warm morning sun. Definitely not Nat Geo stuff but with more interest than my other shots to this point in the encounter. I looked away to see if I could pick my way along the shoreline to get closer to the subject without spooking it and when I looked back, Oakley was gone ...
After waiting a while to see if it would return, I collapsed my monopod support and racked the lens in to walk back across the uneven surface of the ice towards the cottage. As I approached shore, I happened to glance to my left and what do ya know ...
... at about 35m away, Oakley had come back up through the ice just in front of our neighbour's. Startled, I swung the camera up to my eye and fired of a bust of shots but at 140mm focal length as I had collapsed the lens for the walk back across the ice.
I quickly extended the monopod to get some support for zooming to 560mm and still at 35m away, got a few shots with the otter moving away from me. It still had not noticed me ... this is as close as I got.
Then as it made it's way up the shore and off the ice, I fired off a number of shots at about 45m distance, 560mm before I was spotted ...
... and a hasty retreat to the safety of water was in order.
... and there you have it. My encounter in pictures. All shots uncropped except to straighten. All shots with only basic exposure edits. All distances from camera EXIF data.
My favourite from the series above ...
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| ' hasty retreat ' |
DJE
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