Here's a subtle shot of a rainbow cruising through foam on the Big Wood River taken a couple of days ago. Nikon D3s and Nikon 105 Micro lens.
Rainbow Trout Cruising Through Foam On Idaho's Big Wood River
Final Day On The Silver Creek Preserve
Today was the final day of the fishing season upstream of the highway 20 bridge on Silver Creek. That includes the Nature Conservancy section and the Double R reaches. Fishing does stay open downstream of the highway 20 bridge through February. The streamer fishing on this section can be stellar on warmer cloudy days...
A late season rainbow released yesterday on the Silver Creek Preserve, Idaho. A few Baetis here and there and lots of spooky hard to approach fish. Nikon D3s and Nikon 14-24 ƒ2.8 lens
A November Baetis. Nikon D3s and Nikon 105 Micro lens plus extension tubes. Converted from RAW using NIK's Silver Effex Pro 2.
Dragonfly
OK, it's the time of year I generally go back through my images to mainly delete the garbage and get it off my hard drive and to make sure images are properly keyworded. I occasionally find an image or two I like though. Here's one of a dragonfly taken on Silver Creek. Nikon D200 & Nikon Micro 105 lens.
Mahogany Dun
Here's an image of a Mahogany Dun taken at Silver Creek earlier this Fall. For some reason I skipped over this image after uploading it. I like the simplicity in black and white. Shot with the Nikon D200 and Nikon Micro 105 plus extension tubes. Handheld.
Rising Rainbow
I cannot imagine someone watching me get the shot below. I laid stomach down on a rocky steep bank of the Big Wood River right in front of a foam eddy that frequently has a bunch of feeding fish. Today there were enough midges to get the fish going and a few of those fish came within inches of the bank I was awkwardly perched on. The fish came by in front of me so close I needed my macro 105 lens. The minimum focus on my 200 mm lens is about six feet which is far too long. Over about 45 minutes time I had two fish cruise through the foam within about five inches of my front element. Given the amount of foam in the eddy, the fish couldn't see me. I will certainly be heading back to this spot to try and get the perfect tail or fin slicing through the foam image...
Nikon D3s, Nikon Micro 105 lens
November Baetis
The images below were taken today on Silver Creek. Pretty warm at the Creek when I was there; about 44 degrees but windy. The baetis came off anyway and there were fish up on them. This particular baetis was about a size #18. For all of you wanting one more day on the Nature Conservancy section, this is the final week of the season. Everything on Silver Creek upstream of the Highway 20 Bridge will be closed starting December 1st.
I used the Nikon Micro 105 with an extension tube for these images. Between 12:15 and about 1:30 there were a lot of baetis.
Click on any of the images to view a larger version.
The fish were far more skittish today and did not let me get very close. I did manage to get a couple of frames just after a take or two.
Moose
A bull moose hung out in my neighbor's yard for much of the day today. He lounged and ate fallen apples. No dog had the guts to mess with him.
Gallatin River
Here's a three image panorama of the Gallatin River taken a couple of nights ago. It was converted from RAW to black and white using NIK's Silver Effex Pro 2. Click on the image to view the entire picture.
Nikon D3s, Nikon 24 pc-e lens
ƒ25, 1.3 seconds, iso 200
Yellowstone River
Below is a three image panorama of the Yellowstone River near Pray, Montana. It was taken using the tilt and shift function on the Nikon 24 pc-e lens. Putting together a panorama using a tilt/shift lens and utilizing the photomerge tool in Adobe's Photoshop is really painless. The file size increases as well. The image above is about 105 megabytes and 18 megapixels. I tilted the lens down about 1 degree to maximize the depth of field.
Wind, clouds and grass. Paradise Valley, Montana.
Wheel Line Motor Section
Here's an image taken near Gannett, Idaho. It's the motor section of a wheel line used for agriculture. This piece has been sitting solo since mid-October. The primary crops near Gannett and Picabo are barley and alfalfa. Certainly a symbol of anachronistic methods. Water and it's use has always been a fascinating issue for me. I will be posting all types of images related to water on this site.
I used the tilt function on the Nikon 24 pc-e lens to limit the depth of field on the two sides while maximizing the DOF in the middle part of the foreground all the way to infinity. The 24 pc-e lens is probably my favorite lens despite the manual focus.
I used Nik's Silver Effex Pro 2 to convert the RAW image to black and white. A favorite tool of mine within Silver Effex is the color filter. In the image above I selected blue to edit the sky and slightly adjusted the hue and hue strength sliders to darken the blues, ie the sky.
Nikon D3s, Nikon 24 pc-e lens
Launch of New Web Site
The image above is a recent favorite from my "rising" series. No polarizing filter used. Without the polarizing filter on I was able to capture the wild light and color in the water. I panned the baetis as it drifted into the feeding lane and then fired away...
As some of you may have noticed, I just launched this web site. It went live yesterday and adios to my old site. I am still ironing out a lot of details and will be adding many more images to the galleries and more content as well. One of the new features I like a lot is the ability to click on an image in a blog post--like the one above--and view it enlarged in a lightbox. The galleries within this site also look much better than my previous site and really function as they should...
I have used Squarespace 6 to design this site. It is far more compatible to photographers than its predecessor, Squarespace 5. There are far more features beneficial to photographers on 6 and it's user interface is far more intuitive. Although both are two completley different platforms, if you are looking to build a site, I highly recommend Squarespace 6.
Nikon D3s, Nikonƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens
Silver Creek's S-Turns
Center Pivot & Field
Circles & Line
An image of a field and center pivot from above. Near Picabo, Idaho.
Nikon D3s, Nikon ƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens
Rise & Water
A Silver Creek Rainbow slashes through early November, crystal clear, spring water.
ƒ2.8, 1/5000th of a second, iso 280, 200mm
ƒ2.8, 1/8000th sec, iso 280, 200mm
ƒ2.8, 1/2500th sec, iso 280, 200mm
Prior to taking the images above I waded about stomach to chest deep and the water got pretty close to the top of my waders. No big deal. Slow current. Business as usual. When I finished shooting I took 2 steps the wrong direction and went shoulder deep and filled my waders. I had more fun stalking these fish with my camera than I could have ever imagined.
I never used a polarizing filter as I wanted some reflection in the water and for the water to loose a little of it's often perfect transparency.
Nikon D3s, Nikon ƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens
Silver Creek Preserve
Silver Creek Preserve From Above
Taken 2 days ago from above the Silver Creek Preserve. As forecast, the weather has changed and it's now snowing.
Nikon D3s, Nikon 24 pc-e lens
Rise Motion
A rainbow slices through the water at Silver Creek after taking down a baetis. I got within about 7 feet of this fish and tracked as many midges and baetis as time would allow over this rainbow's feeding lane. It took about 20 minutes for this particular fish to adjust to my presence in the water. For whatever reason, this rainbow did not see me as much of a threat with the exception that it never moved any closer to me to feed. This particular shot was taken at 1/8000th of a second at ƒ2.8.
Nikon D3s, Nikon ƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens
Rising Rainbows II
Looking Upstream
I have been working on a "rising" series the past few days at Silver Creek. The weather has been beautiful--highs in the 60's--and plenty of Baetis to get the fish up. Starting tomorrow, though, it looks like winter will be a lot closer...
Nikon D3s, Nikon ƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens
Rising Rainbows
The above images were taken yesterday at Silver Creek. Surprisingly, I was able to get pretty close to feeding fish without putting them down. There were quite a few Baetis starting around 12:30 and the fish were on them.
On the techie side, I shot the images above at at least 1/4000th of a second. I set aperture priority on the 80-200 lens to ƒ2.8--wide open--both for speed and to limit the depth of field for a dreamier effect. I did not use a polarizing filter as I wanted some reflection and I wanted as much speed as possible without cranking up the iso. My iso was set to 280. I am hoping to try and get one more session in while the warm days are still here in conjunction with a lot of Baetis.
Fly Fishing Photography
Nikon D3s, Nikon ƒ2.8 80-200 afs lens
Silver Creek Preserve
Fall light drifts onto Silver Creek. Silver Creek Preserve, Idaho.
This is a very simple 2 image panorama taken using the shift function on Nikon's 24 pc-e lens. On another note, the weather here is slated to be absolutely beautiful through Wednesday and then it looks like early winter with snow and highs in the low 30's. There have been lots of bugs on the Creek from Baetis and Mahogany Duns to October Caddis and Tricos. Yes, you heard that, there has been a smattering of tricos here and there on the Creek.
Nikon D3s, Nikon 24 pc-e lens
Green Drakes
Nope, this image was not taken today. It's an image I took in June and hadn't the time to edit. It's of a green drake nymph and artificial green drake adults. I used NIK's Silver Effex Pro 2 for the black and white conversion from RAW.
Nikon D3s, Nikon ƒ2.8 105 micro lens
Fly Fishing Photography