Photographing Moose in Summer
Moose watching is a favorite summer pastime in the North Woods. It is also a good time to take some interesting photographs. This image shows a popular moose watching location in Maine that has a rock large enough to accommodate several people while offering a spectacular view of the entire pond and mountain vistas. The moose in this area are somewhat used to seeing humans, although certainly not tame, by any stretch of the imagination!
The cow moose in the above photo fed for over an hour on the grasses on the bottom of the pond, and then after getting her fill, crossed right in front of her many admirers on the rock and exited the water. To get this photo, I used a 16MM fish eye wide angle lens. The 16MM lens takes in a lot of information and is great to use on scenics like this. It takes in approximately 180 degrees of angle. Just be careful not to get your toes in the photo!
This is an image of a bull moose I regularly see each summer. He is absolutely huge! Even in early summer his rack is enormous. By the end of the growing season, his antlers will exceed five feet in width! He has a great disposition for such a big moose, and always tolerates my presence while I photograph him. I love the water running off his face in this image. This photograph was taken with a Nikon D2X digital camera set at ISO 640 - it was overcast and late in the day, making it difficult to get enough light to make the image. This type of image would be almost impossible to achieve using transparency film. Plus, the lens used (Nikon 200-400MM) was image stabilized to help with camera shake and sharpness. Of course, I used a sturdy tripod (Gitzo GT3540).
During a July trip through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons national parks, I spotted this adult cow moose feeding in a small lily pond. The lily pads were blossoming which added some nice touches of yellow color to the photograph. She appeared to be eating the lily pad roots and other aquatic grasses. It was extremely difficult to a good position to photograph her because the edge of the pond was thick with underbrush. I finally fought my way to a decent spot to photograph by wedging my body between some thick brush. This location was close to the main park road, and I was not prepared for the ensuing chaos of cars, tour buses, RV's, and the people who descended down the hill from those vehicles to get a better view of the moose. Luckily, I had the "best" vantage point to observe and photograph the scene.
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Written exclusively for Mooseworld by Mark Picard. Copyright © 2007 by Mark Picard. Used with permission.