Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming is renowned for its
expansive alpine vistas and exceptional annual display of
spring wildflowers. Since the Teton Range sits along the west
boundary of the park it is the perfect setting for those classic
sunrise shots of a towering mountain range bathed in the warm
glows of pink and gold of the early morning sun. Afternoon
shooting sessions, on the other hand, can offer a big challenge
as you invariably must shoot into the sun to capture the familiar
saw tooth peaks.
Yellowstone
National Park is quite different geologically and more
so as a photographic subject. The major geological feature
in this, the world’s first national park, is the super
caldera - a forty-five mile wide remnant of a collapsed volcano
that is still very much alive. With the magmatic energy of
the caldera powering hundreds of active geysers and inert
hot springs, few places on earth exhibit as much geothermal
activity as the Yellowstone Central Plateau. This activity
can pose a few risks to electronic and optical devices. The
hot springs and geysers constantly spew toxic fumes in the
forms of mist and tainted water vapor into the air. Repeated
and prolonged exposure can be harmful to the human body as
well as to lenses and camera bodies.
Ironically,
Yellowstone is less known for wildlife viewing even though
it contains an impressive collection of large game animals
and predators. The
Lamar Valley in the northeast is often compared to Africa’s
Serengeti as it is home to an exceptional population of large
mammals including moose, elk, bison, grizzlies, black bears,
wolves, and deer and antelope. In the northern reaches of
the park high ridges reveal picturesque waterfalls and deeply
gouged canyons. This presents a multitude of different photographic
situations to test the Nikon D200. I know of no better place
in the United States to put the camera through its paces.
A Glorious Morning at the Beaver Pond
Daylight
comes early in the Tetons in June. By 4:30 a.m. there is enough
daylight to get around without the aid of a flashlight. In
a sleep deprived daze the SUV was loaded and we began the
short drive to Schwabacher Landing. This
secluded area on the banks of the Snake River ranks, as photographer/writer
Tim
Fitzharris puts it, one of “North America’s
Big Four” locations for reflection photography.
Approaching
a small beaver pond the familiar scene came into view. There
they were the four major Teton peaks draped by the tops of
lodgepole pines and in the foreground a surreal reflection
in the perfectly still pond. The sun was a good fifteen minutes
from rising in the east so there was enough time to set up
and take some critical meter readings. Taking the Nikon D200
in hand, the meter was set to spot mode and readings were
taken of the sky just to the side of Grand Teton peak. Then
a reading was taken of the dense pines in the middle ground.
A final reading was taken of the reflection in the pond. As
suspected there was a difference of three stops between the
sky and the pine trees. But then there was the issue of the
meter reading from the reflection. It showed a one stop difference
from the sky and a two stop difference from the pine grove.
Remembering a tip about using neutral density grad filters,
it was decided to use one filter to hold back the sky and
another inverted to hold back the reflection. This is a technique
used to improve the “believability” of photographs
of reflective pools taken with ND grad filters. Without the
second filter there is the problem of balancing the exposure
of the sky, the reflection, and the shadowy mid-ground, in
this case the lodgepole pines.
Using
a Cokin filter holder a 3-stop grad was put in place
for the sky and a 2-stop grad was inverted in the filter
holder to hold back the reflection. The exposure meter
was set back to matrix metering, and the lens set to
hyperfocal distance. Now all there was to do was to
wait. And the wait was well worth it. At first the broken
clouds from the previous night’s thunderstorms
turned an unbelievable pink. |
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As the Nikon D200 fired off the first shots the histogram
showed a symmetrical bell curve, and the image looked perfectly
exposed in the LCD. A few minutes later the clouds turned
an intense gold and the peaks glowed like beacons. The Nikon
D200 recorded shots in quick succession to capture the ever
changing hues. A quick review of the histogram showed perfect
exposures each time.
