Just returned this afternoon from two days in Shenandoah National Park. After a couple of weeks of delays due to work and the dreadful weather we have been having, I finally carved two full days out to make our annual pilgrimage to Big Meadows in search of new born fawns. I knew it was really past the usual peak for fawns which is closer to the first week of June. And sure enough the number of fawns in the early morning - really early 5-6AM - was low. Instead we had a large number of very friendly young bucks along with a few does. And I do mean very friendly! The Rangers request that photographers keep at least 30 yards from the deer. This is really important when fawns are around to avoid adding stress to an already stressful situation. The deer have, however, - at least for the two days I was shooting - become acclimated to people, and it was the deer crowding the photographers. Does with fawns would walk directly toward you and stop an arms length away. At one point this morning, I was concentrating on a deer 30 yards away, only to look behind me to discover that I had five deer less that 10 feet away, and all happily eating.
Today I had decided to shoot with my Nikon 300mm f4 when I should have been using the trusty 70-200mm f2.8. I think that the Nikon 300 mm is one of the least appreciated Nikon lens. It is too short for most bird photography and without VR not very useful for photojournalist or sports use. This is too bad as it is really one of the sharpest Nikon lens wide open at f4.
We had a very good sunset - the first in more than 10 days according to other photographers - and I now have a lot of HDR shots to process.
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