Deer and headlights

In my previous post I mentioned two White-Tailed Deer spotted during our drive on the 11 mile, Jane’s Memorial Scenic Dr.:

Two deer were first seen far ahead but as we approached they faded off into the surround wetlands. Slowly inching by where they had been we looked to see signs of them but they seemed to have disappeared. It was only after we’d pass a short distance that I saw them in the rear view mirror drift back out onto the road behind us from the very spot we’d searched. It was while taking photos of them with a long zoom lens that another car first appeared far behind us.

At the point I saw them re-emerging behind us, I immediately stopped the car and grabbed my camera to make photos. I quickly changed to my Tamron 200-500mm lens which on my DX format Nikon D300 camera is the equivalent to a 300-750mm lens on a full frame camera. I chose to use my D300 on this particular day hoping for wildlife shots where that 1.5x crop factor gives more needed reach. This lens doesn’t get a lot of use in my day-to-day shooting and most of the reviews I’ve read concerning it are not outstanding, saying it’s a little soft at 500mm. While that may be true in general, I have to say I was very satisfied with the results this lens gave me — few complaints on sharpness. Of course I was shooting with good light so even with this slower lens the D300’s AF work flawlessly.

These photos were all shot at ISO 200, f/6.3 and full out 500mm.

The car in the background had stopped and wasn’t nearly as close as the compression factor of long lens made it seem. The deer wandered from one side of the road to the other and back again giving me time to shoot 25-30 shots. These three are among my favorites from that bunch. Do you have a favorite from among these three?

A little research uncovered some interesting information about the Florida White-Tailed Deer population:

…Within the past century, Florida’s deer herd has gone through many changes. In the late 1930s, there were only about 20,000 deer in the state and they were nearly extirpated in south Florida during an effort to eradicate tick-borne diseases. The Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission (GFC) responded to this by purchasing deer from various sources– including a game farm in Wisconsin–and transplanting them to unoccupied areas in Florida. Also, killing adult females (does) was prohibited during the early restocking period, to further ensure success.

These efforts were successful and now population estimates exceed 700,000 deer statewide…

I find it humorous that even many of the deer in Florida have moved there from the northern states, that’s so often the case with the human population of Florida as well.

Post-processing on this photographs included the use of Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop CS4, NIK Color Efex Pro.