The moose are coming down with the first snowfall of the year in the mountains!

I'd love some pointers on these shots from those of you with more experience. The light for all of them was poor, as most of the time moose only come out at dawn or at dusk, and all of these were in the shadows. The family was about a hundred yards away and that image is cropped from a shot taken at 200mm. The others were taken from about 10-20 yards out.

I increased the ISO and opened the aperture, while attempting to keep shutter speed at or slightly above focal distance. I'm not sure what else to have done, except get closer, but that was about as close as I could, or even wanted to get--except the family which was across a ravine and a creek.

The largest bull Moose I've ever seen in the wild


You don't see this very often--the whole family!


This guy was watching us watch the family above from behind

Thanks, Sailorsmom, for the kind words!

We had a wonderful time. There were people on our ship that had done that exact same cruise 17 times! I don't think I would ever do that, but the weather can be unpredictable enough, that I might be inclined to go again if I had a bad weather experience, but our weather was pretty good.

I appreciate the kind words!!

I love #2. I think it would make an interesting presentation to crop the waterfall and the weeds in the foreground so that it appears to be a scene from a natural setting, and then show it side by side with the original. Just to demonstrate that beauty can be found in all walks of life and in all settings! I definitely think you found the nugget in that scene!

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Thanks again. I'm very open to c/c if anyone has ways to improve on what I attempted.

I think all of those suggestions would be great additions!

What part of there are no free lunches is so hard for people to understand? Someone always has to foot the bill!

We were there the first two weeks of August. We were in the interior the first week--where the weather has been unseasonably warm this year (85 F in Fairbanks!), and the second week on the cruise. We had a little mild rain, but only enough to make me think twice about protecting my gear by putting it under my jacket, but not enough to prevent me from getting the shots I wanted. I also had a waterproof P&S for the worst times. I like that combo, but sometimes I forget to wipe off the glass protecting the lens, which leads to droplet shaddows which are annoying.

My pleasure!!

• American making less than $45,960 as individual or $94,200 as a family of 4 may be eligible for premium tax credits through the marketplace. Tax credits subsidize insurance premium costs.

This is the part that really irritates me about this whole Obamma Care Initiative. The insinuation here is that a family of 4 who makes almost $100,000 cannot afford to purchase health insurance for their family. So we're creating the expectation that such a family shouldn't have to. This is rediculous! I am sure that such a family would have a bunch of smart phones (my annual expenditure for 4 cell phones, not all of which ae smart phones with data plans, is somewhere around $1500, cable TV and high speed internet (my annual cost for these services is about the same), etc. I'm certain that for that kind of money, a pretty decent insurance plan could be obtained. If I didn't have a life and death benefit such as health care, these non-essential niceties are the first things that would be cut from my budget. In fact, that's exactly what I did with my family as a student. Making less than half of the $45,000 above, I managed to provide health care coverage for my kids, and that was without a job that provided benefits and on the private insurance market. Yes, it didn't allow me to have a cell phone (I got by with a pager), or cable TV (I used rabit ears), and I had dial up Net Zero for free. This is what I mean by social irresponsibility--expecting someone to provide for me what I can and should provide for myself, so that I can divert my discretionary income to unnecessary luxuries.

There are certainly those that need help and should be offered assistance, but the definitions above for determining the income level necessitating governmental subsidy is absurd.

Where is the money for a program that provides health care for such families going to come from anyway? We're "running out of money" according to the government and threatening to have to shut the government down as a result. And we're entertaining the idea of creating an additional entitlement to health insurance premiums for a huge segment of the population that doesn't in reality "need" it--that could provide it for themselves? And that's in addition to sending out recruiters to encourage people not using food stamps and getting by, to sign up and suck more out of an already stressed financially stressed system. (don't get me started on that) Are we nuts?

Are you suggesting that people won't try to figure out how to get around the system--to try to receive the benefits of health care without paying for it? If so then that is very naive. I see it everyday--EVERYDAY--people that COULD afford health care and who choose not to obtain it. Instead, they choose to force themselves on the system and expect the government to pay for it, or health care providers to write it off. It's called social irresponsibility, and it is the disease of our time!

We were there the first two weeks of August. From what I've heard, it's pretty much a crap shoot weather wise whenever you decide to go. My wife was the trip planner and chose our trip when the temperatures would be the warmest and when the kids were out of school and not in their various activities. It was pretty good for us, though there were a couple of days when there was just enough rain to be inconvenient, but not so much to stop us from doing anything we really wanted to do or see. All in all, the weather was pretty good though. No complaints from me on that one. Ketchikan gets over 13 feet of rain a year, which averages almost a half inch of rain a day. Mount McKinley is seen by only 30% of those that go to visit it because of the weather that surrounds the peak. That may give you an idea of what to expect.

Great photos, by the way!!