Fall Photography in the National Parks - Day 5

September 16th, 2025

I drove out of the campground a little bit later than usual, as I had to keep up with some development work.

On the road, there was a massive herd of bison, and with the sun just coming up, I surely had to stop and shoot.

Bisons and horses in the early morning in Grand Teton National Park

I spent quite some time there, trying to find some good shots and testing the limits of the dynamic range of the Nikon Z9 and Z8.
Not exactly easy to shoot very dark animals, backlit, at first morning sunlight.
I only use a monitor when I do commercial work, and I rig my camera. But for this kind of situation, it would have been good since the contrast was so extreme.

A couple of days ago, Nikon announced the ZR, the first Nikon-Red combo camera, and everybody is raving about it. With a massive 4” screen at 1000nits, it would solve this problem quickly. I think it might be my next camera, dedicated to shooting video.
The problem with that is being unable to do both photography and video simultaneously, which would require a slight shift in workflow.
Switching lenses, especially long ones, is always a bit of a pain and using my 400mm 2.8 VR TC S lens for most of my work means I would have to choose which body to keep it on.
Plus, the video on the Z9 and Z8 is so good anyway that it might not be necessary.
We will see.

Once I had enough (footage) of the Bisons, I kept driving and went to explore some gravel roads around the park.
I stopped driving a few times to take shots of the random encounters you get in the park.
A coyote, in particular, took a poop right in front of me. Of course, I took pictures of it.
A few river otters were also playing in the river and on the shore, and it was a nice, fun shot they put up.

I like to explore every road I find. I have done that for many years, since I was a much younger man with a 1986 Suzuki Samurai.
On one of these roads, I found a pullout. There was no trail flagged and nothing really noticeable, but on my Gaia GPS map, I saw there were a couple of ponds and some marsh habitat; intuitively, I thought something would be there, so I started going through the forest until I actually crossed another trail.
In Grizzly territory, one is always a bit afraid when alone in the woods. I kept looking around me at all times, yes, to find wildlife, but also to make sure that if there were a bear, I would see it.
I also made the beginner mistake of bringing my heavy tripod with the video head and the 400mm 2.8 lens on it, which was heavy to carry around.

Sure enough, at the second pond, I found a massive bull elk with huge antlers. He was a beauty there in the pond, but he also was not very happy I was there.
I managed to get a bit of footage and a couple of shots, but shortly he left for the woods.
I tried to follow him, but he went too fast, and it was getting late anyway, so I decided to be wise, for once, and go back to the rig.

I finally went up a long road that ended at a very high lookout point.
Stunning view of the park and incredible sunset. But of course, I have to look for more, and I noticed a bunch of animal-made trails on the hill near the viewpoint.
So I took the camera and the tripod, this time the light one, and there I went.
I walked a bit with that incredible scenery in front of me, and I started seeing tracks and poops of something that seemed like a mule deer.
And in fact, after a few more meters, behind a hill, there he is, looking right at me.
The light was almost gone at this point, but I managed to shoot some video at high ISO, which I will use to test Davinci Resolve’s de-noise.
As I was shooting, I found there was another deer a little bit further, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more down the hill.

Running out of light and having to go back to camp in the dark, I decided to head back and sleep at the same place I slept the night before.