After spending 2 nights at the Grand Tetons, we then traveled north up into Yellowstone National park. This is a relatively vast park with a lot of terrain to cover. Given only a four night budget in the Yellowstone area, we had some specific objectives: Try to photographic the wildlife plus some of the renowned landscapes of this area, while at the same type scoping the area out for more focused trips in the future. Of the wildlife, going in we were also hopeful to capture some images of the wild wolves known to frequent the Lamar Valley on the northern edge of the park. 

After hitting West Thumb on the south west corner of Yellowstone lake to check out the geyser formations there, we moved on up to Madison to grab a campsite. The first afternoon and evening was spent checking out the various geyser basins between Madison and Old Faithful, settling on this later more popular geyser for sunset. To photograph Old Faithful, Steve decided to try a more backlit exposure (at a slight angle with a hood to avoid lens flare), and experimenting with both a polarizer and 6-stop neutral density filter in order to slow down the exposure for more blur on the steam (switching the filter rather quickly between exposures while the geyser was erupting). As it turned out, Old Faithful erupted just as the sun was setting, further adding to the nice quality of the lighting. Of the two methods, Steve preferred the results with the polarizer, and was overall pleased with the backlit approach that gave the geyser a more golden glow.  If the sun was higher, the 6-stop ND filter may have been a better choice.

The next morning we set out from our campsite to the nearby Madison River in search of elk and bison among the water. We could hear the elk bugling in the distance, but on that particular morning they were not visible. However, we did get lucky with bison we found grazing down along the river while there was a nice mist rising through the sunrise on the river. The bison tend to graze continuously and seldom raise their head for more than a few seconds. In order to get nice composition with the bison's head up, Cliff volunteered to approach (but still at a healthy distance) and try to get his attention. This worked, and we all had about 5-10 seconds to snap off a few shots.  We joked that when it came time to a photograph a grizzly, Randy would be volunteered to run across the meadow with a pork chop around his neck :^) 

The rest of the day was spent exploring the more central area, checking out the Norden geyser basin, the Hayden Valley (for wildlife/wolves), and some of the falls including the very photogenic Yellowstone Falls. There was some apprehension about stop at the falls during the mid day sun, but it turned out to be a very good choice. We got lucky with some broken clouds and some nice reflected lighting down in the canyon.  In fact based on the shadows and when the sun strikes the walls of this canyon, it seemed like early afternoon is the best time for photography of these falls.

That afternoon we headed toward the Mammoth Hot Springs to photograph the terraced geysers and to stay at the town Gardiner to get a much needed shower, clean-up of the camera gear, and chimping of the shots on the trip so far. It turns out the fall season is not as good a time to hit the Mammoth Hot Springs due to less water running down the terraces. So given this and some overcast skies, it ended up being somewhat of a bust from a photography perspective.  However, on the road between Mammoth and the north park entrance, we encountered several big horn sheep along the adjacent river and in the rocky cliffs above the road.  The sheep were fairly acclimated to humans and thus we are able to get several nice close-up shots with the 500mm. In some cases Steve had to switch to his 100-400mm lens on the full frame 5D mark II body in order to get a better composition that was more inclusive of the surrounding landscape. Given it was close to dusk at this point in our photography, we really had to push the ISO setting on the camera and careful with the shutter speed to maintain reasonable sharpness.

The next morning the team set out early about an hour before sunrise searching for more wildlife opportunities, with the idea to hit the Swan Valley for elk (based on an earlier report by a ranger), and the next over to the Lamar Valley toward the east for wolves. The elk again were mostly elusive that morning (ignoring the almost domesticated ones at the Mammoth Springs visitor center), but Steve was able to find a harem on a short bushwack from the road coming back from Swan Valley after hearing the distinctive bugling call by the male (Late September and October are the mating season for elk).  Later that morning in the Lamar Valley, we did manage to spot a pair of wolves up near Slough Creek, but they were about 1 mile off. So even with a 500mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter on a 50D cropped body, the resolution was not that good, further aggevated by atmospheric haze of the late morning light. We concluded that in order to be more serious about photographing the wolves here, we will need to budget more time, staking out particular locations under the right light, and potentially for many days. We also determined after talking further with the rangers and reading more about them that winter would be a better time from a photography standpoint, as they tend to concentrate down in the valleys more in pursuit of the elk and bison that congregate down there for grass that is less covered by the snow.  The downside of a winter trip is the extreme cold that you may encounter in Yellowstone.

Continued:  See the link at the bottom for page 3 on the story for the rest of the Yellowstone trip.