North Park Wildlife - Walden Colorado

                                                "X-Shot" Information

                                    Camera - Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

                                    ISO - 400

                                    Shutter - 1/500

                                    F/stop - 8

                                    Lens - 500 mm with a 1.4 Canon Extender

                                    

All photographs for sale, contact e-mail address below

kenpapaleo@highcountrycoloring.com

Looking to photograph moose takes time, good location and a lot of favor.

Walden is know for moose so it was a good spot to head to. I had three

days, so that gave me the time and the event happened on my last morning.

Every morning and evening I would turn my attention to looking in the willows and wetlands for moose and always any other wildlife. The area near the Illinois River in the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge, is a good area to check out. If you head towards the Refuge Headquarters and then turn onto County Rd. 32, take your first right and you will come to a scenic overlook that dead-ends. From here you can look down into the Interpretive Nature Trail, which is next to the river and a good place for moose. I checked this spot often but never saw anything until my last morning. Taking one last peek from this overlook, I saw a moose. Getting back in my Jeep, I made my way to the nature trail. My 500 mm lens with a extender on it, became a 700 mm lens on a mono pod. Knowing where the moose was, I headed in that direction. Not wanting to get the animal upset, I only shot for a short time. He never moved from this location, so my shots are similar but fun. 

  "X-Shot" Information

1. Drive time from Denver is about 3 hours.

2. If you want to be at a shooting location by sunrise, it comes up about 

    5:30 AM. For sunset pictures, it goes down around 8:30 PM.

3. Good moose locations are the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge areas around

    Walden on Hwy 125 from Rand to Walden and on Hwy 14.    

Ken Papaleo

Colorado Nature Photographer

Sunrise & Sunsets in Walden Colorado

                                              "X-Shot" Information

                                              ISO - 400

                                              Camera - Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III

                                              Shutter - 1/160

                                              F/stop - 22

                                              Lens - 70/200 zoom

All photographs are for sale, contact e-mail address below.

kenpapaleo@highcountrycoloring.com 

My goal was to visit the Walden area to photograph moose. By the third morning the moose were located and I made my shots. During the rest of the time, I photographed the beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I decided to use these in this week's blog and run the moose and other wildlife next week. The key to getting good photos was the clouds that were around all day. In the morning they turned beautiful colors but were black and stormy in the evening. I had not seen so many sun rays breaking through the clouds as I did on this trip and that's where my "X-Shot" came from. Shooting a sun ray picture presented a couple of problems. First, you have to get an accurate reading of the rays and this was done by using a large lens to get a reading from the bright sun rays. Then that reading was used with my zoom lens. The second problem was I didn't know how far away the sun rays were from the mountains in the background. Using an f/stop of 22 would give me the best chance of getting everything in focus. The real key to this photo was that I didn't get locked into just looking for and shooting moose. I kept my mind open and shot everything that looked good to me. So if I hadn't found any moose, I wouldn't go home empty handed.

  "X-Shot" Information

1. Drive time from Denver is about 3 hours.

2. If you want to be at a shooting location by sunrise, it comes up about 

    5:30 AM. For sunset pictures, it goes down around 8:30 PM.

3. Good shooting locations cane be found going east out of Walden on

    County Road 12A and all of the roads breaking off of it. Be sure to read all

    signs in this area. Some roads are private but most are county roads with

    private land on both sides. You will see signs saying "Private" but there

    will also be signs telling you that you can travel on these county roads, 

    but you can't leave them. Many great shoots can be taken from the

    roads.

Ken Papaleo

Colorado Nature Photographer