based on tips from this thread:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-slr-lens-discussion/127648-shooting-wildlife.html
I was able to get some decent wild life shots.
I had asked my dad to set up a blind out on a food plot he keeps for hunting. There are 3 game trails that cross that plot.
He lives in Southeast Missouri, and his farm backs right up to a wild life refuge, so there are always tons of deer and turkey around. This year, the flooding there actually has water over a lot of the refuge, so many of the deer had moved over to his place. Overall, I saw 9 deer. Half were over 200 yards away, so no great pics. Heard turkeys but never saw any. (Except one in his front yard...) I also got pics of a rabbit and a few bird shots.
I was using my Pentax K-x and had bought a used lens just for this, a Takumar f4 70-200mm macro with auto aperture. Got it cheap for $30. I can't afford an f2.8 200mm, but I wanted at least some auto function. Turns out that the slower aperture helped me keep some shots in focus. At f2.8 the DOF would have been too narrow. Everything was shot at 1/200 of a second to insure I'd stop the motion. Then I let the camera figure out what aperture and ISO (range 200-1600)
Rabbit by my dad's pond.
Same rabbit.
The next 3 are of deer. I saw 4 deer in a 15 minute span one evening. Got decent pics of three of them. These are the best ones, I think. Nothing spectacular, but not bad for a first time out trying to capture wild life.
This was the first deer. A doe. She is very pregnant. You can see the head is almost out of focus. I got one shot, and she bolted when the first shutter click happened.
This is my favorite.
This button buck walked within 20 feet of the blind. My heart was pounding so hard I couldn't roll the focus right. I missed 2 shots before I got this one. The shutter startled him, but he did not go far.
Here the same buck is a little further away, trying to figure out what he is smelling and hearing.
I got pics of another buck about 150 feet away, but these were my favorites. The last deer that came through that day came by in a dead run, circled the clearing and ran out. None of those pics turned out.
I'll tell you, having access to land with lots of wildlife, to a very nice blind, and very warm clothes (blackberry winter hit the week we were in MO.) was a huge help. I will definitely be going back again when we get up that way.
EDIT-Took the bird out.
slinky
Similar Threads 
