Jackson Hole Winter Wildlife Video Compilation

Lately I’ve been a little lacking in things to post due to some camera issues. After getting back from Yellowstone National Park last month, I sent in my 5D to finally address some hot pixels that had popped up on the sensor a long time ago, as well as getting an overdue cleaning on it. During that time, I began going back and forth again with Canon about the softness of images I was getting from my 7D. I had sent it in back in January and they pretty much chalked it up to user error, which in doing my research, is actually pretty common. I then ran through several tests, made some tweaks and really began to understand how those errors could have happened and why they were so quick to assume that’s what it was. The only problem was I still getting soft images. So late last week, I sent back in my 7D again, this time with the primary lens I kept on it, my Canon 70-300mm in the hopes that they’ll be able to duplicate the problems I’m having this time. Interestingly enough though, the videos seemed to come out looking ok for the most part (and yes, I did tests with mirror lockup). Realizing I was getting soft images on about 95% of the shots I was taking, I began focusing primarily on video since that seemed to come out well, perhaps because it’s shrunk to a smaller size making the softness unnoticeable. Thus, both my 7D and 5D are currently in repair leaving me to finally go back through a lot of the video I had shot. My only regret is not shooting more video in place of soft images, but live and learn. I’m still happy with much of it and I’m looking forward to getting all my gear back in good working order.

As a result, I’ve put together this video compilation of winter wildlife that I had been getting in and around Jackson Hole, Wyoming. My last day before shipping off my 7D, I even found the elusive Antelope wolf pack that had been sporadically spotted around Kelly, Wyoming. Other locations include miscellaneous areas of Grand Teton National Park, the National Elk Refuge, northern Jackson, Wyoming and the Snake River Canyon, a popular spot for spotting mountain goats. One thing I like about some of the clips I used is that there are some stills that I’ve posted on the blog recently that come to life in the video. There’s a pretty large diversity of animals that I was able to capture including wolves and mountain goats, as mentioned, in addition to elk, moose, foxes, bighorn sheep and more. I also didn’t use nearly as many clips as I thought I would so I’ll probably make another compilation in the near future.