Get a jump start on your Summit experience by going to Cataloochee bright and early on Tuesday morning to photograph the elk, fall colors, and historic structures with Brett Wells. Brett will have some long Sigma glass for you to try out if you shoot Canon, Nikon, or Sony(with a converter)! Leave around 5:30am and be back around 2pm:).
Cataloochee is a part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (similar to Cades Cove with MUCH less traffic and on a smaller scale) that is about an hour and a half drive from Townsend. Early in the morning, you can usually find herds of Elk in one of the fields, not to mention the gorgeous setting with beautiful color (hopefully), and old homesteads, barns, church, and schoolhouse. Oh, and there is water of course! The main focus of the outing will be to photograph the elk, but while you are there, you should take advantage of all the opportunities. Brett will teach you a little about the habits of the elk and help you with the best methods to photograph them. For these images, you will definitely want a tripod, a gimbal head if you have one (but don't worry if you don't), and a long lens. Brett will have Sigma lenses to loan out for this excursion (usually 100-400mm, 150-600mm, maybe the 60-600mm, and a 500mm), so if you don't have long glass, don't worry, we will have you covered if you shoot Canon, Nikon, or Sony with an MC-11 adapter. We will also work on getting some loaner 100-400mm Fuji lenses for any Fuji shooters we have attending.
So, if you love wildlife photography, this will be a great experience for you! If you aren't comfortable or have never really shot with a long lens or used a gimbal head, this is a great time to try it out as Brett can instruct you on how these work as well as how to get the most out of the equipment to get your best shot.
In order to get there at the optimal time, this group will leave around 5:30AM from Tremont Lodge. We will have a brief group meeting on Monday night to go over details with everyone. You can return from Cataloochee at your own pace, but usually people make it back around 1pm or 2pm. Just in time to take a nap!