The ULTIMATE Photography Guide for Yellowstone National Park 

Thanks for the shout out Dave! It was a joy spending the morning with you and your wife in Yellowstone! Great video! I was even inspired to try *new* areas at different times of day, thanks to you! ~ Lisa with Touring Wonderland Photography Tours

Thank you for the comprehensive list with good advice about wildlife manners

Telephoto lens is my go to with wildlife photography. Sometimes it's like having a telescope. This video is very detailed with photos showing expectations. Great Work!

Very accurate information Dave. I lived in MHS for 6 mo. I've been to all of the places you mention. Nice shots!

Thanks Dave, I was fortunate to go to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton and it was as magical as you said. Next time I’ll take your Advice and hire a guide. Loved your images!. I can’t wait to go back. Thanks again for the informative video.

Thanks for the great video ! I feel I "know" yellowstone thanks to you, I loved the vintage map, great pictures as always and great photo tips, cheers from Montreal !

Great episode Dave. Stunning pics and great guiding info.

Thanks for a great video and such a comprehensive list of photos locations.

My favorite park hands down!

BTW as far as night driving, the other thing to remember is that bison eyes don't reflect headlights so you won't even get the warning with them that you do with deer. Just a hint of movement ahead and then BAM!

I enjoyed this video very much! You are absolutely right about the 50mm being the new 28mm in these expansive landscape areas. I found that I was always at 35mm on my 16-35 when I was in Utah. So now I will definitely try the 50mm this time out west. We are headed to the Tetons the beginning of September, thank you for the tips!

Awesome video! Thanks for putting this together!

Lisa is the best!

dude, this video is incredible. would love to shoot a video and film with you this summer!

So true about ditching the wides! I used my 100-400 sigma. I also borrowed a 300mm for my Pentax 67 (150 equivalent). That was so much fun with the wildlife. I’m not a bokeh guy, but I would’ve loved more reach for film and digital! I was there in off and on white out conditions. Love the winters up there, and GT! Great video👍

Great video and pics as always.

Great video - Yes - Ektachrome can be a challenge but if you shoot at box speed and use a light meter, you can get some great shots and the color rendition is close to perfection. That said - I've blown up a roll or 2 of Ektachrome when I wasnt careful enough to make sure I nailed the exposure. Most of the time the scans I get back are just beautiful, especially when taken with my 1952 Voightlander Bessa II 6x9 medium format camera.

Awesome pics n video 🎉

Quad shot FTW!

Make one for the Tetons next! Visit in September 😂. awesome video

Nice hat!

Dude the advice about not taking a wide angle lens is gold. I was planning on taking my 16-35 or my 24 and 35mm. How did you feel with the 400? Do you think you would have preferred the 600 instead? Or the versatility of the 200-600? :D Thanks for the insight brother!

totally jealousing you for that Sony lens

I have thoughts.... First and foremost, that is NOT the "Old Faithful Lodge" that you're advising people to photograph for its architectural beauty. It wouldn't matter so much if it weren't for the fact that there IS an Old Faithful Lodge, nearby, housing the cafeteria and the front desk for the cabins. No, that's the Old Faithful INN, constructed over the winter of 1904-1905, and the largest free-standing log structure in the world. As I am a major league thermal-head, and no kind of wildlife photographer, the Inn is my go-to lodging. In the Old Section, mind, bathroom down the hall. And for other architecture, the oldest surviving structure in the park is the old bathhouse in Sentinel Meadows, reached by trail from the parking lot at Ojo Caliente at the end of Fountain Flat Drive. You have to traverse the Queens Laundry area to get to it, which is pretty swampy unless you go in the Fall during a dry year. The bathhouse was never completed, and survives only because mineral infusions from the nearby hot spring have petrified the logs. There USED to be a trail starting from Ojo Caliente that went along the Firehole River through the River Group, where I've taken some of my best photos of thermal features (protocolpix.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Yellowstone), but ever since some unfortunate concession employees accidentally jumped into a boiling hot spring in the dark, that area, together with many, many others which used to be open, has been closed by the NPS. It's a very unfortunate trend. No more Cascade Group, Rabbit Creek...so many others now closed. As for Ektachrome, I shot that in the park for one (1) year only, and very quickly switched to Fuji Velvia. Ektachrome tends blue, and at 7300 feet the Rayleigh scattering is a fraction of what it is at sea level. The Yellowstone light is blue, blue, blue, and if you shoot Ektachrome you might as well shoot monochrome and apply a blue tint to everything. Even the "Golden Hour" is clear white, not golden at all.

Hayden Valley is "flat and hilly." So it's sort of in a quantum state, waiting for you to observe it before it becomes either flat or hilly?

Talk about photographer/wildlife interactions: We were driving thru the Lamar Valley one spring when it was full of bison, and spotted a great landscape complete with a large grouping of bison with babies. Pulled off in the next pullout along with the truck behind us. I grabbed my camera, and got out of the car, and the guy in the truck behind us apparently had the same idea, and got out with his camera but opened the canopy on his truckbed to retrieve his tripod and headed out behind me. I stopped at a safe distance. Apparently he had not properly secured the hatch to his truckbed and his little Jack Russell Terrier decided to jump out of the back of the truck and run out to the bison, while barking his dumb head off. The guy dropped his camera and his tripod in the gravel and ran out way close to the group and called his dog who was among them barking and jumping at them. The thought crossed my mind that I might witness the death of a dog, or maybe the death of a dog and a human... the dog fairly quickly made the correct decision between harassing the mother bison who had babies with them and returned to his master's side. I had taken a few shots during this melee, and picked up the stranger's camera and cleaned it off, and it had surprisingly little damage, really just a deep gouge in the grip rubber and scratches on the corner of the base under the grip. I picked up the tripod, and put the cleaned up camera on the hood of the truck, and leaned the tripod against bumper, as he and the dog returned to the pull out. We had an exchange of comments that I don't really remember because of the drama that all 4 of us and the wildlife had just been thru. I told him that his camera looked pretty ok, and told him that I had pictures of their little encounter with the bison family, and asked him if he wanted me to email them to him. He did, and so he gave me his email address. I looked at them once after my spouse and I returned home, sent them off to the guy, and once he sent a thank you for the pictures and for picking his camera and tripod up out of the dirty gravel, he confirmed that his camera had not been damaged, and asked me about other photos that we got during our trip to Yellowstone. We exchanged photos from our trip and have been friends ever since. This was in 2005 and a couple years later, we all met in Yellowstone for a week long joint photo adventure. And we have been on various national park photo trips. Our friend leaves his dog at home. Dave, from one coffee nut to another, If you find yourself in the early morning in W.Yellowstone, Morning Glory Coffee is excellent. Its on W. Dunraven, not too far from the West Entrance. I have to say, I hired a beach guide on 2 different Hawaiian Islands and got some really great sunrise and late afternoon and sunset shots of the "best beaches" of Hawaii. I totally agree about how productive doing that in a place or places that you are not familiar with can be.

thank you! I am trying to get in touch with the guide, she is not available at the moment. Would you suggest the east entrance ? staying in the park (awful) but easier access.... going end of sept. beginning of oct.

1966 "Antique"... (stares in Gen-X) 🤨😄

😊

Top speed limit in the park is 45mph. In many places, it drops to 35mph. Nobody should be driving anywhere near 70mph in the park.

Not having time markers is just wrong for a video like this