Hello all,
last weekend I visited Dovrefjell, a mountain region in Norway. The special about this place is that it is a herd of Musk Ox there. I loaded my car with my videogear and headed for a 6-hour drive to reach the area.

Its a high temperature this time of year in the mountains, so the Musk Ox is situated high up in the mountain. In the video you can see shoots taken as high as 1800 meter above sea level (approx. 5500 feet). A hard working trip on my feet with all the videogear, but worth every minute as you can view from the video!

Click on the link below to view the video:
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/muskox.html

If you want to read more about the Musk Ox, click on this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_Ox

Enjoy!

Per Johan,

Nice footage. You say this is a trailer. Is there the goal to make a 1/2 hour TV show?

It looks surprisingly warm for Norway, you can see the heat radiating in most shots (not what I would expect in Norway), and the animals seem to be panting heavily. Is this normal temp for this area at this elevation.

Good work, thanks for posting.

Ken.

Ken, thanks for your replay.
The temperature is higher than normal and it has been so for a long time now. Normally the area is covered with snowspots and temperature at this altitude between 10-15 degrees celsius. The area is also very dry, cause of lack of rain for several weeks. You can cross moores without beeing wet on your feet.
During this shoot we was aware of this conditions, decided to be very careful with our behaviour against the animal. We kept a large security zone and we walked very slowly forward, trying not to interfere more than necessary to these wonderful creatures.

Per, the information on Musk Oxen on Wikipedia, says they are native to Alaska, Canada and Greenland. But it says they were re-introduced to Alaska, Sweden, Norway and Russia. If they were "re-introduced", this implies that they were native to these countries in the past. Is this true, or were they found naturally only in the Western Hemisphere?

I enjoyed all the photos on your website. Do you ever take pictures of waterfowl? In one picture, the Musk Oxen are shown feeding on hogsnyta. I can't find this name in any norsk ordboker. What sort of plant is it?

Good Morning Per:

Very nice footage, I particularely like the backdrop. We have lots of Musk Ox here in my neighbourhood or as we call them "Umingmak" but my footage always looks bland due to the flat featurless backdrop.

Like you we're having very strange weather, much warmer, more rain and even lightning (we never get) IMHO all a result of global warming the effects of which will be devistating on the world you and I live in.

Brian

Steve,

Its proven that MuskOx was in this area 40 000 years ago! Large herds was all over Northern Europe, Russia and Alaska. From that time and forth to our time they were almost exterminated.
In 1869 a few was found at Greenland and a few others were found in Alaska.
In 1930 some was imported from Greenland to Dovre, Norway. But during World War II they was hunted on for food and didn't survive the war.
In 1947 and 1953, 23 MuskOx was re-imported from Greenland to Dovre, this is the ancestor for the herd at Dovre, which counts almost 300 deers today and still expanding.


I'm not sure what you mean with the word: "hogsnyta", at my knowledge, the MuskOx in the video are feeding on a willow thicket, in Norwegian: "Vierkjerr". I may be wrong, cause I'm not a biologist.

- Excuse me if my english is bad, I do my best explaining this in english for you!

Per Johan,

As expected, the footage is very nice. were you using your 300mm lens again, or something with more reach?? I like the clearity and sharpness of your footage.
Do you use a fu 1000 on your camera to help with the focus.

Dale,
this time I was using my smaller Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lense + a 1.4 extender, wich gives me 280 mm or 1960 mm speaking XL2.

Due to extreme heat in the area, which you can see in the footage, and long focal distance, the Fu-1000 viewfinder helped me a lot getting a proper focus. I highly recommend this to everyone!
I know the problems some have experienced with blown fuse on the XL2 with the Fu-1000 attached, but I have used mine for more than 4 months without any problem so far.

I'm going back this weekend to the Muskox area, hoping to get more nice footage of a wonderful animal who seem to get comfortable in this area.

Edit: The setting on the camcorder was Tony's "globetrotter" - xl2 setting, which give a fresh and rich picture with lots of color, thanks Tony

Per, I may have missed it, but what presets did you use? I just bought the XL-2 this week and I am trying to get a list of presets. Thanks, I love your nature clips. Bob Safay

A few years ago Chris Hurd & Ken Tanaka's review of the FU-1000 included the following ...

<<<As a tool for accurate focus judgment and frame composition, however, the FU-1000 is the ultimate tool available today for the XL1 and XL1S. Its capabilities far exceed those of the FU-500 LCD viewfinder and even those of the best external LCD monitor. The only comparable alternative, although not practical for handheld or mobile shooting, would be a professional CRT monitor with at least 500 lines of horizontal resolution. >>>

... they seem to imply that handheld XL2 + FU-1000 is a practical option. Have you used this combination without a tripod? Any relevant footage?
Thank you for the rare visit to the musk ox.

Musk Ox gets 3 minutes prime time on NRK TV and not for free either.
Good for Norwegian viewers and good for you Per.

Hours of blood, sweat and tears led to success at last :-)

The reason that my footage was used on the evening news, was that several muskox have died during the last weeks. Its a infectious pulmonary disease among those creatures. Veterinary personell thinks that the warm summer with high temperature has caused this. As you may see in the footage (on top of this thread), lots of heat shows up in the footage and the muskox breathe heavily.
Let us hope this will not lead to any seriously reduction of the stock!

I always love watching your work, it always looks so natural. Keep up the good work. Im also amazed how your focus pulling is dead on.

Per Johan,
Great shots you got.
Hope you will get more nice shots of them this weekend.

Per Johan has returned safely with 3 hours footage shot right in among a herd of musk ox ... sounds of the males fighting and sniffing the females could be added to the images this time; I wonder what that will do to the Mbs?

The main thing is he's been lying down among musk ox for hours shooting pretty rare images; which goes to prove that rumours that Per Johan bears the slightest resemblance to a musk ox, male or female, are unfounded ...
roll on the footage ... next time perhaps he will take some delayed/remote control shots of himself among the herd as well, please ... just for the archives?

The main thing is he's been lying down among musk ox for hours shooting pretty rare images; which goes to prove that rumours that Per Johan bears the slightest resemblance to a musk ox, male or female, are unfounded ...
roll on the footage ... next time perhaps he will take some delayed/remote control shots of himself among the herd as well, please ... just for the archives?
Well, with the thread: The Ethics of Wildlife Shooting - in my mind, I was thinking about Timothy Treadwell laying among the grizzly bears. Luckily I have a huge telephotolense being able to come near the animal without risking my own life. My ethic philosophy is that when I am out in the wild to take picture it is on the animals terms. I will never look at them as something other than animals. I will let them rule and I'm very careful not to disturb them in any way. I'm walking by my feet for hours with my gear on my back (25 kg). In our National parks it is not allowed with any terrain vehicle. I think this is the way any wildlifephotographer should behave.

I think this is the way any wildlifephotographer should behave.

True, this is the way to do it. Be there without interfering with the animals life. They might notice you, but they won't change their behavior because of you are there.