American Museum of Natural History: Animals & Bones

As I posted on our family blog, we recently spent an afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. When not having fun with the kids, I was spending time trying to get the highest quality photos possible in a crowded museum through thick glass, without my external flash (batteries died about 10 minutes in and I had no spares - lesson learned!). Not all of them were winners, but on the whole I'm really happy with these. To prevent the post from getting too long I'm only showing my absolute faves here.

First was the North American wing

I'm really proud of this photo - it was actually taken in near darkness, just before my external flash completely died, so I was able to capture the wolf. A few tweaks in editing and voila!

Then the African wing

And the part my son was most excited about - the dinosaurs! The T-Rex in particular is his favorite.

This guy is a giant sloth. The bones actually tower about 7 feet up in the air, but I only snapped the top because of the glass wall rising most of that height (made for a difficult picture!).

We spent quite a while in the Ocean Life hall. I desperately wanted to get a good shot of the giant blue whale, but if you've been there you know this hall is in near darkness, and there's no good angle to get the entire thing. After walking around the entire room, I was in despair of getting the shot I wanted, particularly without my external flash. I did finally find this angle; the graininess is because I had to up the ISO to about 3200 to capture enough light, but despite that I am happy with the capture!