I'm going to visit my son in Calgary Oct 26. We have a few days spare and am thinking of heading down to Yellowstone (he has shot just about everything within 14 hour drive in the Canadian Rockies). It's a 10 hr drive from Calgary. So we'd drive down on Thursday, have Friday to shoot, and drive home on Saturday (have a commitment on Sunday). Where should we try to get to knowing we only have one full day to shoot pictures (digital and film)?
Gosh, my wife and I were there a few months ago. There is so much to see all over the park. It is massive. You could go to any section of the park and be amazed. Some of the most spectacular things we saw were just completely random spots in the park. You could always hit up the usual tourist spots, however, Old Faithful takes about 1 - 1 1/2 hours between eruptions. If you have a very limited amount of time in the park it could eat up a lot of your valuable time.
Go do Beartooth if it is still open and also Chief Joseph. Plenty of places to take photos and no crowds.
Just remember you are in a volcano. Don't go off trail or off the walk way - you can die a few feet off the trail. Also note that you are at 8,000 feet of elevation - I thought I was having a heart attack last time because I was having trouble going up the stairs and then someone told me we were at 8,000 feet - the average for the park. I am in fair shape (I hike the Washington Cascades) so it was surprising to me how hard the stairs were. Altitude impacts different people in different ways. I would stay in West Yellowstone but coming from your location maybe Gardiner. It's too big of a place to see in one day. I would concentrate on the north half of the park. See the north hot pools and geysers, plus Yellowstone canyon. Have a very specific plan and go.
You could go to yellowstone several times during different seasons and still not capture the full magnificence of the park! I have been to pretty much all the national parks in the US and yellowstone is the nicest. For yellowstone itself in so little time, your best bet are the geyser basins - http://www.yellowstonepark.com/yellowstone-geyser-basins-map/
I've been already folks....arrived Thursday at noon and had taken 400 pictures by dusk. Friday it rained all day so we managed only about 350 pictures for the day. It was fabulous!!!!! But some of the park was already closed. I hear the park was closed last weekend. What you see presented above is just a small portion of the pictures we took.
Don't miss the grand prismatic spring. If you have the time it's worth experiencing it both from ground level and from the top of the nearby hill. It's quite spectacular.