Aug 18, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
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Photographing Sea Otters requires understanding Peak of Action and waves. Peak of Action is a real simple principle, waiting for a moving object to come to a momentary stop to take a sharp photo. The example I always like to use is a bouncing basketball. There is a point as it travels up that it stops, before traveling back down and there is a point that it stops before it bounces back up. At that moment of rest, you have peak of action. Same holds true with a Sea Otter as they ride the ocean swells. Same does the boat you’re in to photograph the Sea Otter as we were last week in Homer, AK. On a rainy (see drops in the water) dark day, you need to use peak of action to get that sharp image. This means that when you are at peak of action, when you depress the shutter release, the camera fires. This is one aspect of the Nikon 1 V3 (this shot with 30-110 lens) I want to emphasis. When you depress the shutter release, the V3 fires! There is no shutter lag and in fact, when you depress the shutter release you might have 60 images because the camera shoots 60fps. This is just another very impressive aspect of this cool little camera.
Aug 15, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
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So I was getting pretty serious about the V3 being a tool that solves problems for my photography. To prove it even more so to myself, thought I would take it on a stress test. While in Homer, we were able to venture out for a few hours to a favorite location of mine, Gull Island. On a gorgeous rainy day, we went for a cruise and all I took was the V3, 10-30 and 30-110 loaded with a Lexar 68GB MicroSDM (which I’ve not lost yet, a record for me). The V3 can shoot up to 60fps which is why I have the big card. I have it set to just 10fps though.
First, the V3 did just fine in the rain, not even an issue. Having the small, light camera and lens (smaller than your palm) on the open seas was really a treat as it was very simple to hold and shoot. And as you can see, the image quality is truly sweet. The V3 has a “viewfinder” that permits you to see through the lens so shooting is basically like shooting with a DSLR. All the settings are basically the same as on my other DSLR but the zooming from 30 to 110 takes only a second as the throw is so short. At this point in the Black-legged Kittiwake colony, eggs have hatched and some kids have already flown the coop. I prefer to look for patterns in the nest platforms and the rock and for small snipits of family life. The V3 worked very well in capturing those aspects just like the DSLR would have. No, the V3 is not the perfect wildlife rig! I wanted to see if it could take the stress of the environment and produce the same great quality. I’m very impressed!
Aug 14, 2014 | Landscape Photography
I’ve been up in Alaska for the last week and one of the fun things has been shooting with the new Nikon 1 V3. I’ll be up front with you, I thought the camera would show up, I’d shoot some and then send it back. Such is not the case! I’ve shot and shot and shot with this camera and it is great! What you see here was shot with the 30-110 which I borrowed from Sharon. It was one of many times I borrowed that lens and just look at the results! I mean, look below at the enlarged section. Very stunning results as far as I’m concerned. This basically all metal camera that easily fits in your hand just produces what I feel and gorgeous images and at the same time, delivering fun!
I actually have some much more stunning and surprising images to post but we’re running to catch a plane, off to North Dakota. I wanted though to post this handheld image just to elaborate a little more on this amazing little camera. I’ve had a number of emails since my first V3 post and the answer is, I would pick this over the Coolpix A or P7800 for a pocket camera. Simply amazing!
Jul 31, 2014 | Landscape Photography
With the release of the D810 comes a brand new Picture Control (PC) simply called Flat. Now this is not the magic bullet fixing all your problems. This is not what you should set your camera to all the time. While the D810 is the ~only~ body to have this PC at this time, it is not the reason to buy the D810. This is simply a new tool to put in your arsenal like any tool that can solve specific photographic problems. Since first shooting with the D810 in Flat, I’ve struggled with how to explain this Picture Control to you on the limited space of the 256 sRGB world of the web. Let’s start by stating how Nikon defines this PC. “Flat – Details are preserved over a wide tone range, from highlights to shadows. Choose for photographs that will later be extensively processed or retouched.” And if you look at the comparison chart Nikon published on the web, there they add to this “ideal for video capture.”
So what you see above is a shot done with the D810 / 18-35AFS at 18mm at sunset. Everything in the frame is backlit! The image was finished how I always do, image brought in ACR and tweeked and then in Photoshop applied my Nikon recipe and done. Simple except, note ALL the information in the shadow area in this BACKLIT scene! What is important to understand though is how I got to this finished photo.
Here’s the Flat image out of the camera.
Here’s Landscape (my default Picture Control) image out of the camera.
And this is here because the first reaction to the two photos is, the one is simply underexposed which is why it looks the way it does, it’s not from the Picture Control (which were shot with the camera defaults). But as you can see, the exposure is the same value. The Landscape has the higher shutter speed because I dialed in -1/3 so I would have no blinkies as I had no blinkies in the Flat photo. This is a good time to remind you Nikon’s definition of when to use this Picture Control – “Flat – Details are preserved over a wide tone range, from highlights to shadows. Choose for photographs that will later be extensively processed or retouched.”
I’ve shot a WHOLE bunch of images in Flat testing this new tool and how it might fit into my photography (oh boy, one more thing to remember now). Using it in real world shooting, you can see exactly how I use this in my critter work right here. In that example, the images are right out of the camera, the bears are el natural! Look at all the information in the shadows in the bears, in fact in the Mom shot, too much information! And right here in these landscapes, you see an example of using this as Nikon intended, with post processing. And I’m bringing this to your attention because I think this is a wonderful new tool you might like. For example, you into HDR? Just look at the extended range in just this one click, think about the possibilities? And when it comes to photographing critters in the contrasty light of a forest like the bears? I’m only a week into heavy testing of just this one new tool in the D810 and wanted you to see something I think is really cool!
Jul 30, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
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Around noon, the family woke and made their way down the tree. Mom came down first and when we got eye to eye (she’s perhaps five feet away from me), I recognized her as the cub I’d seen in the same tree in years past. She’s not a cub no mo, she’s now a mom teaching her kids living with man. Now I lucked out when they came down because the thunderstorm had started to form really mellowing out the light. I also shot in the Flat Picture Control which I’m liking more and more in contrasty light (all images taken with D810 / 85f1.8 @1.8). Once mom was down, she “huffed” bringing the kids down. Now kids being kids (spring kids, born during the last winter), didn’t take the direct route but played as they went. Part of that play was to come over and see the funny human with the black box attached to his forehead. The whole thing didn’t last more than eight minutes, but it was fun to see the new family and know we knew that mom back when. Oh, and Newton it turns out does know wildlife :-)
Jul 29, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
“Did they come down,” “Can you see them,” “What are they doing” are just some of the questions I’ve received. Black bears in general have nocturnal habits and that’s true for moms with spring cubs. No doubt they were heading up the hill to their day den when our beagle decided to change their path. So once up the tree being a big, sturdy tree (we call it Tree3), they did what comes naturally during the day. They fell a sleep. Now the world is going by, the bears don’t care about the world and the world doesn’t know the bears are in our yard. Even the beagle when I took her out, could care less now about them. Shooting with the D810 / 80-400 in Flat to open up the shadows, you can’t really see them. Following the red arrows, the upper arrow is the two, spring cubs sleeping on one branch and the mom, the lower arrow kinda drooped over two limbs. And there they are, four hours later.
