Apr 8, 2014 | Field Reports
Photoshop World is off and sailing and the clock is spinning out of control which normal. My Sunday post about weather brought in all sorts of questions, the biggest one was, Well? We woke up yesterday to a Noah type event, not good for planes or photographers. But by 1500 when we were at the Dixie Wing of the CAF, we were out and shooting. The folks at the Dixie Wing were Killer! The folks with me from the Precon were great! So we had a marvelous time. Thanks to all!!!
photo by Jake Peterson
We the morning in class talking about two essential elements in a photograph IMHO, light and storytelling. We then went into the field (air field that is) to work on those concepts. One of the things we did was go over the simple technique I do for taking a pilot portrait. Here I am going over that technique. For those who were there asking about the gear, here’s all I had with me:
Westcott Rapid Box Octa
SB-910
PocketWizard FlexTT5
Manfrotto 5001B Nano Stands
Shooting with the:
Nikon Df
Nikon 18-35AFS
And this is the final photo of Robert, our cooperative “pilot”
THANKS to everyone for a great day!!!!
Apr 7, 2014 | Field Reports
So I’m holding my book on Night Photography (You should have been sent a copy a long time ago – please advise if you didn’t get it) and the other book is Brian Smith’s book on the Sony A7/A7r.
The Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots is THE book to get you successfully shooting once the sun goes down. It is aimed at newbies to the night but definitely has advanced techniques as well as tons of inspiring images. It is co-written by Tim Cooper and covers:
Focusing in the dark
Composition – knowing the rules and when to break them.
How to successfully figure out exposures for seconds, minutes, and even hours!
Color – dialing in the right white balance for tricky night scenes – adding flash, slow sync, and using gels.
Light painting – adding new light and color to the scene.
Lightroom and Photoshop techniques for the night owl – star stacking, HDR, and blending.
Gear – breaking down the essential tools you need to better capture the nightscapes.
Brian Smith’s book is The Sony A7/A7r: From Snapshots to Great Shots
This book goes beyond the manual and inspires you to get the most out of your A7/R camera. Brian Smith is a celebrity portrait photographer who is known for his bold, iconic portraits of celebrities and athletes. In Brian’s book – he gives you practical advice on which settings to use in specific situations as well as real-world insights into how to tap into the full potential of this camera.
Apr 2, 2014 | Field Reports
Got a gear question you want answered? I want to help and answer it. Send your gear questions to me at Gear Questions and I’ll do my best every Wednesday to answer as many questions as I can. Lots of great questions this week, thanks for sending them all! Keep in mind the answers are just my $.02 worth and you have to take what works for you and your photography and embrace it and ignore the rest. So here’s this weeks questions ….
Mr. Moose
What modes of transportation do you use during your wildlife photography. We know after watching the Puffin Pad video you use your truck, but do you use motorcycles, four-wheeled ATV, SIde by side vehicles, Jeeps, horseback, and even the oldest for or transportation, your feet?
Thanks
Vanilla
Vanilla, great question, boring answer! Getting to the project site, I’ve used commercial aircraft, private aircraft, Bush plane and float plane, helicopter and ATV, boat, canoe and kayak, snowmobile and snowshoes, Lama and mule, but in the end, it’s my feet that gets me to the subject. And when it comes to getting my gear on location, it’s either my MP-1, ThinkTank Airport Security and once on site, it’s the lens over my shoulder or in my pockets, the case is left behind. Thanks for asking!
Hi Moose,
I am a social and commercial photographer specialising in weddings, portraits and corporate photography. I use Nikon D800 and D700 bodies with two sets of Nikkors, one set of fixed focal lengths (24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 180mm) and the other set being high quality zooms, 20-35mm, 35-70mm and 70-200mm.
I also use an AF Nikkor 24-120mm f/3.5-4.5D which is not of the same optical quality as the other zooms but is a very convenient lens to use most of the time. It sits on my D700 and is used for informals at weddings and anything else that doesn’t demand top optical quality.
I wondered if it was worth upgrading this lens to one of the later versions which have VR. I don’t need the VR as I was trained to make sharp images without it. I would like the convenience of the same focal length range as my existing 24-120mm, but with significantly better optical quality. Would this be a worthwhile upgrade?
Thanks,
Colin
-Colin, that’s a heck of a list! Can’t help but notice that much of it is older vintage, I’ve not seen a 20-35 in a coon’s age. I shot for over a year with the 24-120VR and wherever I placed that AF sensor, the lens delivered one tack sharp image. I thoroughly enjoyed shooting with that lens and have no hesitancy recommending it. I would recommend to you though to rent from Borrowlenses.com (tell them Moose sent you) and make the call yourself. Only you can make the call if any particular lens delivers exactly what you and your photography demand.
Hi, Moose!
I shoot for fun, mostly larger wildlife (waterfowl, owls, eagles) and have started getting interested in songbirds. I quickly realized I need a better tripod head/system. My biggest lens is Canon 70-200 2.8 IS with 2x extender, so I don’t need a really big/heavy duty tripod – but definitely need something that is easier/quicker/more accurate to use when photographing flying songbirds. Any suggestions?
Thanks for any help,
Patti from Minnesota
-Patti, I shoot for fun too, it’s the only way to shoot! Sounds like you’re having fun with those subjects and you question has an easy answer. There is only one option IMHO, the Really Right Stuff TVC33 Tripod with their BH-55. There is simply no better in my book.
Moose
Thanks for this great series and I’ve learned a lot so far. Your answers to my previous questions about the 80-400 were spot on–it’s my new favorite lens for just about anything in the wild. My next question has to do with teleconverters. Most lenses are slightly sharper a stop or two from max aperture, ie around f5-8 depending on the lens. When you add a teleconverter, does this hold true? For instance, would my 80-400 + 1.4x f8 (effective) be sharpest at f11? I know this difference probably doesn’t matter in real life, but it’s been puzzling me.
Thanks!
Scott.
-Scott, you have a technically valid and interesting question, but my honest answer to your question IMHO is, who gives a hoot? There might be some truth to this, but I have never had a photo editor say, “I would publish your photo but it would have been sharper if you shot at f/xxx.” Ya, maybe, perhaps, in the perfect conditions, killer technique, you might find this very common belief to be worth considering, but I can honestly say that not once in my 40yrs have I ever given this very popular belief a second thought. So, since I think it’s just another of photography’s great “what you should worry about but it doesn’t really matter” myths, I have never pursued the technical answer to see if it is relevant. I paid for a whole bunch for a bunch of fast glass, throwing that money away to shoot closed down makes just no sense to me. Now none of this rant probably is doing you any good, but in my own photography, I just shoot and by the grace of God, it seems to all work out in the end.
Moose
HELP!!! I just received the new Nikon D4s (I loved your review!!). I always shoot in RAW … but my Photoshop CS 5 Bridge doesn’t recognize the files. I looked on-line at all the forums with very mixed results, so I’m afraid to try anything on my MacBook Pro (recently upgraded to Maverick). Any suggestions?
Nancy
-Nancy, thanks for the easy question. Just head to AdobeLabs and install the latest ACR (CC or PreCC) which has the codex for the D4s. It works great!
Hi Moose,
I love following your wildlife photography. I’m setting up “a studio” in my backyard. My questions: I have the new Nikon 80-400 lens and want to know would you couple it with the D7100 or the D610 (and have to crop more to fill the frame) and why? Also I have been looking at telephotos primes and decided if I would ever go that route the 500 f4 made the most sense for me size and cost wise. Would I notice much difference in images over my zoom lens?
Thanks,
Judene
-Judene, thanks for the kind words and so happy to hear you’re setting up your own shooting gallery! You can’t go wrong with either body, the D7100 or the D610 but personally, I’m a FX kind guy. Your question has great relevance but you’ll have to decide what works best for the shooting gallery you’re creating. All you have to do is decrease the distance of the subject and now you have the same image size with the FX that you had at the further distance with the DX.
When it comes to the lens, the 500f4VR is a gorgeous lens and makes perfect sense to me. Yes, you will see a slight difference in AF performance and sharpness IMHO but even more so with the isolating power of f4. It’s a gorgeous lens!
Mar 27, 2014 | Field Reports
This was my first adventure into Slot Canyon but I wasn’t totally unaware of the conditions I’d be shooting in. The first thing is, you have to have a guide as it is Navajo Tribal lands. I went with one I had only heard good things about, Adventurous Antelope Canyon Photo Tours. Our guide was Stetson and he did a great job for us (pointing out all the great photo vantage points)! You start by going to their facility where you load up in their vehicles and then head down the hwy and to Antelop Cyn. You then have the 3.5mile drive up the very sandy wash to Slot Cyn. Above you see the entrance to the canyon. It’s not very big. Now there are two basic tours, the one hour tour and the two hour photo tour. The difference? Besides the time, the two hour tour, they push folks (very, very politely but their words) out so you can get the shot. I went with the one hour tour but here’s the trick I was told, be the last group before the afternoon break. It worked out very well because we could shoot looking back into the cyn and most of the time, have no one in the photo.
Because there are people EVERYWHERE in the cyn! I thought of them as pulses, because we went into the cyn just a few minutes behind the group in front of us. And kinda like a pulse, we all would move from room to room up the canyon until you reach the very end. At that point, you were set loose to walk back through the canyon (in the opposite direction) with the only limit is being back at the vehicle at the prescribed time. So I went back through the cyn again, working the pulses of folks. There were time when we could easily shoot with no one in the photo. Often, I would have to look for images shooting over folks heads to make a shot. Either case, it was pretty darn simple and a lot of gorgeous fun.
When it comes to shooting strategies, I went with my favorite fall back, KISS! I went in with just the D4s / 18-35AFS, no other lenses, filters, bags or tripod, I kept it real simple and shot handheld the whole time. I, very untypical me, shot with a high ISO, ISO1600 f/8 the whole time zooming with both my feet and my lens to make the shot. In working the canyon in this way, I didn’t have to worry about folks kicking my tripod (which I saw happen a lot), dust hitting the sensor by changing lenses, I just had fun shooting. And with just short of 1000 images filed, it seemed to have work. But that’s pretty much in a nutshell, simple plan, simple execution and simple, clean results adding up to a great experience!
