Jan 31, 2017 | WRP Ed Zone
Violet-green Swallow
captured by D4s / 800mm
Some of the best photography only comes with planning! While we might just be a month into winter, spring is just around the corner. If you’re into wildlife photography, that means it’s baby time. Are you ready? Do you have the gear you think you need for nesting birds or baby mammals. Nesting birds need short lenses like the 70-200f2.8 FL or 300 PF and at least one SB-5000 though two would be better. You need to know and do ratios with those two flashes using a WR-R10. How do you do all of that in the dead of winter, figure out the lenses and flash ratios? Get yourself a old fashion baseball and place it in shade, light it with the flashes until you create the ratios you like and no one can tell you’re using flash. The time to learn this is now, not when you have a nest in your lens.
P-47D Thunderbolt
captured by D3x / 70-200f2.8
What if you’re into aviation, you ready for the spring airshow season? Unlike wildlife where you can get a baseball and practice at home, aviation requires you get out (doing those curls with a 10lbs weight with your left arm you can do at home). You might need or want to get that longer lens, but more than gear, technique is really important. Proper handholding and panning is something you need to practice now (if you’re not doing it daily). Then go to Shutter Speed Priority and set the shutter speed to 1/40 and pan with a moving car until you get it sharp. These essentials can’t be bought but earned. You’ve gotta put your time in so when the time comes, you are ready for the challenge. Whatever your endeavor is in photography, planning in large part determines the success you’ll enjoy when the moment comes to go click. Start the creative process now so you can visually tell the story then!
Jan 6, 2017 | WRP Ed Zone
After yesterday’s post on f/stop, I received this question which I think was meant as tongue in cheek. But it’s really is a darn good question and one more photographers should ask of their photography. Most think of shutter speed only in terms of being really fast for sharp photos, hence all the high ISO photos. When it comes to storytelling though, because we are shooting stills, how do we speak about movement in our photographs if we always have a fast shutter speed? Just like there is NO one f/stop there is NO one shutter speed that is the best. Personally, I tend to work with slower speeds rather than faster because I want the movement in the frame. Like the Griz above, I wanted to speak about the rushing water it’s standing in. I know I couldn’t stand in that rush of water so I wanted to show off its skills. The opposite is true as well, if I want to show how fast something is moving, I want the background blurred.
FG-1D Corsair
The slow shutter speed not only blurs the spinning prop of this screaming Corsair, but totally blurs the background as well. That comes from panning with the subject freezing it and blurring the background. And unlike DoF for some odd reason, most associate shutter speed with sharpness rather than aperture (when DoF is all about sharpness). Often a slower shutter speed is associated with the use of a tripod because most have little faith in their handholding ability. So just like DoF, finding the right shutter speed for YOUR photography again requires you to go out and shoot to find YOUR answer. I’m here to tell you though, shutter speed is just as important as aperture when it comes to storytelling!
Jan 4, 2017 | WRP Ed Zone
We’ve been very fortunate to receive a couple of feet of snow over the last 24hrs, perfect timing to try out MagMod’s MagBeam Wildlife Kit. After I reposted an old video on the BetterBeamer, a fan emailed telling me that it was so “yesterday” and I need to try out the MagBeam so I called up B&H and had one shipped to me. Being pinned to my desk, it was the perfect time to give it a whirl cause when shooting birds in falling snow, you need that kiss of flash light to bring out their colors. So with Sharon keeping warm dressed in her ski clothes while she works at her desk as the office doors are wide open, I shot from desk testing.
The basics are pretty simple here, the Wildlife Kit is a new twist to the Projecta / Tele flash extender. There are many applications for this attachment, mine is simple, to increase the effective DoF I can shoot with when using flash fill. I’m using the SB-5000 / Wildlife Kit for a kiss of light. The folks at MagBeam (who make a few kits) created a pretty darn good video on their Wildlife Kit which you should really give a gander. The two BIG advantages to Wildlife Kit is how compact it is when not in use and its ease of attaching to the flash. While the Fresnel is same math, the round shape and rubber unit does seem to produce a bit of a sweeter kiss of light which I’m totally all over (for the shots here, camera exp comp 0, SB-5000 -1 1/3)!
The set up I’m using here is the D5 / 800mm / SB-5000 / Wildlife Kit mounted on the Zenilli using the Wimberley F9 flash arm . The SB-5000 is talking TTL with the D5 via the WR-R10. I’m testing at the same time the new Eneloop Pro AA 2450amh batteries which REALLY hold a charge! You’ll see in the video how they adjust the Wildlife Kit to hit the target. They are dead right on advising this as most photographers don’t take the time to do this. They do though have the flash in the hotshoe which I recommend you don’t do. Why? To start off with, ask yourself where the flash will go when you shoot vertically? There are other reasons, but this is the main one. Would I recommend the Wildlife Kit over the BetterBeamer? That’s really a darn good question to be honest with you. The BetterBeamer weighs less and the one I use has got to be at least fifteen years old so I know it lasts. But the Wildlife Kit has a tad less “harsh” light than the BetterBeamer. If you don’t own one, I would recommend starting out with the Wildlife Kit. I guess I need to stop writing and get back to testing while the birds are cooperating to see if I can determine at least for my photography, which is the best tool.
Dec 26, 2016 | WRP Ed Zone
You get a new DSLR yesterday? Congrats .. I personally can’t think of a better present but then, I have issues :-)
If that’s the case, I highly recommend you get your settings dialed in from the start. You might not know though what settings to plug in. Here are my settings for a couple of the current Nikon bodies
D5 Settings
D500 Settings
D810 Settings
D750 Settings
What if you didn’t get one of these bodies? Well, the majority of the settings and how they are set doesn’t change much. Some settings appear or disappear or might change menu, but the setting for Folder or Image Information and many more don’t change. You can use these as a great starting point as you begin you journey into photography.
Welcome to the photographic family!
Dec 19, 2016 | WRP Ed Zone
This is a real common question because, well, the answer is not really obvious, and varies from photographer to brand. Here’s what I do with my Nikons FWIW. I’m always in AF-C and either select S = Single, GRP = Group Dynamic or Auto = Auto Area AF (what I call AAA). Auto Area seems to bring the most confusion to folks, here are prime examples of when I use AAA. It’s when I have subjects against a clean background such as bird or aircraft in flight. The one aspect of AAA one must understand is for Nikon, it’s the one focus mode where Closest Subject is used. In the Snow Geese photo, you can see where it locked on the closest goose. On the Wildcat, it locked on the engine cowling. As long as you know this you can use DoF to your advantage to tell your story. Hope this helps.
Dec 14, 2016 | WRP Ed Zone
It’s real simple, white makes color pop! The way the mind’s eye works, it goes out to two colors, black and white and with those color sampled, it makes conclusions about other colors it sees at the same time. Ever noticed photos with deep shadows (blacks) make the color seem really vivid? You can have the same effect with colors in landscape photos using white. And this is the time of year when white is rather common in our landscape photos (snow). So if you’re thinking about visiting a locale with lots of reds, oranges, yellows and you want those colors to really pop (without using the digital darkroom) then visit them when there is snow on the ground. White pops colors!
