A blog series by afx & Millirehm

Case study1: Planning An African Wildlife photo Safari

So you want to go on a photo safari. Great! Here are some practical tips that hopefully can help you with preparation and execution.

While this text has a focus on the classic African wildlife destinations (based on my experience in South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania), it can be applied to other forms of photo travel and and other continents as well.

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Scouting out the Destination

On our Tanzania trip in 2007 the only thing given initially was the camp at Selous and the dates because of the arrangements of our travel companion. The hotel in Dar es Salaam was found by Googling (we found quite a few trip reports that recommended specific places) and cross referencing that with the tour guides. The hotel on Zanzibar was also the result of similar research coupled with the desire to have sunsets over the ocean (which translates to a west coast accommodation in contrast to the major tourist resorts on the east coast). Here we hoped to make a day trip from the hotel to an island to shoot tree crabs. Well, this is also a place where we should have booked ahead so we missed that opportunity (a good incentive to come back).

On South Africa safaris in the ’90s we only booked the parks and the first night after arrival in advance and then we did everything else via local bed and breakfast guides obtained at the AA (the local auto mobile club) and only called one day ahead (of course that was not during the main South African holiday seasons).

Once you found your destination, use Google to find out about as much as you can. This includes seasonal information, accommodation and travel information, airlines fares, local security considerations, etc. Buy several of the usual travel guides and check them for advance information that helps your planning. Check the local tourist boards and see what they have to offer. As some destinations have strict limits you might need to book more than a year in advance (for example various wilderness trails in South Africa). So start checking and planning early.

Checking about your destination online will help you find comments from other travelers which should make it easier to decide on accommodation, choice of locations and operators and other details.

My trips were mostly self organized but I asked friends who have been there already for their advice beforehand. The trip to Namibia in 2000 was the only one where I relied heavily on an (unfortunately no longer operating) travel agency. I only gave them some cornerstones and they arranged the whole trip. Those guys where an exception. Most travel agencies where I asked about Safaris where either horrendously expensive or totally clueless.

In general, you have the choice between three types of safaris: you can either book a completely ready made packages for photo safaris, hop onto a regular tour, or organize it all on your own (potentially with the help of a travel agency). How you do this depends on your budget (the more ready made, the more expensive), your level of adventure and your willingness on spending time on preparations. While ready made photo trips are probably the most convenient especially for first time safari travelers, they are also the most expensive form. Using regular travel packages will usually be slightly cheaper but have the huge inconvenience that they are not geared towards photographers which means the schedule does not take into account the needs of a photographer for light and time to prepare good shots. You will also share a vehicle with people that probably do not understand your need to move about in the vehicle to position your lens properly or to be perfectly still while shooting. And you still pay much more than you would if you organized it yourself (I usually squeeze 30% more time at the destination out of DIY organization vs. ready made packages). So if you are on a budget, DIY is usually the best way to go. And that means investing time in planning and finding out as much as you can in advance.

A typical trap people fall into when going on such a trip is to cram too much into too short a time. Visiting Krueger park, the Cape and the garden Route in South Africa within a week is a typical nonsense trip that people end up doing. You’ll spend at least as much time in travel within the country as you spend really seeing and shooting things if you cram too much into your schedule. So try to set up trips of at least two weeks and try not to cover to many things and too much miles while you’re there. A place like Kruger National Park needs at least 5 days. And as you are doing this on your vacation time, rushing from place to place is not really helpful to get relaxed and comfortable, which is a prime reason to go on vacation. For all our Kruger park trips we had one night between arrival in Johannesburg and arriving in Kruger. That gave us enough time to shop for provisions and getting there without wrecking the car. And we stayed in Kruger for ten or more days, only covering less then half of the park each trip. After all, you’re there to see things, not to tick them off on a shopping list.

A good way to structure things is to plan a few nights in an initial location where you get accustomed to the country, just take it easy and get attuned to your surroundings while spending more time at the pool than chasing images. Then go off to your core safari destinations and at the end, see that you find a comfortable place to hang out a few more days taking it easy and winding down. That type of schedule is also more compatible with spouses traveling along. For example on my 2007 Tanzania trip we spent a few days near Dar es Salam in a hotel, did a simple city trip and just tried to mentally arrive before we went off to the Selous. Winding down was on the beach in Zanzibar for a few days (which also included photo opportunities of course, but also lots of hanging out at the beach).

Another thing to keep in mind when planning the trip is the season you will travel into. Being stuck in heavy rain all time does not make sense even though rain can add quite a bit to the mood. So check whether your planned schedule fits with the local season.

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Equipment

What to bring on a photo safari is often asked in photography forums and there is a wide range of answers. Some annoying wisecracks maintain that Africa has lots of sun, so don’t bother bringing fast lenses. This of course is crap as the most interesting light is in the morning and evening. Also, African wildlife is smart enough to not move much during the heat of the day. Shooting snoring lions in a mid day blaze is not too exciting. It is much more interesting to capture animals in action in nice light.

So after you have read about the long glass above, here are some safari specific recommendations:

On DX I found the 300/2.8 with the TCs to be near perfect, though not as versatile as a 200-400VR, leading occasionally to lost opportunities due to the time needed to add or remove a TC.

Unless you are a macro buff, using a simple Canon 500D in front of the 80-200/2.8 is a good light weight travel solution.

So should you bring an FX or a DX body? I’d say both if you can. A D300 or any of the other DX sensors will give you reach which is always useful for wildlife . On the other hand a big pixel FX (D700, D3) will give you a better chance to capture furry and feathered creatures when the light is low without killing details in fur and feather (it gives you at least one stop).

So a perfect kit would be 14-24/2.8, 24-70/2.8, 70-200/2.8, 200-400/4 plus TC 14 and TC17 with D300+MBD10 and a D3 or D700+MBD10. Add the 500D and maybe a 50/1.8 and you’re all set (ok, that is the pricey option, but the earlier generic lens section should give you enough hints on how to adjust to your budget).

Whatever body you end up choosing, do not travel with one body only. If your collection does not have two bodies, rent one or buy a used one before the trip that you sell afterwards. On half of my trips so far I had a problem with a body. A second body not only helps you to continue if there are problems in the first one, but it also reduces the number of lens changes and therefore the risk of getting dust on the sensor. Plus you can react quicker when not needing to change lenses.

Should you bring a flash? I’d say yes. There are occasions in the camp or even with wildlife where a flash comes in handy. In some parks (Etosha for example) you can sit at waterholes during the night. The light there is often not sufficient for shooting, so a flash helps. Using a “Better Beamer” to focus the beam of the flash can be quite useful (never used one myself though, I just added another flash, triggered by the first one via an SU-4 trigger).

Of course the usual assortment of lens and sensor cleaning kits, micro fiber cloth, blower, remote release, spare caps is implicit.

One advantage of using a D700 with an MBD10 over a D3 is that you can use AA batteries, so even a lost charger will not hold you up.

Bring binoculars. Especially when traveling with non photographers. They do not have your long lens to see through, so giving them binoculars keeps them busy while you are getting the shot. The last time I forgot that rule and I paid dearly for it…..

Unless you have a body with a voice recorder, a small digital dicta-phone can be quite useful for recording meta information while on the trip. Or if you are proficient enough, bring along audio recording gear to capture live sound that you can later on add to image slide shows (high on my to-do list for the next trip as I do have my personal radio journalist with me and that will keep her busy ;-)).

Bring a tripod, monopod and other forms of camera support. What to bring exactly, depends on your environment. See the shooting section. In general, make sure all support systems use the same clamping mechanism (preferably Arca-Swiss style) so that switching around is easy.

Also an assortment of Velcro tape, cable binders and small clamps can be quite useful especially when shooting in camp or with macro work. A big piece of cloth to cover the gear while driving can help in dusty environments. On my Namibia trip I was so paranoid about dust, that I set out with each lens in a ziplock bag. Looking back, I’d say this was overkill.

If you plan on hiking, make sure your backpack fits your back. Test in advance. My 2m frame absolutely disagrees with Tamrac Expedition backpacks. But I only learned that after I bought one and I had to buy different type on short notice.

Apart from that any rugged bag or backpack will do, some are more airline friendly and efficient than others. My preferences are Tamrac for shoulder bags, LowePro for serious backpacks and ThinkTank Photo for efficient travel gear.

Although modern big lenses and cameras don’t fit very well in photo vests, I still use them to keep caps, memory cards and other titbits in reach.

For the digital shooter one of the biggest questions is where to store the images. Typical options are to bring enough cards for the whole trip, use an image tank or bring a (sub)notebook. Cards is usually not the best option as you will need many of them. Image tanks are the best to use if power is absolutely limited. The most comfortable solution is to use a small laptop if you are in camps with electricity. Add an external disk for backup and a card-reader and you’re ready to go. I used an old Thinkpad T30, small enough, no commercial value anymore and good enough for a first screening. If you bring a laptop, bring a second USB/firewire attached disk for backup. And any Linux boot CD. That saved my butt in Hungary once when the laptop’s disk went dead. I could boot from the Linux CD, mount CF cards and external backup disk and copy my shots over. If you are not familiar with Linux, train this first while at home (and yes, that also works on Macs, even the PowerPC based ones with the right Linux Distro).

A blog series by afx & Millirehm

Miscellaneous knowledge (pre-safari)

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Metering

The history of photography has brought us a lot of methods or gadgets to determine the desired exposure, the sunny f/16 rule, using hand-held light meters, using the camera’s measuring and  exposure modes, check against the display.

Choosing your cameras metering mode

Centre weighted and Spot metering serves as your a stable basis for your own correction, whereas multi-pattern metering (aka matrix metering) gives more control to the camera and although the results often are very sophisticated, it has more of a black box approach from the photographers viewpoint.

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In Flight Action

When doing action photography of birds in flight you frequently need to deal with a rapidly changing background . In these situations,  especially when photographing against the sky, automatics will not give you reliable exposure any more.

There are two workarounds to deal with that. Set the camera to M, measure some neutral object, set aperture and shutter speed and then leave it as it is and shoot (under sunny conditions in middle Europe I often end up with f/4 and 1/500 at ISO 100).

Spot metering gives the possibility just to measure the target. In former days this was more for the slow approach and unusable for action. In modern cameras, the option of hard linking spot metering to the active AF field range theoretically offers the possibility of tracking the main subject to measure it while at the same time staying on automatic settings. This approach shows promise but how valuable it really is still to be tested out.

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Knowledge about animals with special focus on birds

Biological/ecological knowledge and insight of the environment your living objects of interest are to be found is at least as important as having the best gear you can find. You can improve your chances of success if you know when animals are active and what the typical ecosystems they prefer are. And don’t forget acoustics. A lot of animals (especially birds) create unique sounds. Knowing their voices enables you to locate them, even when you don’t see them first hand. If you can hear a bird approaching his nest this makes you more alert and better prepared for upcoming photo opportunities.

A positive side effect of increased knowledge: it enables you to treat your objects of interest respectfully and stay outside of their critical distance. In protected areas appropriate behaviour is a must for peaceful coexistence with national park rangers, etc.

In many world regions wildlife has adapted to landscape formed by mankind’s culture, animals have moved into urban and suburban regions. They are still wildlife, but maybe less shy, thus increasing the chance of a good shot.

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A few words about “digi-scoping”

The availability of compact digital cameras caused the evolution of a new branch of photography. Birdwatchers are making extended use of the telescopes in their mandatory equipment by using digital cameras to capture their eyepiece’s image. Coupling devices were developed and are available on the market (sometimes for ridiculous prices). The promise: get good bird shots without carrying too much stuff.

Brief summary: I have seen digiscoped images (small birds at rather large distance) you simply can’t get with SLR-equipment, and despite the disadvantage in using this method, the image quality was not bad. But my personal experience is that the success rate is rather low - the shutter delays are long so you can’t snap a shot and do fast action, to avoid vibration is difficult.

I have used both, there is no comparison if you once have seen what you can do with a fast and modern SLR and a supertele, but there remains an interesting niche.

Supporting needs: tripods, monopod and heads

One thing should be very clear, “Big glass” superteles are mainly not for free-hand use, but require some support. Whereas a 400 f/3,5 or a 300 f/2,8  can be used free hand this   becomes futile with longer ones. Whereas I still can use my 500 like that, but rarely find it making sense,  it is impossible to use a 6+kg 600mm manual focus lens. I can hold it but not hold and focus it at the same time, because it is unbalanced. Most of the weight is concentrated on the front element. the focusing ring is way behind. The modern 600 VR is lighter (at the price of a poor collar) but against all advertisement (cite Nikon Pro) not really a free-hander.

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Monopod

is always a compromise but can be very helpful in just supporting the lens so you don’t need to hold its full weight. A monopod extends the time range of handling big glass superteles significantly. Burzynski and others (Kirk, RRS) offers a nice piece of gear to support a monopod head (a tuned Manfrotto XXX). Whereas a head is not required on a monopod, this special gives additional degrees of freedom in nature photography.

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Tripod

is the main supporting gear of supertele use, and the most comfortable (after you have brought it in position). It should be a stable tripod/head combination. The best are Sachtlers, but I am afraid they are not compact enough for flight travel.

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Ballheads

Ballheads are good for a vast range of opportunities but are not the proper heads for Superteles. They still may be the best compromise for travel. Tilting is the main issue. There is the FLM-centerball series that enables an additional tilt control knob, but Its hard to imagine that this could be sufficient for 6 kg lens plus power-driven camera (worse FLMs are reported to suffer from flawed design (afx: I can attest to that, FLM, never again…)).

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Gimbal heads

The best for using superteles are Gimbal type heads

There are epigones now but nothing comes near the legendary Wimberley head ( now available in the enhanced Mark II version). Its absolutely great. You can adjust it in a way that you don’t feel the weight of the lens at all. With most of the common camera lens combinations it enables the combo to stay in every given position if you let it loose (some of the completely faulty constructed Nikkors require a replacement of their tripod connector otherwise it wont work because the distance is too high). It’s a dream for action photography, for following birds in flight. For the latter you can easily get down on your knees and bring the combo in steep angles to capture birds right above you. You can’t do that with any other tool. What you get is nearly free-hand flexibility with tripod support.

The downsides: Expensive, heavy, not compact (so it does not travel very easy), and as it offers more surface and leverage to wind it is more subject to wind generated vibrations (Especially side winds) than the Burzynski head described below.

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Wimberley sidekick

I have no personal experience with that tool , but the sidekick is more of a traveler than its bigger sister. Together with a strong ballhead it offers a Wimberley type comfort - lacking the possibility that everything stays in position. No personal experience.

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Video heads

(like the sachtlers) are reported to be a good solution. Heavy and very expensive, and not as flexible as a gimbal head like the Wimberley

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Burzynski head

It’s a ballhead and it is not. It’s a 2D and it has a broad basis and narrow heights and therefore offers a unique height/diameter ratio, which gives it incredible stability. In terms of stability and vibration but also craftsmanship it is the best tripod-head I ever had in my hands, full-stop. But even with the friction control of this you cant avoid the tilting problem. For static situations it is ok but not for pursuing birds in flight, here the Wimberley has its domain. Depending on what I want to do I decide which head I take. All of my heads are equipped with Arca-type coupling mechanism, and all the lenses have Burzynski plates (the way their corners are shaped makes it easier to sneak in the plate into the rail)

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Mounting consideration

Super-teles have a lot of momentum and leverage. Protecting all (ideally) connections to ensure that only your lens is panning (doing so only when it is not fixed) and nothing else is a must. For your lens mount you need that means you need at least two mounting points for the quick release plate. My 500mm and 600mm offer 3 /2 threads so this is not a problem here. For lenses only providing one mount point, I recommend drilling an additional hole and put in an additional special screw or provisionally just take the screw to put additional pressure (for my 80-200 that appears to be sufficient so far).

I have not used VR lenses myself so far. They might enhance your options, but they don’t make a tripod useless.

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Special “big glass” requirements for shooting technique

Evidently your physical shape is more important when working with super-teles than it is in any other type of photography using a 35mm like format. To say it short, you need muscles! :-). Carrying them around, holding them (free hand) can make you tired earlier both physically and mentally. As a consequence agility and concentration are reduced, that may have an effect on reaction time and creativity.

Two consequences: be prepared for the additional power drain and train as much as you can, plus use all means of support you can get your hands on.

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Camera bodies

There was a time when the camera was just a film holder, well not  in terms of speed and features, but given somewhat accurate shutter speed steering the IQ was determined by optics and the film only and it was easy to upgrade older or even ancient cameras with better film. The digital era has removed this equality, the sensor and the algorithms behind them have become of crucial importance. Based on current experience we would recommend a two-fold way. Taking an FX body for making use of its high ISO reduced noise in low light and even more important their superior dynamic range. The main reason a DX body is still favourable  is the additional range you get at at superior resolution over cropping DX out of an FX body.

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Binoculars

In addition to other useful side effects described in the African safari section below, binoculars extend the range of your perception, makes you detect approaching animals earlier, and can bring additional joy even if observed animals don’t enter your photographic range.

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Power supplies

Mechanical cameras were the perfect candidates for expeditions. Cameras like the F4 or F5 were more energy consuming. Besides some advantages the digital camera era brought increased dependencies. Better batteries like the EN-EL4 appeared to have mitigated this problem a little bit. But this is a crucial point to consider when planning your trip - especially if it is a round trip. Check out the charging opportunities. Be sure to have enough batteries with you and a backup charger if possible. Although it may sound trivial beware that when you travel to different countries you may face not only different grid voltage/frequencies but also different types of plugs. You may need adapters. Depending on the situation a 12V car adapter might be useful too.

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Editor’s footnote: Nikongear would like to thank afx and Millirehm for so kindly allowing us to publish this 4 part series here on Nikongear. We hope that this guide to the gear used on safaris will be helpful to all our members and hopefully one day we’ll see you on one of our African Safaris! Also, please note that there has been an addition to part III in the form of commentary on the 200-400mm f/4 super tele.

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by Taran Morgan (aka yunfat)

I tend to talk a lot of smack on online photo forums, which is odd, because I am an expert in absolutely nothing… I have no formal education in photos or the fine arts, save the odd criticism class in University (I’m actually an english major). My photography training was, in effect, a baptism by fire… one day I was shooting nightclubs for fun and the next I was a stringer doing photocalls for the NY Post with Giselle Bundchen in front of my camera. It happens like that sometimes… I was lucky and unlucky at the same time. On the one hand, I had access to celebrities and made $500 a photo, on the other, I got involved in the seedy underworld of bourgeois photo agents who know it is unlikely you will find the photo of yours they just sold to People in Espanol or a German tabloid, a photo which you weren’t paid for (you can’t find the german tabloids at the local supermarket, ya know). Media is a strange place, and undergoing rapid and violent change. Photographers are largely treated as disposable objects at all but the highest levels, and sometimes a name is more important that being competent. Remember that… you could be the worst photographer in the world and still make a killing off your well marketed shots, you could be the best photographer in the world and still be anonymous when you are looking for gallery representation, that’s just the way it is. Be humble, be smart, and learn to value what you shoot, especially when it’s not an assignment.

That said, I would impart the following 10 things to anyone thinking about photography “seriously”. It is unlikely any of these things will actually help you generate income, however, they are the things that you should consider for the ultimate advancement of your photography in the “marketplace”. As they say before boxing matches: “Protect yourself at all times”.

1) IPTC captioning. A long time ago, my photo editor once said to me something which still resonates with me today. “A bad photo with a good caption is better than a great photo with a bad caption”. Within the publishing industry, IPTC captioning is the standard data field embedded in every photo. This metadata is handled by such programs as PhotoMechanic, Aperture, and Lightroom, to name a few. The reason why this is so important is because if you don’t put IPTC data into your photos, no one can/will pay you. No publisher will publish a photo that doesn’t have this information, because they simply cannot contact the photographer who took the shot. If there is no contact information, the photo is anonymous, and it won’t be published because the person publishing it doesn’t want to get sued down the road for printing a photo without proper accreditation. Your photos are worthless, no matter how good the shot.

2) Learn to “ingest” properly. Ingest is the operation that occurs when you transfer the photos from your flash memory to your computer. Photographers in the digital era deal with thousands of images. It’s not uncommon for me to shoot a wedding and have 2700+ images between me and my assistants. If you don’t stay organized, this will get confusing very fast. When I ingest a photo, about 6 major things happen.

1- images are titled with the name of the subject
2- images are dated
3- copyright and contact information is embedded in the IPTC
4- the photo is tagged
5- the photo is given a four digit numerical suffix
6- a folder with the name of the subject/event with a date is prepared to receive the photos.

This all happens instantly, with no work done by me save the title of the photo and the name of the folder. For example, if I were shooting today on the streets of manhattan, the photo name would look something like this: nyc street 6.16.091234, and the folder receiving the photo would likely be nyc street 6.16.09. This is scalable to millions of photos, I know, because I have millions of photos.

3) Learn to use an autofocus fixed focal length prime lens with a normal FOV and a fast aperture. For Nikon digital systems, this means four lenses only (as of this writing). In order of preference… DX- Sigma 30mm 1.4, Nikon 35mm 1.8, FX- Sigma 50mm 1.4, Nikkor 50mm 1.4.

Zooms are all the rage, and the quality and versatility of said “normal range” zooms is something many photographers could only dream of just 10 years ago. That said, they still can’t touch a good prime. The reason for learning one lens is simple, comfortability (yes, I know thats not a word). I am now @5 years with my sig 30. This means I can raise my camera to my eye and know exactly what I am going to get… I know where to place myself as far as photographer to subject distance, and I don’t have to think. Holding a d80 in my hand, there is little need for me to even look through the viewfinder. Even if the viewfinder of said camera is covered with electrical tape, I will still get a perfectly composed photograph, every time.

This is big, because there will be times (if you carry your camera around all the time as I do) when you need to do things unconsciously. Digital photography is more of a technical exercise than people think, the ability to reduce those variables that force you to actually think about what you are doing will pay huge dividends because you know you are going to get the shot, there will be no fumbling, no need to change the FOV, no need to turn anything… nothing. Point and shoot, be fast.

4) Replace the phrase “What should I shoot?” with “What can I shoot?” Going on safari in Africa with a nikkor 500mm VR is a good way to find interesting subjects, but few of us may ever have that chance. Learn to adapt to your surroundings and refine your sensibilities to the world in which you inhabit. The place in which you live may be boring to you, but not everyone lives there, and other people may want a peek, even if its bum fuck Idaho (I actually love Idaho, but I think you get my point).

A doorknob, a broken window, peeling paint, rust… shit like this is everywhere, but how often do we actually pay attention to such banal subjects? I recently saw photos in the $30-$50k range of womens mouths, heavily made up, stuffed with ornate jewelry (necklaces and such). They were splendid, and these editions were selling quite fast. I was looking at prints in the 40*80 inch range, bigger than most of us will ever print, nevertheless, the point is this… subjects are created as much as they are documented. Richard Prince sells $1 million dollar photos of magazine adverts he re-shot and blew up to extreme sizes. Call the guy a copycat bastard if you want, but his show filled the entire Gugenheim in NYC. The incredible foot traffic I saw at the Gug was testament to the fact that someone out there likes his stuff, knockoff artist or not.

My last tutorial on these boards featured 6” models I picked up at my local Target (big american retail box store). I was thrilled with the results, and happily created a nice series I am quite proud of and which was featured by Alien Skin software for their June newsletter. It’s not the Gugenheim, but it was well received. The ingredients list for this shoot: creativity, 30 minutes, and a $10 model. On this very forum I have seen outstanding stuff created with minimalist equipment, imagination is always the key.

5) Pony up for the full version of Photoshop. Lets face it, Photoshop is an expensive program, but it is still the industry standard, and will be for years to come. You can try to get around having it by using some of the newer products like Elements, Lightroom, Gimp, or Aperture, but the fact of the matter is, you will always be behind the curve. Photoshop is a complicated program, if you are intimidated, try and find a course at a local university or subscribe to Photoshop User magazine, this will speed up the learning process… better yet, find a graphic designer friend and try and sit in on some of their work, you will be flabbergasted at the things even a mediocre graphic designer can do with a photo.

More than that, thousands of tutorials are available in the public domain which help to make you a better photographer. The internet is a great thing sometimes, I say this because anything you are likely to do in PS, has already been done, and there is likely a tutorial available somewhere showing you the best way to do it. In addition to PS’s basic features, there are numerous plugins available that will make your workflow more streamlined and will enhance your photography at the same time. Some of these plugins cost more that PS itself, but they exist for a reason. To dismiss the robust tools available as PS plugins would be a serious mistake for any photographer. With enough time, you can do anything to a photo within PS’s core architecture, but some of the plugins available will make your job so much easier, you can concentrate on the creative process, rather than how to actually get there. What used to take me hours of fiddling and compositing can now be done in seconds, and the results are fantastic.

Plugins like Alien Skin Exposure and Nik Efex should be a required part of every photographers arsenal… why wouldn’t you want 30 versions of a good photo (it only takes me a few seconds of batch processing to do so)? Then, you can turn to your client, and ask them to make the decision. Variety is the spice of life. When you give your clients options for a photo that could only been dreamed of 10 years ago, you look like a genius. Sepia, cross processing, grain, BW conversions, they can all be handled with the click of a button. To think that your photos wouldn’t benefit from multiple versions is naive (I speak from experience) because you simply can’t tell when a photo is going to take to different tonality and color. Sometimes the effect can transform fairly banal subjects into something that really pops. See Chris Fabbri’s sepia toning from the old railroad museum to see what I mean, the shots just take the sepia toning perfectly given the subject, and the photos are far more impressive.

6) Forget the rules. If you think your photos are going to stand out because you followed the rule of thirds and read the book about classic compositions, you are in for a surprise, even if they are technically perfect and the light was “just right”. Landscapes would be a good example. I went to the Peter Lik gallery in Manhattan the other day (you can google him if you have never heard of the dude). Any classic landscape you intend to shoot, has already been done, by Peter Lik, better. Not only that, but Mr. Lik has the best equipment, the best printing and framing, and has the resources to wait for the best light for any given subject. These are facts… you won’t be able to touch his stuff, and the prints are 1 meter by 3 meters plus. This is not to say you should give up shooting landscape, far from it, but what you should really be considering is how to do the classics different, where they resonate personally, from a unique angle.

It’s a cliché, but get off the beaten path (unless of course you are in Laos, the Falkland Islands, or parts of the Golan Heights, where there are lots of landmines). There are a probably 100 million people in the world with decent cameras (of the quality we are used to here on NG), if they all shoot just one landscape a day, thats a 100 million landscapes. Some of these photos will be terrible, but some of them will be great, perhaps even the guy who serendipitously stumbled into the best light ever, his first day out with his d5000. I use landscapes as an example but it applies to all genres within photography… go nuts. If you decide to read the books on how to shoot, do it so that you can know what has already be done, and then go forward with the intention of breaking the conventions.

7) Take blurry photos. The first couple of years I had a DSLR, I was obsessed with getting sharp shots. Hand holding technique, breathing, and physical exercises were all part of a regimen I constructed to enhance my critical sharpness while hand holding in the field. At some point you may find that sharp shots are, well, boring. I was forced to go in a new direction… meaning there was little more for me learn with regard to technical proficiency. Instead, my new goal was to achieve sublime imperfection.

Shapes and colors are just as interesting as sharp shots, sometimes more so. If you take enough bad shots, eventually, something good will come out of it. You will find that a particular shot, because of its blurriness, instead of in spite of it, is compelling. Abstract forms, distortion, and motion blur have been the hallmark of some great shooters. There is no need to fear them, as they are as much a part of photography as the rule of thirds. Learn to mess up a shot, learn to be distinctive… this of course will take some time, but in the end, you may be surprised how many keepers you get employing “bad technique”.

8 ) People photography. When someone is in front of your camera, they will do what they are told, even if they are the President of the United States (he gets posed too), provided you have extreme confidence. This is as much psychology as photography, but it is worth mentioning because I see a lot of young photographers second guess themselves in the field. My theory is that as the photographer, you are the director of the action, just like in the movies. I have an anecdote for this, please indulge me…

I don’t remember where I heard the story, but I will rehash it here as best as I can recall. The story is about Stanley Kubrick (who just happened to be a great photographer as much as he was a great director). One day, on a movie set, a delivery was made… it was a pair of directors chairs, the kind with the cloth back and the crossed wooden legs. An actor on set saw both of the chairs and noticed they were identical, in every way, shape, and form. Both were emblazoned with the name “Kubrick” on the back rest. This famous actor (I forget which one) decided to perform a little experiment on Kubrick to see what would happen. He would wait until the director was on set, and before Kubrick could see the chairs he would hoist them both in the air and ask Kubrick to pick one.

So, as the story goes, Kubrick returns to the set and the actor lifts both identical chairs into the air, one in each arm, and in front of the whole cast and crew, asks Kubrick which chair he wanted. “Which chair do you want?” he said, “The left one.” Kubrick replied instantly. Sometime later the actor asked Kubrick why he chose the left chair so hastily, when upon any inspection the chairs were patently identical. Kubrick responded: “It doesn’t matter what decision I make, as long as I sound like I know what I am doing”. The moral of the story is this: you are the director… as a photographer, when you make a decision in front of a subject/client, do so decisively, the only person who knows it’s a shitty decision will be you, and you can always bin those photos… but, if you waffle in your decision making trying to make a superb choice, everything you do for the rest of the shoot will be questioned by the participants.

If I happen to shoot a CEO, or a supermodel, they are going to notice even the slightest trepidation in your approach, that’s what they do for a living. These are extreme examples, but the lesson should trickle down to everything you shoot. Nobody knows you are fucking up but you, and if you fuck up confidently enough, nobody will know at all.

9) Color management is complex. This is actually 3 suggestions:

1- Shoot RAW for the widest possible gamut
2- RAW files must go into the ProPhoto color space when translated by your RAW converter
3- Buy a hardware calibration device for your monitor and calibrate regularly.

There are numerous tutorials on all this on the web and books available in print, so I won’t belabor the point here, needless to say, if you don’t do these three things, your photos are piss in the wind. ‘Nuff said.

10) Learn to print with an archival pigment printer of a professional grade, and visit a master printer or take a digital printing course (printing is still so complex that trying to learn it by yourself will set you back years). The cheapest printer I suggest for this available right now is the Epson 4880 (I wouldn’t invest in an epson 3800 at this time due to the newer inksets available). Unfortunately, any book you pick up on this subject is already old news, because 16-bit printing has just reached maturity… better to learn from the Epson Academy, what you can glean from online forums, or attend a Michael Reichmann or Nash Editions seminar. An investment of a few hundred dollars up front will save you thousands of dollars of wasted media down the road (and it saves trees).

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I hope you find these 10 things useful, I know personally that if I had known them “up front”, my photography skills would have been better from the start.

Taran Morgan

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Forum discussion of this article here

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Super Telephoto - Experiences with “big glass” 600mm f/4, 500mm f/4, 400mm f/3.5, 300mm f/2.8

by afx & millirehm

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600mm f/4 AI-S

There are several versions of this lens. Here we refer to the very first one. With a weight of 6.3 kg, it belongs to the heaviest group of lenses Nikon ever produced. Using a lens like that forces a more static use just by its momentum. On the other hand, as a benefit, this series includes a massive and sturdy tripod mount and still can serve as an example how a solid mount can look like. Newer series decrease the quality of this essential element with each iteration. Usage with Teleconverters: TC14B works ok, on film TC301 no advantage over using a TC201 , but heavy vignetting issues with using TC301 with a DX body, at least with a D200. (modified TCXXE no experience.) The build in lens hood offers a very solid construction and would be the theoretically the best principle, but unfortunately this built-in approach leads to the consequence that it is not long and therefore effective enough. Later constructions saw Nikon resolving this issues at the price of unwieldy lens shades that required reverse mounting for transport purposes.

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500mm f/4  AF-S

An absolute dream lens –full stop. One of the advantages of Af-S lenses is that you can do manual override over AF. As action—photography requires continuous AF settings you often end up with AF overriding your manual focusing. This is the reason why AF-S telephoto lenses offer AF-stop buttons on the lens barrel. Well I for one am not satisfied with this solution. Compared to my other AF-S teles the stop button appears to be responding less reliable to my pressing fingers. I don’t know whether all 500s are suffering on this effect or just my specimen. To avoid AF-stop buttons there is yet another approach: not to use the shutter release but rather the AF-ON button (if provided by the camera) for triggering/deactivating AF. In the moment I find this the better option, but switching requires some training against old habit. Good combination with TC14EII, AF still works with TC20E though  the resulting aperture  is f/8 but very slow and loses reliability Not the best tripod mount (I am in the process of exchanging it for a product by a different manufacturer) but form factor is not as bad as the new 400/2,8 and 600/4 designs (it is mandatory to replace it before using it with a Wimberley head). Comes with a smaller replacement foot that only has one screw mounting thread, which to my impression is useless. Comes with very long lens hood unwieldy but effectively keeps light off the front lens element.

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400mm f/3.5 AI-S

This lens was well renowned in the sphere of Nature photographers. Optical construction may be outdated, and it lacks AF of course. It is very handy, has the best range/speed/size/weight combination of all the Superteles I could get my hands on so far. One would wish for an AF-S Version of that, but wont’t ever see because Nikon wants to sell the 400/2.8 and more recently the 200-400/4 came out which adds additional usability if affordable. If you can get one, hold on to a lens like that. Keep in mind that nature-photographers were able to get astonishing results before AF ( and later VR) was invented. Better to have a lens like the 400/3,5, than no Supertele at all. The 400 perfectly balances on a Wimberley head –together with an F2AS MD2 combo (which was the state of the art in the 1970s when the lens was released), with lightweight cameras you either add weight to the body or you have a hard time making full benefit of the wimberley It performs significantly better with TC 301 than with TC 14B Built in lens hood is nice and stable but what has been said in the context of the first version of the 600 f/4 is even more valid here – the lens hood is way too short.

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300mm f/2.8 AF-S

Fast, and the best bokeh of all, Focusses faster than the 500. Good combination with TC 14 E II and TC20E II. Don’t own the TC 17E because never found out which additional sense this interim size converter should make. (afx: I own the AFX300/2.8 first edition, built like a tank and my wildlife workhorse. With the TC14E it can be used wide open. With the TC20E you need to stop down so f8 is the lowest aperture).

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Why a 200-400 mm is considered to add versatility to nature photographers equipment

The zoom era we are living in now created different paradigms compared to the times when photography was prime-dominated. There appears to be the impression that all focal ranges have to be fully covered (this “need” made nikon change the 80-200 to a 70-200 to fill the gap the 28-70 has left although it can hardly be called essential). The same paradigm may be the reason why the 200-400 telezoom lens raised a lot of attraction. But even without this consideration a zoom like that has always been wished for by nature photographers, and after it was released commanded great attention (and triggered photographers comeback to nikon who had left towards canon gear before). This has certain reasons. Assumed your goal is to picture a specific species or several species (of different sizes) with the desired range.  In conventional photography you can move back and forth and easily solve crop and size requirements with a prime. In wildlife photography often your position is fixed because you have to hide, or there are obstacles (the bank of a river wile photographing water birds comes to mind) that forbid to approach.  And your creatures of interests are approaching and moving away just as they want. You can help yourself with teleconverters but that is time consuming, and even if you are well drilled and quick, this may result in lost opportunities.

Imagine you are just trying to capture a small water hen and have set up your gear for this task and at that moment a swan starts with dynamic action and the only thing you can do is a cropped portrait instead of a more promising action shot. Having  two lens camera combinations ready is a workaround . It means more stuff to carry and to handle. Still not as flexible as having a telezoom that enables you to make a very fast adjustment of your crop. With 35mm/FX it is still a bit short, but together with DX you get a the range equivalent of 300 to 600mm which makes it possible to consider it as the one and only long lens.

General Equipment Section

(by afx & millirehm)

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Once you’ve clarified your motivation that will, to some degree, direct your equipment load. Photographic equipment is expensive and not every ‘vital’ gem is easily available. Most potential wildlife photography maniacs won’t be wealthy enough to buy everything at once and brand-new; additionally, some gear has been out of production and is only available on the second-hand market.

Long term planning to develop your equipment is highly recommended and a virtual necessity. You can save yourself a lot of money - and nerves - basing your hunt for bargains on some kind of master plan and avoid the selling and rebuying equipment just because you don’t know what you want or need.

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LENSES

General considerations

So, depending on your budget and willingness, to carry heavy stuff, here are some recommendations:

Ultrawides

are not that much in need, but I still would take one (12-24 on DX for example).

The standard zooms in the 24-70 range are very useful shooting anything from landscape to candids in the camp, don’t leave home without it.

A 70-200 or 80-200

is usually a must and most of the time the second most often used lens on a photo safari.

Then there is the long glass. Here you have to make your choice between weight, price and versatility, quality, missed chances, …..

Ideally you should be able to get up to a reach of about 600mm on a DX or about 800 on an FX. Anything more is usually impractical unless you are really good at handling long focal lengths. During daytime you can easily run into air movement that will blur images, so shooting stuff far away becomes a moot point. That leaves the use of the ultra long ones for getting small subjects like birds. If you only reach up to 300mm on DX you still will have enough focal length for many safaris (unless you are a birder).

Zooms are versatile and often allow you to get a shot quicker if you do not need to fiddle with teleconverters. But good zooms are expensive and heavy. The top choice is the 200-400VR. Especially on DX and with a TC14 or TC17 it has an excellent coverage.

The old 80-400 is much cheaper and lighter but can not be used with TCs and is very slow to focus. The 70-300VR is a bit short on the long end but might be a good budget alternative to the 70-200. The old Bigma (Sigma 50-500) can be useful as well if you are tight on budget.

A 300/4 can still be used with TCs (at least the 1.4) and might e a good budget lens. It is also quite light and therefore a favorite lens for birds in flight (if they are big enough or close enough).

Using the top end primes 300/2.8, 400/2.8, 500/4 and 600/4 is not an option for everyone as the prices are quite high. Still, of you can get the older non VR version, they might be in your reach. They can all be coupled with the teleconverters, though when using the TC20 you should stop down one stop.

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Avoiding errors on the way to tele-photography

After starting photography with a Nikkormat FTN and a 50 mm lens it did not take me long: Soon I was sure that I needed a tele lens. A friend of mine exchanged his 200 f/4 against a portrait lens and here it was my first tele lens. Nice to begin with, but I thought that it was still not long enough for what I wanted to achieve. Adding a 2x tele-converter brought the usual problems (slow combination, insufficient IQ of the lens, difficult to focus), and the impression that even at 400mm (the most common range bird photographers use ) you have to get very close to achieve the desired magnification ratios. The logical consequence given my available budget then seemed to be a 500 mm mirror lens, promising long range, lightweight, compact and short relatively cheap but for me still very expensive. I bought a brand new Nikon and the greatest disappointment in my lens acquisition history.

The reasons: A slow lens (the f/8 only in theory, low transmission of the two mirrors made it a de facto f/11) no aperture diaphragm (so you have to calculate the proper ISO setting to get shutter speeds short enough for your moving subjects, often enough I ended up with 800/1600 slide film, a catastrophe in grainyness, contrast and colors, today we have fast digital sensors but that does not really solve these problems), relatively slow to focus (no AF of course) which is exacerbated by the dark viewfinder image resulting from the slow lens, poor tripod support, and last but by far not least an inferior bokeh (some times it may be OK, but you hardly know before what you will get). Finally I ended up in buying a used 400 mm f/5,6 IF-ED, which was my real arrival in the range of superteles. If I could restart again I would make a shortcut up to here.

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Second hand - How to make bargains - The “four for the price of one” story

I wanted to have a real long range fast lens. The 800 mm f/5,6 that first came into my mind faded away from my consideration, as I wanted AF and the longest AF lens was 600 mm. While growing older and living “ascetic”, avoiding to spend money for a car or other expensive things like that, I managed to save enough money over the years for buying a new 600mm lens.

After years of waiting I was ready, but Nikon was not ready for me. Nikon was delayed with bringing Silent Wave Motors, then delayed equipping them with VR, the tripod collars decreased their quality as a consequence of the weight reduction policy and finally new lenses were only released as G-type which did not amuse F4 users like I was then.

I was not sure whether a 600 mm/f4 or the shorter but more versatile 500 mm/f4 was the right thing for me which exacerbated decision making. Seeing a MF 600 AI-S in an auction house where they were mostly selling low-end category stuff and making my decision to go for it was one - there were no other bids. That cleared the 600/500 mm issue as the next step would be an 500 mm AF-S I and I was searching for a used one. in the meantime the direct comparison showed that the 400/5,6 was not an equivalent partner to the 600 and the 400/3,5 well recommended amongst nature photographers came to my mind again.

After finding a cheap specimen in a second hand shop yet another lens found its way in my bag. Waiting for second-hand bargains leads to unexpected results because soon after the 400, Ebay enabled myself to acquire a 500 mm AF-S – a rare item there as well, I took the chance and won it at a (relatively) decent price.

My long term plans included a 300 mm f /2,8. A faster lens, for bigger animals. Approximately one year later I found an offer on Ebay. The fact that it included a Nikon drop in polarizer which fits both the 300 and 500 mm made it easier to decide and brought the lens acquisition program to an end. In the end I got four superteles for the money I originally had reserved of one. So I can choose “a la carte” what to take –at the downside I am always forced to think about what is the proper decision.

This story should show everybody that –although second-hand superteles are still in the range of one to several thousand Euros and hardly can be called cheap - it is easier to get at least one of these lenses than you might think of, and should encourage you to make your long lens dreams reality. Online auctions created possibilities that simply weren’t available some 10-15 years ago (though one has to be cautious).

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Part III of this series will be published on 20 June 2009.

Hints and tips for wildlife photography  with special focus on: using superteles, bird photography and going on safari

Authored by afx and millirehm

Disclaimer: At the beginning of this series the authors like to clearly speak out that they do not claim universal validity for the provided information but rather share their experiences, and the results of their learning processes. That’s what we stand for.

About the term safari

“A safari is an overland journey. It usually refers to a trip by tourists to Africa, traditionally for a big-game hunt; today the term often refers to a trip taken not for the purposes of hunting, but to observe and photograph big game and other wildlife.”

Motivation

One of the first recommendation is: start with clarifying your motivation

Why are you doing wildlife photography? Where is your photography aimed at? what is your target? Are you doing it for yourself, or for making exhibitions, publications – just for vacation or triggered by professional interest in earning money (or even attempting to find some way of combination) Do you want to prepare for everything that comes along or aiming specific species? Focus yourself before you focus your lens!

Ethics

Technically it is possible to do wildlife photography without any considerations about “Ethics”. The authors think it should not be done like that. There should be room for the necessary respect against living creatures, and the potential damage you can make as a consequence of disrespecting photographic approaches.

There is no reason why captured creatures should not be photographed. But to be fair those photos should be marked up captive and not be announced as wildlife.

In case of traveling to foreign countries, keep in mind that there are human inhabitants too even though they may not be the reason of your travel. These indigenous people may either profit or suffer from tourism. Keep in mind and be prepared that in some regions political, economic or social instability might cause trouble for you as well.

The following topics will be covered in successive blog entries:

Hints and tips for wildlife photography

Special focus: Using Superteles, bird photography, going on safari

Starting considerations to begin with

General Equipment Section

Knowledge about Animals with special focus on birds

Going on Safari

Case study 1: Planning a African Wildlife photo Safari

Scouting out the Destination

Equipment

Organizational Things

Packing

Travel

Shooting

Daily Routine

Case study 2: Developing a DIY bird-photography safari

Case study 3: The “home-safari” as the most simple approach

Resources

Sometimes what you think will be easy to shoot often turns out to be a real pain in the proverbial ass. This past Friday a local pub asked me if I would do some photos for a competition brochure they were having made up. The first prize is a bar fridge together with a year’s supply of beer and the second prize is a coffee machine with a years supply of coffee. One bar patron is going to be very disappointed to come second in this one, methinks.

The brief was to photograph the fridge stocked full of beer. They wanted an oblique view of it as well as a head-on shot. The first problem I faced was that the door of the fridge was glass and unless I could somehow turn myself and the rest of the set invisible, everything else in the room was going to be reflected in that glass door. The second problem was that the inside of the fridge looked very dull once the beers were placed inside it.

Dealing with the first problem came down to me having to shoot the fridge with the door open. I could have flagged off the whole of their boardroom with black or white sheets, cut a hole in one for the lens and then done the shot with the fridge door closed, but that would have required a lot of stuff I didn’t have on me, plus it would also have lengthened the shoot time considerably. Something you come to learn pretty quickly when you’re doing this type of thing for a living is that time is your commodity. You can’t charge clients for the time it takes you to experiment with various setups and then not deliver the shot. They’ll baulk at that immediately. Experiment on your own time and once you have a fair idea of how to accomplish a certain task you’ll be able to re-create it fairly easily on location. In my case I just didn’t have the time and I also didn’t want to make too much work for myself in PP. I shot it with the door open.

The second problem would be a bit easier to deal with, although you probably wouldn’t think so. The Nikon SB-800 is a wonderful piece of technology. You can put these things just about anywhere and they will give you some kind of light. I stuck one of mine into the fridge behind the row of beers on the middle shelf. The other SB-800 I put on a stand and fired into a white umbrella, just to the left of the camera and above the fridge. Ordinarily I would have metered both the lights manually and then shot the fridge in manual mode, but after watching a few of Joe McNally’s excellent training videos I decided to go with the iTTL on this one.

Shooting with the D700 I went into the flash menus and set the pop-up flash to be the master and set up two i-TTL groups, one for each SB-800. Group A was my main light and that was going into the brolly, whereas Groub B was the light inside the fridge. I dialled that one down by -2 stops. The pop-up flash I set to have not fire, just act as a trigger for the other two lights.

I put the camera on the tripod, took a shot. Wow, works like a bomb!I then moved the SB-800 up to the top shelf and took another shot. The end result I would merge in post.

What you see below is the original image of the fridge, straight out of camera. Again I screwed up the white balance, but fortunately when shooting in RAW that is easily corrected.

And then the final shot. Note that there is a row of beer added to the bottom shelf (client’s request) together with matching reflection in the fridge door. This shot also shows the merged top rows so that the light looks a bit more even inside the fridge and the key-stoning (perspective) has been corrected. The whole fridge has been deep etched and the path is intact on the jpg for the designers to use.

Even though I was left alone with the beer for about an hour I forgot to bring my Swiss Army knife - couldn’t open any of them. Lesson for photographers, always be prepared…

The coffee machine I brought back to the studio to shoot. My standard set up prevailed (two Broncolor C80 Minipuls heads) with softboxes, but the biggest problem with shooting this was that of the reflections coming off the shiny black plastic. It caught the edge of the shooting table and also the edge of the overhead softbox. I thought I could deal with that easily enough in post, but after the first try I gave up and used a big piece of white cardboard curved up to both the left and right sides of the machine, sandwiched between two pieces of white polystyrene board. That took care of the edges of the shooting table.

This shot was metered manually. I’m still not 100% happy with the reflection along the top angled edge of the machine, but again time is important and the client was very happy with the end result.