Photo of the Day

Serengeti National Park, January 2007

Canon EOS 1DsMkII, 400mm f/4 DO, 1/800sec @ f/8, ISO 200

Namibia trip announcement

On the heels of both a successful Namibia safari in April 2006, as well as my recent Namibia portfolio announcement, I am putting together a return trip to Namibia in September 2008. Namibia took my breath away, and it will be difficult waiting for September 2008 to roll around until I get back to the apricot colored dunes of Sosussvlei.

This safari will concentrate on three photographically rich areas: the deserted ghost town of Kolmanskop, the dunes of the Namib-Naukluft and the abundant wildlife of Etosha. The safari will take 8 days out of your schedule once you are in Windhoek, Namibia. If you would like to arrange additional time in Namibia, I can easily arrange this for you.

The cost of the safari is $7990, and after my posting last night, 50% 75% 90% 100% of the safari is already spoken for. If you think this safari is for you, all you have to do is contact me to inquire about availability. **note** I am exploring the possibility of adding another Namibia trip either earlier in 2008 or early 2009. I will be on safari in Botswana with Michael Reichmann from September 10 until September 20, 2008, which may be difficult for me to schedule around.

September 1 - 10, 2008 Namibia Itinerary

Gallery I images from April 2006 Namibia safari

Gallery II images from April 2006 Namibia safari

Lightroom versus Aperture

Well, I am now diving into Lightroom 1.0, and I will be importing, managing, processing and outputting my images from my most recent safari on both Lightroom 1.0 and Aperture. I think this will be a great exercise for me, as I will be able to make a decision once and for all regarding my platform going forward. I was very happy that Lightroom 1.0 ships with a spot/dust removal tool, as well as a basic 'stacks' functionality (I thought Apple owns the patent to that?). Since I have a new Mac Pro desktop with dual 2.5ghz dual core CPUs, as well as 5GB of RAM, performance in my environment should be about as real as real can be. No hypothetical statements like 'if had a faster computer' will make it into my final analysis.

Other than preparing from my upcoming Galapagos workshop (1 last spot is available if you are interested), my main goal will be importing and categorizing my entire library over the next few months. I also need to get my Photoshelter library up to speed with ecommerce capabilities, which shouldn't be a big task once my images are organized.

Canon EOS-1D MkIII Announced

Well, the hammer dropped today and Canon announced their latest offering in their professional 1-series camera line. The EOS-1D Mk III was announced, and you can read more details at the link below.

The Canon Japan EOS-1D MK III web page

There are some nice highlights that sound enticing for my wildlife photography needs:

• High-capacity, lightweight and compact lithium-ion battery with estimated battery life display. New, smaller charger (yeah!)
  


• 10 frames per second (wow)


• 10.1 megapixels


• Joystick autofocus selection (about time)


• Integrated Cleaning System (This is huge for me)
  


• 14-bit A/D conversion for smoother transitions. Less banding, perhaps?


• ISO 100-3200


• Large and bright 3.0-inch LCD monitor (Not that big of a deal for me)
  


• Maximum burst of up to 30 raw shots


• flash sync speed of 1/300sec (I do wish for 1/500 from what I used to have with the original 1D)

Will I purchase this new camera? Perhaps. My hesitation comes in two forms. I will need to support yet another battery type, as my 1DsMkII uses the older batteries, as well as the camera's interface will be different from my 1DsMkII. That can potentially mess me up when working quickly out on safari.

From the Archives

Here is a quick shot taken at Karen Blixen's (Out of Africa author) house outside of Nairobi, Kenya in July 2002. I had a beard back then! Leslie and I were finished up a 6-week backpacking trip throughout Tanzania and Kenya, and this was our last day in Africa that summer.

A photo shoot with the Maasai

In between my two safaris, I had exactly 24 hours off to relax, review some photographs, sleep late and get ready for my next safari. Did I do this? Uh, no. I somehow chose to burn the oil and head out to the bush to meet up with a wonderful group of Maasai, take some photographs, and learn about how they are actively participating in managing their resources for future generations.
A friend came and picked me up, we grabbed some picnic food at a local market (and some Kilimanjaro beers, of course), and headed out. I had my friend Al Vinjamur with me, as well. The goal for me was twofold: to enjoy a relaxing day of mixing in with some of the Maasai, and to capture some nice portraits on a borrowed Hasselblad H2 / CFH39 medium format camera setup. The CFH39 digital back captures near full-frame 6x4.5cm digital images, and has a native file dimension of roughly 5400x7200 pixels. That is 39 megapixels, which is stunning if used correctly.

We arrived in the late morning, and were greeted by the head of the village. He had already arranged for 12 young Maasai women to pose for us, and they were sitting underneath a very large baobab tree waiting for us. We also asked for some morani warriors to be available once we were finished photographing the ladies.

I chose not to introduce artifical light into this session, as I was not familiar with the flash system on the Hasselblad platform. On my next return to the area in June, I will likely be bringing a single Profoto strobe system with me. Their new Acute 600B system is very very enticing, as the battery pack weighs less than 11 pounds. My other alternative will be to bring a Quantum Qflash setup with me, which is much smaller and lighter, but only packs about 320watts. Not quite enough for what I want to accomplish in the midday sun.

For my shoot, I setup three different scenarios. For the first scenario, I brought the Maasai women out into the harsh light, but had an assistant hold a 42" Photoflex diffuser over each of their heads and shoulders. This allowed me to capture them without them having to squint, and it also accomplished the goal of softening the light. I also had a 42" Photoflex 5-in-1 reflector with me, but we could never arrive at a fill light that didn't overpower their eyes, causing squinting. So we bagged the 5-in-1 and went about the shoot.

For the second scenario, I just positioned my subjects underneath a large baobab tree. The dappled light seemed to work well, so I just went with that.

I had a wonderful day, and have a better idea of what I will do differently upon my next return in a few months. Sometimes diffusers and reflectors aren't enough, as this limited what I was able to do out in the field. Photographing dark skin in harsh daylight is about as tricky as tricky can get. I have been avoiding studio strobes for a while now, but I cannot avoid them any longer. Perhaps I will look into more powerful strobes, so I can add the possibility of shooting 4x5 sheet film. Why so much light? Because one needs enough depth of field to have a subject's eyes, nose and ears all in focus. With a 150mm lens, which is considered a normal lens on a 4x5 large format camera, the depth of field needed at 6 to 8 feet away will dictate stopping down to about f/16, which will require very bright strobes in the midday sun.

 

Click here to see some of the Maasai photographs

Digital Output Magazine

Be sure to check out the February 2007 edition of Digital Output Magazine, as one of my images has graced the cover for the month. There is a nice two-page spread on my most recent black and white images from both Namibia and Tanzania. Here is the text of the article:

 

February Digital Output exerpt

Back home from Tanzania

Well, after 21 days of being away, I am finally back home from Tanzania. I had two absolutely fantastic safari groups, and we had some incredible opportunities to watch and photograph the wildlife, landscapes and people of northern Tanzania. I was amazed at the quality of light on this trip, as the afternoon thunderstorms added a very nice landscape element to photograph.

I have roughly 50GB of images to process, spanning 4 different camera bodies. My primary shooting kit was as follows:

• 1DMkII


• 1DsMkII


• 20D


• 16-35mm


• 24-105mm


• 100-400mm


• 500mm (400mm f/4 DO when my 500mm was rented)

I also had access to a Hasselblad H2 camera body with a Hasselblad CFH39 digital back attached. The lenses used were the 80mm prime, 50-110mm and 300mm with a 1.7 teleconverter. I will be posting my experiences with medium format willdife photography in the coming days.

I will be processing my images when Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 ships next week. Until then, I will use CS2 Bridge to view and cull some of my images that don't make the cut.

I am glad to be back home, but I look forward to returning to Africa in June.