My Move to the Mac

I tested the Apple Macintosh waters early in 2005 with a Mac Mini. I maxed out the memory with 1GB of ram, and I learned all that I could learn about the Mac on the machine. I learned that the machine was not even close to enough horsepower for the things that I want to do, but from a usability of OSX standpoint I learned much. And then Apple made the Intel announcement. This froze me in my tracks, as I was on the heels of buying a dual G5 desktop.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago out on safari. My trust IBM Thinkpad X40 has been a wonderful machine, but the small 1.8" 60GB hard drive, slow processor and limited screen size weren't cutting it any more. Yes, I loved the very light 2.7 pounds of the X40, but my storage needs, processing power and overall usability needed to improve. Somebody had a new MacBook in black on my safari a few weeks ago, and I was intrigued. An intel dual core cpu, 2GB of ram, and the ability to run Windows XP via Boot Camp or Parallels. Pretty cool.

So I picked up a black MacBook with 2GB of ram 2 days ago. I am now processing my 4 hours of HD video from Tanzania, as well as processing and organizing my recent photographs from safar with Adobe Lightroom beta 3. I am hooked. My only disappointment so far is the amount of heat that the MacBook generates. I mean really hot.

Why did I buy the MacBook over the MacBook Pro? Mostly because of my needs, and not desires. I wanted the smallest machine I could get, and the MacBook Pro is a few inches larger. Also, I tend to buy a new laptop about every year or so, and buying a more expensive laptop that will get banged around doesn't make sense to me. I am tough on my equipment!!

Have any essential Mac programs that I should have? Drop me a line, as I would love to hear about them.

Digging through the archives...

Gosh, it is fun (or depressing) to look back at earlier photographs in the early(ier) days of digital photography. Here is a quick photograph from a quick stop in England back in 2002, as Leslie and I were headed back home from a 6-week mega safari in east Africa. We had climbed Kilimanjaro, went on a long safari in northern Tanzania, headed to Zanzibar for 5 days, and then went on a long safari in Kenya. When visiting London on the way back home, we decided to be tourons for the day and head over to Stonehenge. uh huh. Not what I expected. Since there were so many tourons there, I decided to scope out some street shooting kind of shots. I thought it was kind of funny to see 3 people on a bench, all listening to the audio tour of the famous landmark.

Taken with a Canon EOS D30, 16-35mm lens.

Happy Father's Day, Dad

I am very lucky to have the best dad in the world. There are many things in life that I have learned, but nothing as much as how to be a good father to my son and how to be a good husband for Leslie. I just hope that I do as good of a job as my dad has done in both fatherhood and as a husband. For all the great fathers out there, happy father's day to you. And happy father's day to you, dad. I love you very much.

Back home from Tanzania

Well, I survived 2 back-to-back safaris in Tanzania. I had a wonderful time on both safaris, met some wonderful people, and came home with some great photographs. All in all it was a wonderful time, despite my battling flu-like symptoms for the first 10 days of my 23 days.

On the second safari we saw 41 lions, 5 rhinos, 7 cheetah and a stunning 5 leopards. With the exception of the rhinos, all of the above sightings occured during our 4 days in the Serengeti. Truly amazing.

I had the chance to shoot with both my 400mm f/4 DO and 500mm f/4 lenses, and I have some thoughts about traveling and shooting with both. First of all, the 400mm f/4 DO is an amazing little lens. It works beautifully well with teleconverters. It weighs less than the 300mm f/2.8 L IS. It is easy to hand hold. All in all I can only say great things about the lens. However, on Canon 35mm full frame digital cameras, like my 5D, I needed to use a 2x teleconverter for our leopard shots and the smaller bird opportunities. Well, the 5D won't autofocus (I knew this already) with f/8 lenses (the f/4 plus 2x teleconverter results in a maximum aperture of f/8). Not that big of a deal, but it made me rethink what cameras will work best with the 400mm DO.

My test to shoot with both the 5D and 20D came up short in a few ways. I found that I really missed autofocusing with a 2x teleconverter, as well as the quicker autofocus acquisition and accuracy of a 1-series Canon EOS camera. My plan is to return to the land of the 1-series, and will probably end up purchasing a 1DMkII (used) and a 1DsMKxxx this fall. I was hoping that I could travel with smaller, more compact cameras to Africa, but I am afraid that my plans didn't work out. Not a big deal, but I am more aware of the limitations of the 20D/30D and 5D cameras for wildlife at this moment.

I will be posting images from my safaris shortly. Time to process over 57GB of images, which will take a few days.

Glad to be back home.

Safari Recap

I am coming off of a spectacular safari here in Tanzania. My group of photographers had an opportunity to photograph 47 lions, 4 cheetahs, 2 leopards, 5 black rhino and all of the wildlife associated to the migration of wildebeest and zebras. The migration was more scattered than in past years, and we were able to find a large concentration near the central Serengeti, the Seronera River valley ecosystem.

We took the opportunity to track and locate the skiddish cheetahs near the Gol kopjes, and actually had the good fortune to come across a pair of young brothers near an outcropping where we were prepared to have a picnic lunch.

From a photographic point of view, the best photo opportunity of the trip was on the first day in Serengeti National Park. We had a large male leopard in a tree, with an unobscured view. I will be sure to upload photographs in a few weeks when I return from my next safari.

I have a day of rest tomorrow, and then I am out for another run safari on the 6th. Should be fun!