Photo of the Day - Cheetah and Her Cubs

Cheetah and Her Cubs

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. March 2012

Pentax 645D + 400mm f/5.6, 1/100 @ f/5.6, ISO 800

Photo of the Day - Sunrise and the Lion

Sunrise and the Lion

Masai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya. March 2012

Pentax 645D + 300mm f/4, 1/125 sec @ f/8, ISO 200

B&H Talk on April 30, 4-6pm

I am coming to NYC and will have a 2-hour talk on wildlife photography, creativity and post-processing on April 30 from 4-6pm. The post processing part of my talk will involve Adobe Lightroom 4 and some of the Nik Software plugins (Viveza 2, Silver Efex 2 and perhaps Color Efex 4). Be sure to register for the event in advance. Come on out and say hello if you have the time!

Perfect Wildlife Photography and Post Editing with Adobe Lightroom 4 and Nik Software
Monday, April 30 from 4 to 6pm

Back from Kenya and Tanzania

Cheetah on a Termite Mound

Olare Orok Conservancy, Kenya. March 2012

Pentax 645D, 300mm f/4, 1/1000 @ f/5, ISO 200

After a 3-week absence, I am back home with my family here in Houston. I had two amazing safaris, as I split my time between Tanzania and Kenya for each. The first safari in Tanzania was a published departure with 12 travelers, and the second safari in Kenya was a private safari that was not published online. I am sorting through my limited set of raw files, and I think I have some real keepers that I will be proud of. I mostly shot video on these safaris, and so I only came home with about 1,000 files from a borrowed Pentax 645D medium format camera.

There is a story in here that I need to tell about medium format digital for wildlife photography, and the short story is that the technology works perfectly for my needs. In the past year I have been seeking out a way to be able to produce bigger prints with more detail, better color and overall image quality. I have borrowed a Leica S2 system for my Antarctica trip, a Pentax 645D for these past safaris, and I will be using Phase One gear for one or more of my trips to Botswana and Namibia last on this year. I suspect I know what I will end up with in the end, but it has been a fascinating process so far.

I have the luxury of not having to shoot for anybody else but me, which means I can take a new camera system that might only yield 1 usable photograph per few days of work. That’s ok with me, because I would like to have only a handful of portfolio additions each year. Any more and it would exceed my expectations, but my expectations are quite low as it is. I would rather have a few amazing images that I can reproduce at any size that is requested than to say that a particular image can only be printed up to 16x24.

Time to get cracking on some raw files, a trip report, video footage and some sleep time in my own bed.