I hope someone out there shares my sense of shame.
I call myself a photographer and this sometimes results in friends and relatives handing me their digital compact camera and saying “Go on, you’re the semi-pro, you take a really nice one….”
Unfortunately I am finding that this is increasingly resulting in me then producing results which are truly shocking. And, as compacts get “cleverer”, my results with them seem to be getting worse.
Hopefully you will have seen from this site that I do manage to make the occasional nice image! But that’s with a Nikon D2X where I have a proper viewfinder so I can compose shots properly. I’m sorry but I just can’t do it on an LCD screen on a bright day where you can barely see anything of the image due to glare.
It’s also nice to be able to see the metadata, I want to know what f-stop the camera’s “auto” mode is thinking of using. I find myself pleading, “No it’s ok, I understand it, I won’t be scared”. I would gladly set it manually but accessing the menus via the tiny buttons requires you to have fingers akin to Edward Scissorhands and children/pets/Auntie Beryl don’t want to pose for long enough to allow me the luxury to mess around with that. Compact also means instant, didn’t you know that??
I have also grown used to DSLR ergonomics. You know, a camera body that actually fits in your hands, that you can hold steady in low light. Not a plastic rectangle that’s about the same dimensions as 3 credit cards glued together. My 5 year old can hold it a lot more comfortably than I can.
Don’t even get me started on flash. I switched it “on”, ok that’s simple enough if a little unsubtle. But no… the camera decided it didn’t need it. It hasn’t read the chapter of the book about the importance of fill-in flash on bright days, obviously.
I don’t hate the rest of the happy-snapping world out there, good luck to them, I used to be one myself. Henri Cartier-Bresson probably was once upon a time so it’s not a slur.
But I do mind that electronics manufacturers are making me look like a putz, taking all my compositional experience, technical knowledge and years of honing my photographic craft and rendering it all completely redundant in the eyes of my friends and family. I spent the time learning so I didn’t have to “guess-and-shoot” and I’m not going back!
In 2009 I did a 2000 mile photographic journey around Scotland and fell in love with one area, Sutherland.
In April 2011 I will be going back on a mission to explore Sutherland in far more detail. The north-west of Scotland remains one of Europe’s great wilderness areas. It’s the least populated county of the UK, with a density of just 2 people for every square kilometre. This is the home of Red Deer, Golden Eagles, Scottish Wildcats, many species of seabird and an abundance of marine mammals, from Common Seals to Minke Whales.
The first priority of this trip will be a visit to the Scottish Wildlife Trust reserve at Handa Island. In late spring and early summer Handa Island is home to around 200,000 seabirds, including Arctic Skua, Great Skua, Puffin, Guillemot and Kittiwake. The high cliffs there are also an excellent vantage point for spotting Basking Sharks as well as whales and dolphins.
I’ll also be travelling south to the pretty coastal village of Gairloch to catch up with a good friend, landscape photographer Doug Lapsley. Getting local expert advice is a huge benefit to any trip and I’m indebted to Doug for sharing his knowledge of the area.
At the end of my journey I’ll also be visiting the Black Isle near Inverness. Regular readers of the blog will recall my adventures with wild Bottlenose Dolphins in the Mouth of the Shannon in Ireland last year. The Black Isle is home to one of Britain’s few resident populations and I’m looking forward to meeting them as the finale to this expedition.
The Amur Leopard is one of the most beautiful cats in the world, but sadly also the most endangered with just 35 left in the wild.
The Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance (ALTA) is a coalition of 13 international and Russian NGOs that have pooled resources to support conservation of Amur leopards and tigers in the wild. ALTA members have been co-operating for many years in developing, financing and implementing conservation projects in Russia and China.
ALTA are now featuring my work on their website. I encourage all of you to check out their site and give them your support in any way you can. I’m donating 10% of my profits from any Amur Tiger or Leopard images to them. The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) provides 100% of the money that is donated via their website to Amur leopard conservation field projects.
Please get involved to help.
I thought I’d do a quick post about depth of field, as it applies to wildlife photography because mastering it for telephoto work is something that isn’t always as easy to judge as it is for landscape or portrait work.
This is especially true for those who do a lot of zoo photography and are seeking to get naturalistic pics without the surrounding enclosure distracting the viewer.
As a quick recap for beginners, depth of field is the range of the scene in front of you that will be in focus with a surrounding range front and back that will be out of focus.
It’s a combination of factors. The focal length of the lens, the aperture and crucially the distance you are from your subject. (DSLR users also factor in the focal length multiplication factor of your sensor compared to 35mm film, 1.5x for Nikon users). It’s a very different judgement to get that right for a human head shot from 10 feet away to an elephant that is 250 yards away (or an ant that is a few inches away!)
For example, a portrait shot from 8 feet with a 50mm lens at f/2.8 will give you a depth of field of about 10 inches front to back, perfect for a human head.
But what about a 400mm lens at 200 feet distance at say, f/5.6?
The DoF in that case is about 17 feet so if your subject is close to the back of the enclosure its going to be difficult to throw the wire or other unsightly element out of focus enough to hide it.
Sometimes the issue is getting enough DoF. A 300mm lens at f/5.6 at a range of 60 feet gives a DoF of about 22 inches. Not a lot if you are trying to get a full body shot of a tiger facing you. You’ll get the head sharp, but that’s it! The rest of the body is going to be out of focus. To get an 8 ft tiger length sharp would take an aperture of about f/18 (not a great idea frankly but I’m just proving the point!)
So try and keep these sorts of calculations in your mind when you’re composing a long range shot and you’ll get much more consistent results!
I was talking on Twitter the other day about my wildlife photography heroes and I thought it deserved more than 140 characters to tell the proper story of who inspired me. I could rattle off a list of names of people whose work I have loved over the years and who I aspire to be like, but it actually comes down to 3 special people when I think about it carefully.
The first is Art Wolfe. I remember buying a “guide to wildlife photography” book when I first started thinking about specialising in wildlife. It featured one of Art’s images and it really blew me away about how he was so much more than just an animal photographer. He seemed to be able to combine wildlife and landscape photography into one form, using wide-angle lenses rather than telephotos to put his subjects into the context of their environment so much better than anyone I had seen before. He remains my favourite photographer of all-time and he always will be.
The second person to truly inspire me is Nick Brandt. Nick has a unique style that is unlike any other wildlife photographer, I wish I knew where he had summoned the vision to create it, but it takes wildlife photography into the fine-art realm in a way I didn’t realise it coud be. I was lucky enough to go and see an exhibition of his work in London last September and was amazed at the power of his work when viewed up close. Just inside the gallery was a frontal portrait of a bull African elephant at near life-size, it must have been 8-9 feet high and it was just staggeringly powerful and utterly beautiful.
But if I’m honest, one man stands head and shoulders above anyone as the greatest influence on me and what I do.
And he’s not even a photographer. His name is Willard Price.
Willard Price was a travel writer and author of children’s books. He wrote a famous series of “boys own” style adventure novels between 1936 – 1980. I adored those books more than anything growing up and they fired my imagination in a way that has never ceased. They are probably regarded as politically incorrect and unsuitable for the Harry Potter generation but I want my kids to read them and get the same awe and love for wildlife as I did from them. I suppose it was different then, we didn’t have YouTube or the Discovery Channel but I can remember reading about amazing sounding creatures like Manta Rays and Anacondas as well as strange tribes and mysterious jungles and it’s something I will happily spend my life continuing to love and explore.
In 1982 when I was 8 years old I wrote to Willard Price to tell him how much I loved his books. I got a postcard back (More than 25 years on I remember it had a bison on it) written in a frail, spidery hand from the man himself telling how pleased he was I had written and how he hoped I would always love the natural world. Willard Price died just a year later in 1983. So it is first and foremost in his memory that I do what I do and if I impart in pictures even 1% of the joy and wonder about nature that he did in words then I will have achieved something of which I shall be eternally proud.
Over the years Nikon camera owners have become used to a consistency that is unrivalled in the photographic industry. Chiefly this is due to the Nikon F lens mount, introduced in 1959 and still the same today despite technological advances like autofocus that caused many rivals to change this basic element.
For those like me whose ownership of a Nikon SLR camera only began in the digital era, 2007 saw a fundamental change in Nikon’s offering with the release of the Nikon D3, the first Nikon DSLR with a full-frame sensor (24 x 36mm). This was of particular interest to “available light” photographers. The larger sensor meant the ability to combat the technical disadvantage of cramming ever more megapixels onto a 16 x 24mm DX sensor. In other words, a way to reduce noise.
Nikon D2X + Sigma 150 – 500mm
As I write, I still use one of the last Nikon professional-grade DX format bodies, the Nikon D2X. It’s still a great camera, I still get superb images from it. But its achilles heel is in action situations in low-light conditions, which is more often than not exactly where I find myself shooting. Packing 12 megapixels onto a DX sensor means noise is becoming evident at ISO 400 and frequently problematic at ISO 800. Don’t even bother shooting about that. And so I find my main kit need now is to make the move to the FX format world. The Nikon D3S is the current champion for sports and wildlife photography and rumour has it a D4 will hit the shelves before the endof 2011.
Once you get into the realms of professional-grade equipment where you are making serious investments in kit it’s vital to have a careful strategy and decide exactly when to spend and what you need to buy to realise true value in the results you’ll get. Unless you’re a lottery winner, which I am not! By the same token investing in a pro body and then bolting a cheap £150 kit lens to it is clearly a false economy. Photographers always have a thousand ways they could spend money, thinking about it is one of the chief ways we amuse ourselves during the long hours of patient waiting for a shot!
Having invested heavily in improving my photography as a business in 2010 (new website, marketing etc) I’ve decided that 2012 will be the time to invest in my new FX body, by which time Nikon’s product roadmap should be clearer. For 2011 I’m going to invest in 2 ways. Firstly in travel, with 2 photo expeditions that should give me ample opportunity to make great new images. Secondly I’m going to update my lens collection so that I am ready for the move to FX format. If I look at all my current lenses there are some clear actions that need to be taken.
I have 2 lenses that are usable on an FX body and can remain in my bag, the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 and the Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM. In case of confusion Sigma’s DC lenses are equivalent to Nikon’s DX. Sigma DG lenses are compatible with full-frame sensors.
I have 2 further lenses which have not been updated since my early amateur days and need to be replaced, the Nikon AF-S 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 G ED and my Sigma 70-300mmf/4-5.6 APO DG. Both have served me well, but don’t give me good enough results these days.
The choice of short telephoto is easy, any Nikon wildlife photographer should be looking to have the AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G ED VR II in their bag. It’s reputation for incredible sharpness is well-merited. But the choice of wideangle lens has a few more options. Nikon have a number of lenses at various price brackets: 14-24mm f/2.8, 17-35mm f/2.8, 16-35mm f/4 not to mention other prime options. Sigma also have a 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6. A new HSM II version of this lens has just been announced with positive reviews and represents a cheaper possibility.
I’m going to spend the next few weeks weighing my options on this, taking advice from my peers and reading lots of reviews. It’s important to consider all the cost implications, not just of the lens itself but also taking into account associated costs, for example replacing filters if you change the size of the filter thread from your current lens. Hopefully sharing my thinking has given you some ideas about planning your kit strategy for the future and if you want to find out what choice I make, don’t forget to keep in touch with my news via Facebook and Twitter.
As you may have read about in recent days (and after some months of rumour and conjecture) the news broke this week that the winner of the 2009 Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition has been disqualified. This has caused a huge disquiet amongst the wildlife photography community. You can read Andy Rouse’s viewpoint here.
For me, this rather confirms a distrust I have always had about competitive photography. I have never joined a camera club and rarely enter images for competition. Whilst camera clubs can be a good source of shared ideas and encouragement, it seems to me there is always the counterpoint of being around people who are snobby about their methods and sometimes dismissive of “lesser” photographers. I have a clear view of what I want my images to be, I’m my own worst critic and I just don’t feel the need for that sort of validation. When people go to the point of faking an image or training an animal that they claim is wild then it really does make a mockery of a competition and it’s a deep shame that it brings photography into disrepute in this way. I suppose my point is that, if it creates this mentality, what is the point of such a competition. I can go onto Flickr any day of the week and look for great work from others that inspires me. Why I do I need the PotY judges to tell me what should?
While I’m on the soapbox, I went to the see the PotY exhibition in Basingstoke in early January. While there were some cracking images there were a few that were highly commended that were taken with remote camera traps (including the now discredited winner). Whilst I commend the preparation and clever use of technology, I’m not sure I would be able to give much merit to an image that I know was created by random chance timing rather than the photographer exercising artistic control at the time the image was created. That seems too much in favour of expensive kit over ceative thought for me.
Anyway, I shall stop ranting now and go and apply my brain to more positive photographic thoughts!
It’s high time I did a little retrospective post about some of the landscapes I encountered on my trip to the west coast of Ireland last June. Whilst it might be best known globally for Guinness, music and the generally splendid sense of humour of its people, the area where the emerald isle meets the Atlantic Ocean is one of the most spectacular in Europe.
At their highest point, the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare tower 700 feet and standing close to the edge in a high wind is not for the faint-hearted I can assure you! There are large colonies of puffins and fulmars (20 species in all can be seen here) and on a clear day a wonderful view across to the Aran Islands off the coast.
One description you can apply to the landscape if not the people of Ireland is moody. It takes seemingly a mere moment for a sunny sky with warm winds brought up by the gulfstream to turn into an altogether more savage scene, with rain blasting the landscape as black clouds hurtle by. But the land and its wildlife are well used to such temperamental outbursts, going about their routines as normal as these two shags atop a small rocky island show. Whales and dolphins are the big draw in these waters (see previous post “On Dolphinwatch” for details), but the Irish coast also has large numbers of seals.
I attempted to find them on Inishbofin Island, a spectacular slab of treeless, blasted rock sitting 5 miles out into the Atlantic off the coast of County Galway. Inishbofin has a claim to fame as one of the very few remaining breeding sites of the Corncrake, as well as being home to Common Tern, Arctic Tern, Shags, Guillemots, Common Gulls, greater and lesser Black Backed Gulls, Manx Shearwaters, Herring Gulls and Choughs.
Having hiked across the island with time against me to beat the incoming tide I found myself confronted with a decidedly tricky scenario. The seals were there, but a considerable distance away, with the only access to their beach being across a couple of hundred foot expanse of jagged rocks that would have taken at least an hour to traverse and with considerable likelihood of breaking an arm or ankle.
Determined to make at least some effort to get as close as possible I dutifully set off scrambling as close as I was able. I could see the tide now coming in and the seals were already starting to slip away one by one. The image below shows the terrain and how far I got!
Here’s the shot I ended up with. And you’re right it’s not exactly a keeper, but after all that effort I wanted to have at least something to show you!
It just goes to prove that sometimes all the planning and effort in the world don’t result in a glorious image. But the knowledge and the knocks that you acquire by getting out into wild landscapes improve your photography no end in the long run and being in these environments is a joy in itself, always. The next time I go to photograph seals I’ll remember what Inishbofin taught me and hopefully come back with something better!
Let’s end with a good memory of Ireland’s stunning coastal scenery, a slice of Connemara at its very best, where the lushest green meets the brightest blue and time feels like it’s stopped completely….
