National Geographic/Getaway Wildlife Photo Workshop

Join Shem Compion on this unique one day photo workshop where he will take you through the most important aspects of wildlife photography and digital workflow. Not only will he cover the usual techniques but he will also be highlighting how you can use digital workflow to easily get your work out there for all to see. Shem will also be talking about marketing your images and getting them to the right people. It promises to be popular talk, so get in touch with Tracy-Lee for booking information.

When: 4 October 2009
Where: Kloofzight Lodge, Muldersdrift
Cost: R700
Bookings: Tracy-Lee Behr
021 530 3379
tracy-lee@ramsaymedia.co.za

Click the image for larger version.

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Dusting Desert Elephant

It had been a long drive. Sesfontein, the town where we were based is far from anywhere. The last 100km of ‘main road’ took 2 hours- that after 2 days of hard driving on gravel toads to get here. We were all knackered, travel sore and far from any conveniences of soft lodges. As far as I’m concerned, Damaraland is frontier country- a place with long roads that lead to petrol refuel pumps and nothing more. It’s a place of endless plains and mountains and wind and dust. And it’s beautiful; stunningly so.

The following morning was another full day- Driving up the Hoanib Riverbed in search of the elusive desert elephant. It takes about an hour and a half to get into the actual riverbed, but once in, and surrounded by the huge cliffs and arid mountain scapes you just stare in awe at the wonder of the place you are in. Water, still from the good rains in March, was seeping down the riverbed, creating a splash of blue and green amongst the harsh, browns and dustiness of the mountains. It was simply spectacular.

The real beauty of this area is that the animals here are all free roaming. No fences, no reserves- just wilderness. We saw huge lion tracks, giraffe, gemsbuck, baboons, springbuck and some very interesting wading birds due to the water in the riverbed. But by11h00 we had not yet seen an elephant- and it was hot. Of course we continued and by midday we reached a water hole, where we found a bull elephant drinking. Not being a reserve, these elephant are a little bit belligerent, so we kept our distance. As he finished his drink, he walked closer, to a dusting spot. With the backdrop of the rugged damaraland mountains, it was a perfect scene. The elephant started dusting enthusiastically right in front of us. I’m not sure how much of it was bravado, or how much was true dusting. Either way, it was really impressive!

I started out shooting wide, showing the elephant in its environment, and then worked closer until this frame came into the viewfinder. On seeing it, I knew it was destined for black and white, as I wanted to emphasise raw, rugged, dry, and dust in this series of images. This image shows exactly that.

We arrived back at Sesfontein after dark around 18h30. It had been a 12-hour long game drive in the dust and heat. However, the joy of finding these elephants far outweighed any long day. The hard work had been put in, and the rewards had been quite sweet.

What defines a desert elephant?
The main adaptation is that they can go without water for much longer than normal elephants, which need to drink at least once a day. Desert elephants also travel much further distances and will walk 40-50km, (with 80km being recorded) per day to get to water. These two are their most characteristic features. These elephant are not a different species to the normal African elephant; their name should really be “desert adapted elephants”, but are generally termed as “desert elephants”. Perhaps in a few million years they will be another species…

Exposure information
Nikon D300 - 200-400mm lens
Exposure – f 6,3 Shutter Speed: 1/1000sec
Exp. Comp. 0. EV
ISO - 250
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 260mm
Beanbag support in vehicle

Shem Compion

This essay first appeared on shemimages.com Read more!

Elephant crossing, (and camera crushing) at Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana.

One of my favourite sayings harps back to the days of the A-team, when Hannibal, the leader of the motley bunch would say, with thick cigar in his mouth: “I love it when a plan comes together”.

This was how I anticipated my weeks of anticipation for my 8 days to be spent here at Mashatu where for the first 4 nights I was hosting a photo workshop with my company, C4 Images and Safaris where you can see what we saw and photographed here. Trust me, it was another cracker, not to be forgotten in a while, and that’s what I said after the May workshop… Nevertheless, the reason I was so excited was after the workshop, I stayed on to do some marketing work for Mashatu.

My excitement stemmed to the planning of a specific shot I wanted since my last visit 6 weeks ago. Mashatu’s elephant population is extremely relaxed. So much so, in that I was willing to put a wide angle lens low on the ground right next to their daily routes on the ‘elephant highway’ to get a scenic and wide image of these large animals.

Studying the elephant movements of Mashatu on my many visits here, I knew a scene exactly where in it would take place. Each time I had been here, I had seen herds of elephant crossing. Of course, as soon as I came prepared, nature and Murphy being as they are, all the elephants had changed tack, with their daily routes coming from a completely different angle. Oh the joy of working with wild subjects!

For 4 days I studied the movements of the elephant with the rangers. We concluded that there was no real exact daily movement like in the summer months. The elephants were moving widely into and out of the mopane veld- making predictions very difficult. In the end we decided to stick with any relaxed herd we could find and anticipate their movement to place the camera down. His worked very well, and I managed to get some great shots with different scenes. However, the image of a herd crossing the river still eluded me. Added to that the fact that the elephants weren’t staying long at the water sites, we were having a rough old time of things.

Day 8 arrived and still that one shot eluded me. Leaving camp we found a herd in mopane. This would be our last attempt at the desired image and so we stayed with the herd until they headed directly to the Mojale River. We drove ahead and anticipated where they would exit out the far side. A nervous and wet minute in water followed, as I set up the camera in a dead bush right on the side of the waters edge. Then the wait began. Where did the elephants come out? 100m upstream of the camera... With Bashi, my (elephant whispering) ranger enticing them closer with some soft words, the herd slowly moved down towards the camera. It was an agonisingly long 20 minutes as the herd moved right past the camera, totally ignoring the clicking. After a week of looking for good scenes and crossing points, I was getting my shots.
All I could think was “I love it when a plan comes together”!

Exactly then, a bull elephant walked out of the bush into the river and started smelling some of the female’s. He was sexually active and clearly had one thing on his mind- meaning his mood would not be very friendly. He walked past my camera and immediately heard the shutter. His trunk snaked forward into the bush and sniffed at the camera. By now I had turned from celebratory, to a nervous wreck. The elephant grabbed my camera, throwing it into the wet mud. It was like watching a man throwing a sweet into the ground.

It stopped clicking, obviously. And the elephant left it alone. We quickly drove closer and got the camera out of the mud. It had been buried half into some sandy mud- hard enough to hold my weight… Intense stuff! After a quick inspection, all worked, good work Nikon.

I did end up with my shots, but a lesson was learnt: Don’t start your celebrations before the last elephant has come along.
I guess that is why the A team had BA Baracus!

Exposure information:
Nikon D300 - 10.5mm fish eye lens
Exposure – f 8 Shutter Speed: 1/160sec
Exp. Comp. 0. EV
ISO - 400
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 10.5mm
Gorilla pod
Remote release.

Shem Compion

This essay first appeared on shemimages.com
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Improve Your Photography - Part 12, Creative Techniques

Once we know the technicals of photography, we can now venture out with creativity and
capture scenes. However, there are still a few techniques that can be used to increase the
quality of your images. What is important is that when you see a scene, and you want to
photograph it, you must have the ability to know what technique works for that scene.
Basically it is applying the correct technique to the correct scene to get the best result.

Flash
Probably the most misunderstood of features on a camera, the flash is there to light up a
scene when the camera deems a situation too dark for it to take a decent picture.

There are a few types of flash: Normal, Fill in Flash, Red eye reduction and Rear curtain sync
flash.

Normal flash
This is the everyday flash that occurs when you pop you flash up. It is designed to illuminate
the entire scene that it sees. This means that anything that is in front of the scene will be over
exposed, as it will receive too much light. This is often the case with portraits of people as
they are too close to the camera and in front of everything else. The way to prevent this is to
have the flash dialled down a bit so that the flash is only powerful for short range. This will
give a better overall effect. It also helps the recycling time of the flash, as it does not use as
much power as normal flash- so it allows you take images faster and it saves your batteries.

Red eye reduction
The closer the flash is to the lens of the camera, the more chance of Red eye being prevalent.
Red eye is caused by the reflection of the flash into the lens.
How to reduce red eye:

• Have a hot shoe flash and bounce flash off ceiling or hold flash away from the camera
and direct it onto subject. Of course this is not always possible.
• Red eye reduction mode on camera. Camera pre fires flash so that subject’s pupils
dilate and then the camera takes an image with flash.
• Subject looks into bright light before taking picture- effect is same as red eye
reduction.
• Post processing- this is done on the computer.

Fill Flash
Fill flash is a small amount of flash that the camera emits to help the image. It is one of the
most useful ways to improve your daytime images. It is best used in shadows, under trees and
in harsh day lighting. What is important is to realise that fill flash is there to fill in shadows
only. This means that it is a subtle effect and if a viewer cant see that flash was used, then the
effect is successful. I am a firm believer in Fill flash. It turns horrid daytime photos into
acceptable images that you can use for family albums. Must also remember that many
weddings are taken in full daylight, so this is where fill flash saves the day for those
photographers. Probably its most creative benefit is that of when used when shooting against
the sun. The fill flash fills in the detail of what would normally be a silhouette. This gives an
image a lot more substance and evens out the contrast in an image.
Rear curtain sync
This is the most creative flash effect and it produces ethereal and mystical effects. What
happens is the shutter opens for the exposure and the Flash only fires at the end of the
exposure. If used with a slow shutter speed, can create beautiful effects and blur is created by
the slow SS, but the flash freezes the subject when it fires.
Best results are had when used with a support- being a tripod, beanbag or by resting against a
pole or wall.


Filters
Filters are pieces of glass that fit onto the front of a lens, either by screwing on or via a drop
in system. There are many types of filters and they provide many types of effects, many of
them not natural in look. I will concentrate on two types of filters that re very useful and help
in producing better and more balanced images.

Polarising filter

This is a circular filter that screws onto your lens. The front section of the polariser turns,
increasing and decreasing in strength of polarisation as it turns. It gives the best results are
when used at 90 Deg to the sun. The polarizer is best used in mid day light conditions, forests
and over water.

What it does:
Daylight: Adds contrast and saturates colours
Forests: It reduces the leaf shine (glare) on wet leaves- makes for a much better
resultant image
Water: Reduces glare over water- excellent for “seeing” into the water.
The graduated Neutral density filter

Used mainly traditionally for landscapes, but it use is not confined to scenery. I find this one
of my best travel lenses. The filter is one half clear glass and the other half a dull grey colour.
What it does is balance the exposure of the sky with that of the land. This balances the
exposure so that the entire scene is made equal and you dint get an image of a dark
foreground and a bright sky.
Panning
This technique is used for capturing various forms of motion. It means that you follow your
subject, as it is moving. It is important to try and keep your movement as smooth as possible
with the moving subject. There are various ways types of effect that you can get from
panning, depending o your shutter speed.
Most common:
Pan with subject to get your subject sharp and background a nice blur. This type of shot is
good to start around 1/250 sec.
It is sometimes nice to make your subject a blur. This equates into a very abstract effect and
uses a much lower shutter speed. Anything from 1/10 sec will give you a blur of movement.
It must be remembered that this is a difficult technique and the success rate can be quite low.
Luckily you have a digital camera and you can practice and adjust our settings to get the
desired result.



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Improve Your Photography - Part 11, Patterns and Creativity

Creativity is considered as being divergent thought to create a solution. Thus it means
‘breaking ‘ the rules, but still being aware of those rules, especially when it comes to
photography.
The word pattern is a very diverse one. In photographic terms, it could be described as
something worthy of repetition, an artistic or creative design or a composite of traits.
It is clear that these two combine together in the creative realm of photography. The outdoors
are full natural patterns that we just need to open our eyes to and photograph. This is where
your knowledge of the camera comes in. if you can see a pattern, you can make it more
evident through the camera and the control you have over the camera, especially aperture.

How aperture affects the way you see patterns

Aperture determines your DOF.
By selecting your DOF, you can create even more impact in an image. It can add great DOP
throughout an image and show a pattern in its entirety, or it can select one part of a pattern
and leave the others a soft out of focus blur. These selections may seem simple, but they are
extremely effective in creating a stronger impact in your image.
Using aperture you can also select certain subjects and isolate them from a scene. This is
probably the most powerful manner that a selective aperture can influence an image and is
extremely effective in isolating subjects from the image or the background.

Creativity with Shutter speed

Shutter speed determines if you freeze or blur your photograph. This obviously lends itself to
more creative applications. A fast shutter speed freezes motion and is thus good for action
A slow shutter speed causes blur: so when used on a tripod, it can be used for some really
creative effects.

Shutter speed selection

Still Portrait - 1/60 sec
moving portrait - 1/125 sec

Action
Walk- jog- 1/250 - 1/500 sec
Sport and fast action - 1/750 - 1/1250
extreme action- birds in flight, snowboarding etc 1/1250 - 1/2000

Blur - (Tripod required)
Slight water blur - 1/30 sec
complete blur - 2 sec and more

Night Photography

This is a great way of experimenting with your photography, as the results are fascinating. A
tripod is essential here as well as a cable release, but a self-timer on the camera will also
suffice. Night colours are very warm and saturated, making for strong images, especially if
there are moving lights in the picture.
A few tips:
• Shutter speed can be from a few seconds- through to a few hours
• If you are taking a photograph of a city scene- results are much better after recent
rain, as the streets will reflect the lights nicely in the image.
• Use a low iso (200). You want the best image quality and your camera is on a tripod.
• In the evening and especially so in winter, there is a ‘blue hour’ about an hour after
sunset. This is when the sky is still slightly blue, but not yet completely dark. It is the
best time to take night images, as it adds ambiance to the image.
• Dusk and dawn, are excellent times to do night photography. This is because the light
colours are extremely beautiful and subtle. Our eyes don’t actually realise these
colours and cameras render them a beautiful colour.
• When shooting stars: for a circular trail of stars, aim your camera to the south
(southern cross) and the whole sky will whirl across your frame.

For more information on Photography courses and how to improve your photography see here.

All text copyright C4 Images and Safaris

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Leopard Portrait, Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana

Its funny how things work out. I’ve always ascertained that the large cats are over photographed. In that vein, for my personal work, I try to keep away from them and focus on the smaller things.
Fortunately though, I do come across the big cats relatively often and have had the pleasure to witness and photograph some spectacular interactions. These are wonderful to photograph and see, but it is one part of the wildlife world where I know “everything has been covered”.

There is no denying that these large cats, and the leopard in particular, are very special creatures, and have a special charisma about them. It is also no wonder that they have dedicated followers, with safari goers and photographers alike stalking them out from behind every bush. Indeed, if a reserve or lodge has good, relaxed leopard or lion sightings, the “value” of the lodge increases greatly! The demand to see these cats reaches such a fever pitch that there is a term coined when people get leopards into their heads. Its called “spotted cat fever”, and I have a seen a few instances where people actually start hyperventilating whilst stalking a leopard in thick bush. I’ve also seen photographers trying to put their flash on backwards, so much was their excitement that they could not even perform a simple function in the anticipation of this spotted denizen of the forest!

Due to the fact that there are so many people out photographing these big cats, I do tend to give them the slip. That is unless they are actually doing something and are photographable… if not, I would rather be photographing insects backlit. Far more challenging and rewarding!

There are however the exceptions. I was privileged enough to be at one of the best leopard setups and sightings recently. I was leading a photo workshop up at Mashatu, in Botswana with C4 Images and Safaris. We had come across this young male leopard on the first night and knew he was very relaxed around vehicles. On the second evening, we heard that this same leopard had been discovered by the other photography vehicle, led by Isak Pretorius (our other photo guide). Luckily we were only a couple of minutes away and as we headed around a corner of the dry river bed, the scene opened up in front of us, just as it has before in all my dreams of the perfect set up.
The river ran east-west. The leopard was sleeping on top of a dead log, washed down by the recent floods, in the middle of the river. It was facing west, into the setting sun, the bank behind it was already in shadow, making it stand out and glow in the evening sunlight. There were no branches or other distractions to the scene. It was simple, clean, and by golly, damn beautiful. It is at these times that you take a breath, take a step back and just enjoy the pure beauty of such a scene. All the ideals of not taking pictures of large cats go out the window and the camera started working. This is a studio set up in the bush. Things could not get more beautiful or better set up! We all had spotted cat fever trying to get the best images. I actually realised how hard it was to do the scene justice, as it was so well set up.

It was then that the real action started. A porcupine walked into the scene… (I wont deal with that here- you can read more about on my blog.) But we had just witnessed such a stunning set up and it’s in times like these that you realise why there is never the “perfect shot” of any species of animal.
A leopard sighting like that one was a very refreshing slap in the face. Im all for the different animals and shots, but when a scene comes along like that, it makes you feel like a beginner again, shaky, excited and damn happy to be a part of such beauty!

Exposure information
Nikon D3 - 200-400mm lens
Exposure – f 4 Shutter Speed: 1/20sec
Exp. Comp. -0.3. EV
ISO - 1000
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 400mm
Beanbag support

Shem Compion

This essay first appeared on shemimges.com

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Wild Dog Ghost -Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana

This may be the shortest essay yet, as this months image is one that “just occurred” through a bit of playful experimentation- even if the sighting was pure bliss.

I was hosting a photo workshop at Mashatu through my company C4 Images and Safaris and we had just spent the last hours of the day photographing a pack of African wild dogs in glorious sunlight. The scene was perfect, with the dogs awake, alert and at times very curious, walking to within a few feet of our vehicle- perhaps attracted to the sound of the clicking shutters, as all of us composed and photographed away.

After the sun had set, we watched the dog’s disappear into the mopane bush setting off on a fast trot. We drove off, content and happy and ready for a sundowner. It was here where we were chatting excitedly away about how stunning these dogs were to photograph when we noticed behind us, in an open plain some movement.

It was about 30 minutes after sun set, so the dusk was quite full, yet through it we saw 16 wild dogs trotting silently not 10 meters from us. They totally ignored us and trotted alertly past as we stood, stunned by the silence and the proximity of these charismatic creatures. I picked up my camera, aimed the lens and fired one frame. Being so dark, I knew the exposure would be long, so I just panned with the movement of the dog as it ran along.

This is the result. Probably not to everyone’s taste, but it brought back to me the same feeling as when I was there and the feeling of elation in seeing them so close and on foot. These ghosts of the dusk hour, shadowing through the bush portray to me a beautiful sense of movement and also reflect their conservation status, as they are critically endangered. To me it seemed a fitting metaphor.

It goes to show what playing around with a camera can produce- never a dull moment when you are prepared to push the boundaries and add another element to a scene.

Exposure information
Nikon D300 - 200-400mm
Exposure – f 4 Shutter Speed: 2 seconds
Exp. Comp. 0
ISO - 800
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 400mm
Handheld
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Improve Your Photography - Part 10, Aperture and Shutter Speed

For any control over the camera, one has to know how aperture and shutter speed combine to
create an exposure.
An aperture is defined as: The device that controls the amount of light entering a camera.
It controls the amount of light entering the camera through a circular diaphragm designed
blade.
The aperture opens in a circular manner. The wider the aperture, the more light it allows
through. And vice versa for when it is closed down.

Shutter speed: A shutter blade that allows light to enter the camera for a determined time.

Exposure:
Exposure is the resultant image that a camera produces once the shutter release is pressed. It
is the resultant image that comes from a combination of the shutter speed of the shutter and
how much light the aperture let through the diaphragm.
Aperture and shutter speed are the two controls a camera uses to make an exposure on the
film when you "take a picture". Shutter speed is the speed with which the camera's shutter opens when the picture is taken. It is the "click" you here when you push the button.

You probably have seen a dark picture or light pictures; these are illustrations of incorrect
exposures. With Compact cameras, these properties are most of the time beyond your control,
as the camera is working in “auto” mode. The more control you have over an image, the less
incorrect exposures you will have. We are lucky that cameras produce good results 95% of
the time- allowing us to enjoy our photography without worrying too much.
However, creative control comes with you controlling the camera, so your camera will have
to move off the “auto mode” and start working in Aperture” and “Shutter” Priority modes on
your camera.
These modes give you control over what aperture to use and how you can control the
resultant image, allowing extensive creative control.

Added to this equation is Depth of Field (DOP).

Aperture also controls Depth of field. The smaller the hole in the diaphragm; the greater the
DOP. The larger the hole in the Diaphragm; the narrower the DOP. We will cover this later,
for now lets look at shutter speed.

Things to consider when choosing a shutter speed:
There are some basic rules that we need to know:

• Most individuals cannot hold a camera steady (without blur in the photo) for anything
slower than 1/60 of a second.
• Subjects need to be extremely still/steady in order to not show motion/blur in the
image less than 1/60 sec
• Fast moving subjects tend to need shutter speeds of 1/250 of a second or faster into
order to freeze motion or prevent blur.
• The faster the subject, the faster the shutter speed needed
• Low levels of light limit one to a slow shutter speed
• High levels of light may limit one to fast shutter speed
• Thus for low light- one needs support to get a steady shot (or flash)
• For High light levels, can hand hold and good for action shots
ISO
Iso is the digital cameras sensitivity to light. As with film, and asa, iso is determined by an
increase in numbers. As each number doubles, so does the sensitivity of the sensor.
Ie: iso goes up as 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 etc
With each increase, the sensitivity of the sensor increases.
If all other factors were to remain constant and iso had to increase, then the shutter speed
would have to also increase. For each increase in iso, the shutter speed would halve. This is
due to the sensor being twice as sensitive to light (it needs half the amount of light to make an
image) and thus the shutter speed halves.
One problem with iso is that as it increases, so does images quality decrease. Thus it is almost
not worth taking photographs at iso’s above 800, unless you are going for a specific effect.

Conclusion
Shutter speed, aperture and iso go hand in hand in determining how your creativity. You need
to know how they affect one another and how you can use them to your advantage.

For more information on Photography courses and how to improve your photography see here.

All text copyright C4 Images and Safaris

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