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Elkhorn Slough - Review Image

now we got some finished images from melissa and doug that way yet she took I'm sure are there on this slow would like teo talk about those yeah sure but before we do that anyone who's interested in any of these trips just send us an e mail and we'll be happy to talk with you by telephone as well to see if one of these trips may be better for you than any other great stuff there let's take a look right listens images any moment now that is gorgeous stuff us our first encounter of it harbour seals and what we did differently there was we used a levee as camouflage we crept in our zodiac behind the levee so we were almost invisible and then very slowly he raised ourselves and you can see we were even closer here than the verve smithy you have it the other way a batch of seals I really liked the expressions here to curve it you're here too bad it's a little pinched off here on the right hand side but you take it as a count yeah if you want to use the quicker than you can okay I can advanc...

e him here sure I'll do that I hope you're pleased with this whole melissa yeah look at that perfect reflections perfect foreground very nice quiet background oh my look at this this three hundred millimeter lens yeah yeah yeah you did that very well I'm envious because you know actually your image is better than the one that I got yeah this gorgeous this was a young shell it was very curious came up to the boat swam around a couple of times and you know everything is picture perfect here like the reflection of like the ripples in the border no the curvature exposure everything is right there this too nice symmetry between those two birds yeah it's it feels a little pinched off here at the bottom I'm not saying that you you have to show the feet every time but I would have liked to have seen a little bit more maybe about this much here to about it nice yeah converted to black and white so that works to there wasn't much color in it and so when I looked at it once I got home on the computer I thought I think a black and white would work all right dr fell down melissa uh doug got a sea otter let me take a closer look from here oh that's beautiful sea otters are very difficult they're you know they look really cute but they're very dynamic there always rolling around so it's really difficult to get a position on them that that works and look this one's got a clam on this only stomach and he's hammering away at the clam in iraq so that's unusual doug you did that really well and it's not just tow otter that is good looking here look at that gorgeous background that is very nicely done nice dynamic moment here um everything is sharp in the foreground it's you you feels a little bit pinched off the right but that doesn't matter so much if you got this one sharp I like the body positions and uh in the other birds too wow wow I didn't even see that actually I must confess it did that sunday afternoon before the class oh okay well regardless that is really cool they do that all the time but to actually you capture it and against that background that is really good so this is probably a thousandth of a second third gear about because that's the only way to get it really crisp ideally I wish that bird would have been against a dark background because then it would have been even more graphic but you know you take it as it comes what I would do in lied room is kind of dark and that a little bit and dark and add a little bit and just kind of improved the graphic nature to background a bit waiting for that moment actually pulled their sunday sunday afternoon trying to find out what we're going to meet and the slough is right across the road from it I saw these splashing out there so I've got my stuff I went out there and there's two pelicans he spent about fifteen twenty minutes fishing so I just sat up and you set my stuff up in watching you captured the moment really well done and very lucky too fantastic congratulations on that any other questions for many the students on this particular segment yes barbara I noticed that there was quite a difference with the various lenses and camera bodies as faras riel sharpness of things could you explain some of the differences or how we can improve if we find maybe our lenses or possibly softer or is there anything we can do other than just getting a really high quality expensive lens so your goal is to achieve sharper pictures explain the difference between the lenses that were used in that particular group um yeah doug you save one hundred to four hundred millimeter cannon lands which is quite good but by its nature not quite a sharp as a fixed focal england's of the same of the same length so if your goal is ultimate sharpness ultimate optical quality you would opt over a fixed focal england's over zoom lands but the's one hundred four hundred millimeter lenses are so practical e could goto africa they just in eighty two four hundred millimeter lens him one or two converters so and to go to africa that only a four hundred millimeter lens would be a little risky but to do that do you need a better body so that you could have ah higher s o to compensate for the yes that's so so the quality of your image is a function both of the quality of the sensor and the quality of the optics and then of course there so you know how you treat both cameras and lenses and um yeah there is a there is a difference between the you're between a sensor of a of a nikon d eight on it which has an enormous file size or the sensor of a nikon d for which I can push all the way up to one hundred I hundred thousand eso and uh and the censor of a of a consumer model cameron a matter better it is a nikon or a cannon or any of the other makes uh yeah so my question is um not is that the sun on some images was really high and not quite the golden hour right ah is there a point of day when you're like ok I'm not taken any more pictures because the light is not right yeah because it was getting a little bit right there but the situation was still so good teo to the year we just carried on me I mean you've got seals and pelicans in front of you you've you just keep going but ideally in that situation I like to photograph here on our until one to two hours after some rice or I begin to photograph wanted two hours before sunset and I leave the middle of the day alone but of course everything changes when the fog rolls in follow up to that related to that is when do you choose to sort of break those rules so there are these rules or rules of thumb about you know the golden hour don't shoot into the sun for banacci prince whatever right there rules of thumb about what makes good photography uh and I'd love to hear an example from you one time where you sort of broke those rules and came up with something really interesting weaver in box one of it ah but a small group of photographers and they came upon a cheated of it uh three full grown cups right after some rice and the mother was really keen on hunting yeah it was clear that I have anything in a couple of days and she attempted a couple of hunts and missed and she was motivated and just didn't give up and after a couple of hours the uh you know we talked it over and he said who wants to go back to camp the good life has gone on and you know the possibility for getting high quality images that were beautifully lit were getting very limited but nobody want to go back to camp so we stayed out for thirteen hours and we stayed with them during the hard hours of today and you know we didn't get great images in the middle of the day but it was a really unique experience how many times in your life do you have the possibility to spend twelve hours video cheetah family so you know the way I look at these things is I balance you have being close to animals and being out in nature of it the peak moments for photography and so and sometimes you luck out and something interesting happens even when the light is and so good you never know in some of the shots she were drifting fairly close to the pelicans is there any way to minimize the shutter noise and avoid attracting their attention I I don't think that the shutters air bothering the birds they they were very relaxed and as you could hear from my commentary that was constantly observing better davor reacting to us and you know that I have certain vice to let you know about that they begin to you on that begin to stretch they defecate and then boom they're off and I didn't see any of that so and other animals can be more bothered by the click of a shutter down yeah than these pelicans are so had an interesting discussion that doug uh he asked the question before the lunch break about pronghorn antelopes that he found were reacting to the auto focus mechanism of his lens and yeah I haven't experienced that myself but I do know that from horns can be very very skittish the best thing I can say is just be really sensitive on dh minimize of impact so that you have sustainable encounters what do you do when it maybe goes wrong and everything isn't going your way what is your focus become in that do you go back to a technique and then try toe progress oh then you mean then technically and an aesthetically it isn't working out yeah not everything works out as beautifully yes as it did during that field trip sometimes the light isn't working sometimes I'm not inspired and I try certain things and ultimately I give up I go back home go back to camp you know question is also about breaking rules which is interesting because that one fear was asking do you subconsciously think about the rule of thirds and framing your subjects to lead the eye into the photo off your subject and the ice man was saying I notice that the harbour seal shop seems to be composed using something other than the rule of thirds do you have any comments on the rule of first is it something you follow uh the rule of thirds notice I didn't use that term and I spoke about composition because it seems like such a dogma and I believe that for every rule that somebody khun citing composition I can show you some images that break that rule and they are gorgeous however it is an interesting principle to keep in mind the rule of thirds of the first two you know dealing that your subject in a way that the predominant ah subject lines are here or here or in a vertical arrangement as well yeah that could help but you know if you have a serene subject yeah I argued that you may want to keep the horizon right in the middle if you want to express symmetry obviously you need to break that rule of thirds so it all depends on your subject and your particular perspective question question you were talking earlier about lenses and how fast or how slow they are innate lee so if you had a slower lens that you were using the say the one to four hundred and then you had a choice of camera bodies and you were trying to travel light so you only wanted one camera body would you then choose the body that would be better in low light situations or would you choose the body that has a tendency to be faster oi it's all a question of budget ultimately right yeah how much can you afford to pay for your room for your camera and and your lens on I have a little bit of a difficult time answering because it comes down to specifics you know which camera and which lens and what is it that you like to do