Thanks Everyone!

Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200mm, f/3.5, 1/40 sec., ISO 800

I want to say a huge ‘thank you’ to all the people who came to the Compassion Gallery launch at Coopersmith’s in downtown Fort Collins on Friday evening. We had a great turn out with over 40 people! I appreciate everyone’s support and interest in seeing my photos on display.

If you missed the opening, don’t worry. The photos will continue to be on display at Coopersmith’s through April 7th 2010. The show consists of 14 archival prints (8 black & white and 6 color) of African wildlife and Maasai tribal people that were taken during my recent trip to Tanzania. As always, 50% of every sale at Coopersmith’s and online is donated directly to CURE International.

Introducing Compassion Gallery

I’m proud to announce the official launch of Compassion Gallery which is a website where people can buy high quality prints of my photographs and 50 % of each sale is donated to charity. This venture was born out of my love for photography and my desire to help people in need around the world.

Currently, proceeds from print sales are going to Cure International. CURE focuses on the 125 million children in developing countries who can be cured — and cured completely. They help kids with Hydrocephalus, Cleft Palate, Clubfoot, spinal deformities, and crippling orthopedic conditions. If these conditions go untreated, they seriously limit a child’s ability to play, go to school and become a productive member of the community. By correcting their disabilities, CURE is able to bring hope and joy back to their lives and enable them to led fully functioning lives. CURE has seen 1 million patients and performed 70,000 life-transforming surgeries.

Each photograph on Compassion Gallery is printed in my studio with the absolute highest standards of quality. I use the latest pigment ink printing technology on the best cotton rag paper (Museo Silver Rag) and sign the back of each print in pencil. Several proofs are made prior to the finals to ensure the very best in color accuracy, tonal value and sharpness. Every print is made with archival materials and, if cared for properly, should easily last a lifetime.

Please visit Compassion Gallery today. When you make a purchase, you’ll not only be getting a stunning photograph to decorate your home or office, you’ll also be directly impacting a child’s health and well being somewhere in the world.

Photo of the Day

Ice Crystals in the Window - Nikon D300, Nikon 35mm f/2, 1/3200 sec., ISO 200

It was 11 degrees below zero (fahrenheit) when I got up to go to work this morning. There were these cool ice crystals on the window at work and fortunately I had my camera with me.

Image Quality in the Digital Age

Ke'e Beach, Kaua'i - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo & 3 stop grad ND, f/16, 1/6 sec. ISO 200

I’m a perfectionist when it comes to image quality. Like most photographers, I love getting the sharpest, smoothest images with the highest resolution and dynamic range that I possibly can. Recently though, I’ve started wondering if the whole photography industry might be a little too caught up with digital image quality. As a little Christmas present to myself this year, I picked up a nice coffee table book of Galen Rowell’s photography. I am surprised at what I see in his images. There is graininess, motion blur and focus errors in a surprising number of his photos. It’s not isolated to Galen’s work either. The same flaws are present in a National Geographic retrospective book that I looked at with photos from dozens of different photographers. Here’s the question I have to ask myself. Do these technical image quality flaws subtract from the awesomeness of the work in those books? Absolutely not.

I’m guessing that the vast majority of people who enjoy Galen Rowell or National Geographic don’t even notice those technical errors, so long as they are not photographers themselves. I think they are more impressed with the subject matter, lighting and composition of a photograph. This is a huge relief for me. There are countless wonderful images that I have grievingly cast into digital purgatory because they have a slight technical flaw. I have been taught how to look for these flaws by the countless camera review websites and photography blogs out there. People on these sites routinely discuss the sharpness of their photo prints when viewed under a loupe. Really? A loupe? When you have a gallery show, do you hand out loupes to all the visitors? The camera manufacturers love this because the inevitable conclusion to all our problems is always to buy more expensive gear. Are the corners of your images a little soft? Well then you need a “pro” lens. Are you making prints of your photos? Certainly nothing less than the highest resolution digital camera available will suffice. What’s interesting is that the personal work of most of the camera reviewers out there is artistically mediocre at best. But darn it, their images are “tack sharp.”

There are extremes in every debate. The infamous Ken Rockwell would try to convince us that he’d give up his digital SLRs and just shoot with the camera on an iPhone, but he’s too cheap to actually buy one. Gimme a break. Of course your camera matters and you should do everything you can to avoid blur, focus on the right spot and expose correctly. But seeing what Galen Rowell and the folks at Nat Geo accepted as good enough gives me a new perspective on how to judge acceptable vs. unacceptable quality in my own images. I can only hope to be as adventurous and creatively brilliant as the photographers on my coffee table, but it’s nice to know that technical perfection takes a back seat to more important aesthetic considerations.

Looking back on 2009

In looking back on the 2009, I realize that I’ve been extremely fortunate to travel to so many different locations around the globe. This year alone I took over 6400 photos in Tanzania, Hawaii, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. I would be thankful for an itinerary like that any year, but the economic turmoil of 2009 has given me a new level of appreciation for a stable job at a great company and the ability to get out and see the world.

Here are some images that I’ve never shown from each of the locations I’ve traveled to this year. Most of these got lost in the digital shuffle of thousands of images on my hard drives or ended up on the cutting room floor because there were better images I wanted to share. In any case, I’m glad I’ve rediscovered them as they help keep the great memories of this year fresh in my mind.

Kalalau Valley, Kaua'i - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo & grad ND, f/16, 1/6 sec., ISO 200

A Storm Approaches, Utah - Nikon D40 (converted for infrared), Nikon 18-200, f/16, 1/125 sec., ISO 720

Multnomah Falls, Oregon - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, f/18, 1/6 sec., ISO 200

Aspens, Rocky Mountain National Park - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo, f/16, 1/10 sec., ISO 200

Wildebeest Fighting - Nikon D300, Nikon 200-400 f/4 VR, Nikon TC-14E, f/8, 1/500 sec., ISO 200

First Winter Trek

Coyote - Nikon D300, 18-200mm, f/5.6, 1/200, ISO 200

This morning I set out to take photos in Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time this winter. I wasn’t expecting to get any great landscape photos because I was more interested in testing out my winter gear and my own perseverance. I arrived at the Bierstadt Lake trailhead well before sunrise and I immediately noticed how little snow there was in RMNP. I had fully expected to use my snow shoes, but the trail was mostly barren. That didn’t stop it from being cold and windy, though. I don’t know what the temperature was, but IF it was above 0 F it wasn’t by much. Within minutes of being on the trial, the water in the tube that runs to the bladder in my backpack froze solid. I’ll definitely have to figure out how to solve that problem before I attempt longer winter hikes. I also think that I will need to strictly limit the amount of camera equipment I carry. It’s nice to have every lens and filter with me so that I can adapt to changing conditions, but winter hiking adds a lot of other gear like snow shoes, poles, ice axe and all the extra clothing. I need to pull a Galen Rowell and hike with only what I absolutely need. A carbon fiber tripod would be nice too!!

Aspirations of becoming road kill - Nikon D300, 18-200mm, f/5.6, 1/125, ISO 200

With the lack of snow and dull sunrise this morning, I didn’t even take out my camera on my hike. But the day still had something in store for me. As I was driving back down through the park, I spotted a pack of Coyotes. They were headed someplace and stayed close to the road for a few miles. In fact, they walked ON the road for much of the way. Good thing it was still very early and there were no cars. I quickly grabbed my camera which was sealed in a zip lock bag warming up after my frigid hike (this helps to prevent damaging condensation). Of course, all the settings on the camera were set for landscape photography, not wildlife photography. In the excitement of the moment, I didn’t think to change the settings so a lot of the photos didn’t turn out so great, but I think it was more fun just seeing them. There’s always something special about seeing wildlife in their natural habitat.

Coyote Stretching - Nikon D300, 18-200mm, f/5.6, 1/1600, ISO 200

Coyote Playing - Nikon D300, 18-200mm, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 200

The Impossible Safari Shot

Lion Pride - Nikon D300, Nikon 200-400mm, f/14, 1/125, ISO 200

The above photo represents a depth of field challenge. This shot was taken this past January on a safari in Tanzania with my Nikon D300 and a Nikon 200-400mm f/4 VR lens. Our guide got us as close as he could without disturbing the animals, but I still needed the telephoto lens to get closer. My hopes of getting all, or at least most of the lions in focus were dashed when I realized how shallow the plane of focus is on a telephoto lens like the 200-400mm.

The first thing that came to mind was to stop down to f/11, f/16, or even f/22  in order to increase my depth of field and get the lions in focus. That causes the shutter speed to slow significantly, however. A general rule of thumb for big telephoto lenses is that you want to shoot at a shutter speed at least twice that of the focal length you’re using. This helps to avoid motion blur caused by vibrations in the lens. The shot above was taken at 280mm, so that means I should’ve been shooting at least 1/560 sec. But f/14 yielded a shutter speed of 1/125 sec which is dangerously slow for a big lens, especially since I was only resting the lens on a bean bag on the roof of our Land Cruiser. I suppose I could’ve increased my ISO to get a faster shutter speed and still have a small aperture, but I’m a snob. I want the best quality I can get out of my camera and I resist raising ISO unless I absolutely have to.

100% enlargement

The truth is, there was no way to get all the lions in focus even at f/22. This was one of the biggest lessons I learned about photography while in Africa. Although I wish I could’ve captured all these lions together in focus, the next time I’m fortunate to come upon a scene like this I’ll look for creative ways to work with the shallow depth of field of my telephoto lens. I’m sure you’ll agree that getting closer to my subject was not a really an option in this case!

Photo of the Day

Ke'e Beach Trees - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Color Combo, f/16, 1.3sec, ISO 200

While I was waiting for the sun to go down at Ke’e Beach on Kaua’i, I snapped this before I had to hustle into position to get the sunset. Nothing spectacular, but I couldn’t resist the evening light on the interesting trees. It’s amazing I didn’t get any chickens in this shot because they were everywhere. Apparently, the last hurricane to hit Kaua’i (’Iniki in 1992), freed all the chickens from their pens, and now they live wild all over the island.

Photo of the Day

Ho'opi'i Falls, Kaua'i - Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm, Singh-Ray Vari-N-Duo, Singh-Ray 2-stop GND, f/18, 1/3 sec. ISO 200

It’s snowing like crazy in Colorado right now, so I thought I’d post a Hawaii image. This is Ho’opi’i Falls on Kaua’i…or is it? There is debate as to whether these falls go by that name, or the next falls up-stream. In either case, it’s a beautiful hike to get in there. This location claimed the life of my brother’s Manfrotto tripod and almost took his D700 with 24-70mm lens too!

Which lenses to take to Africa

Young Male Lion - Nikon D300, Nikon 200-400mm, f/8, 1/800, ISO 200

Ever since I returned from Africa earlier this year, I’ve been wanting to analyze the EXIF data of my photos and figure out which lenses I shot most. I’m interested in seeing if it was really necessary to haul the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 lens on the safari. The 200-400 is truly an excellent lens, but it’s a pig and I grew tired of carrying it. It’s also a little unnerving traveling with a $5500 piece of glass (I rented!). There’s no question that I needed the reach of 400mm, but did I need the constant f/4 aperture? Would a smaller, lighter lens like the Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 work just as well? Below is a chart of how many shots I took with each lens I brought on the trip and which apertures I used. I didn’t bother breaking out f-stops below f/5.6 since that’s usually the maximum for most variable aperture lenses like the 80-400mm.

I am really not surprised that the overwhelming majority of my photos were shot at smaller apertures than f/5.6. I think there are a couple of reasons for this. First, we really weren’t in that many low light situations. Tanzania’s National Parks typically close around 6 or 7 PM and you must be out by then, or you risk being fined. Secondly, the focus plane of big telephoto lenses is extremely shallow. If you’re taking a picture of a lion at f/4 with a 400mm lens, you’re likely to get his nose in sharp focus, but the rest of his face out of focus. This becomes even more of an issue when there are multiple animals. One afternoon we came upon a pride of 13 lions all sitting together. It was totally impossible to get them all in focus even at the smallest apertures and highest ISOs.

So could a smaller, variable aperture lens like the Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 replace the big 200-400mm on a safari? If I was going on an African safari tomorrow (I wish!) I would still take the 200-400. The 80-400’s biggest drawback is that it doesn’t have the internal focusing motor that Nikon’s more modern lenses have. This makes it slow to focus. In Africa, you typically need very fast autofocus to track moving animals. The 200-400mm focuses very quickly because it has the AF-S motor. But there are rumors that Nikon may soon update the 80-400 to include fast autofocus. The current word on the street is that the 80-400 may be replaced with a lens in the 100-500mm range (I have no insider info). If that lens is real and has the excellent optics of the 80-400, I could definitely see it going on my next safari in place of the 200-400. For the time being, though, the best safari lens combo (for Nikon) is the 70-200 and the 200-400.