I got back from Madagascar a while back, but my days have been filled with too much university work to bear editing down the healthy selection of pictures. Finally had a bit of time to do so, so here are 3 of the best, in what is becoming my favourite aspect ratio, 2.35:1… The way these images merge into the black background is entirely unintentional, but quite welcome!
I’ve just upgraded my portfolio from the old, flickr-based clunky one to a new dedicated site running on Cargo. Cargo is a really neat CMS that seems built for stylishly showing photos, videos and whatever else, and you can get an account for free and upgrade it to your own custom URL whenever. Mine is here, and linked above (under “Portfolios”). There’s a whole lot of new material, and even some videos.
As usual, hit me up if you find any problems! Flickr seems a bit boring now….
A few weeks back I started out in the realm of film photography, inspired by Olivia Bee, Nick Brandt and others. I am currently using two 35mm cameras: a Praktica L2 and an Olympus XA1. They complement each other very nicely: whilst the Praktica gives great control with a 50 2.8 lens, the Olympus is simple to use and will fit in a pocket – so you can pull it out and take a picture quickly, without having to worry about settings. This is nice, as the Praktica lacks a meter so I am using a combination of guesswork and a vintage Weston lightmeter (a photo of which can be seen below). All of this camera equipment has been passed down through my family, so there is the significant sentimental value attached to it as well.
Film-wise, I’ve been very satisfied to learn of Jessops’ free film policy – for £4.50ish, you can get a roll of 135 36exp. film developed, prints made and a free roll of film given out, effectively meaning you don’t have to buy any film. Compared to other chains’ offerings I was very surprised, and they’ve made the film photography habit affordable! One day I would love to shoot some Portra, but for now the Fujicolour C200 they give out works just fine.
I won’t wax lyrical about why I’m shooting film, but suffice to say the tonal qualities combined with the lenses and grain give it a very refreshing look amongst the 12,000 other digital pictures I have made over the years. Perhaps my favourite aspect is the way colour film responds differently to different types of light – digital comes nowhere near in this respect. Overcast and rainy days give film a soft, cool feel, whereas the last rays of sun of an evening will give you the vintage look that is impossible to emulate with digital.
Anyhow, below are my first two rolls. 6 Olympus images, and then 5 from the Praktica, trippy light-leaks included. Some of the images are two-ups, as I’ve scanned prints.
A long overdue post of my photos from a trip to Uganda over the Christmas holidays. It was mindblowing – so much diversity, and in a short trip the number of animals and birds we saw was amazing.
The photos below are a few of my favourites. Please click them to enlarge.
If you’re looking for advice on a trip there yourself, I’ll quote my reply to a thread on naturescapes.net:
I took: D300s, D300, ~70gb of CF storage, 400 2.8 AFI, 70-300 4.5-5.6 (old non-vr version, borrowed), 50 1.4, 10-20, 18-135 as backup – all in a Tamron 8x backpack, carried everything fine, with a Gitzo monopod for support.
Looking back at it, that was just about the ideal setup. Laptops are unnecessary unless you have very little card space (<40gb)/shoot a lot (I shot 800 pics in an hour gorilla tracking, you may be able to rack up something like that per day of “normal” shooting”/have some extra space in your bag (unlikely).
Taking two bodies is highly recommended – it is super-useful for gorillas as you only have an hour with them, and both you and they move around a lot so changing lenses and missing great moments hurts. It’s also a bonus to have the peace of mind of redundancy when you’ve spent so much time/money on this trip.
For gorillas, speed of lenses is vital – I missed a trick not borrowing/renting a faster 70-xxx….even at ISO3200 on the D300s, I was getting 1/30th at 200mm, which is difficult to brace at…monopods and tripods are allowed close to the gorillas if you tell the rangers that they are essential camera support, contrary to what I thought before I went out there. Weight wise, there are porters available for £10/day, which about 60% of our party went for, (I was the only photographer carrying much kit), even the people with 10litre backpacks. It helps the community, etc. etc., and they are lovely and very strong, even with the 2.5hrs of torrential rain we had to trek through on the way back! Oh yes, make sure you have waterproof covers for cameras/bags…..
I didn’t take a macro lens, and didn’t really miss it at all. For gorillas/chimps the slow af would have been a real pain – the 70-300 and 50 1.4 combo on each body worked very well, and I switched up to the 50 a lot for that bit of extra speed.
For shooting in QENP and similiar safari areas, I used the 400 exclusively. It’s just about right for focal length on DX (maybe slightly too tight for full body large mammal shots but great for head/head+shoulder shots). Support came from a sturdy gitzo monopod that I use a lot – once the engine is turned off in the bus and the roof is popped open, monopod are great for easy to move around quickly, stable support that doesn’t take up too much space. I rested it on a chair which worked good. A beanbag would have been helpful, but our bus had weird bars for luggage that would have meant I’d have needed a massive one to support the hulking 400. The 200-500 will be very good for safari-style shooting – the extra 100mm at the end will help a lot for far away leopard and lions in trees. If you get lucky you’ll see lions close in trees, and you’ll be able to fill the frame very well.
As mentioned previously, the Kazinga channel boat trip is mindblowing – animals and birds everywhere and great options for photos. The crew are very knowledgeable and have great eyesight – definitely not one to miss. When we went there was also a banded mongoose family (~30 individuals) up at the top, near the booking office and hotel. They made some great photos in the 2 minutes we had there……
In terms of storage, I got through about 30-35gb in the 10 days I was there. However that was only about 5 days “hard shooting”, with lots and lots of transport in the days inbetween where I would take a couple of photos out the windows to remind myself how bumpy the suspension was, and then put the kit away. Even if you do see something, at 50kmh the bus is well past it and the bird has flow before you can get the big glass out. Take a laptop if you have some spare space, but don’t struggle to fit it in – electricity is a rare thing out there (along with cold or hot water etc..). The only plug I did find electrocuted me, so be careful!
I spent part of this past Christmas on a week-long trip to Uganda, seeing mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, big game and a lot more. It was wonderful, and I extend lots of thanks to the other people on the trip who made it so enjoyable. A lot more information about this and the best of the 3002 photos I took are still to come, but in the meantime here’s an image of the rare tree-climbing lions of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Only a handful wild lions show this habit, and we were lucky enough to see 3 females, including this lovely one.
For my first review on this blog, I’m going to talk about the G-Drive Mini drives, in 500gb size. These are great drives for photography and video work – read on to see why they are so suitable for these applications, lots of pictures, and a few thoughts about alternatives.
2 Mini drives stacked
For those of you who don’t live in the UK, we’ve had the rare event of some snow in London over the past day or so. It’s due to continue into next week as well, and despite causing transport chaos it provides some great photo opportunities. I headed out today with the D300 and 18-135 combo as a do-it-all light photo kit for a couple of hours to my nearest park.
Making Snowmen...
Smaller Snowmen...
Finally I can reveal a project I’ve been working on along with several other guys for the past month or so! Carrying on from my previous exploits with CreativeChaos, the production company I am 0.25 of, I’ve been working on a music video with the fab band Kayote, and more specifically their great tune Chlamydia Rainbows. The video’s below, check it out:
Filmed in a studio and in locations near us, the video tells a story of former lovers meeting. All shot on DSLR’s, cut and edited on Final Cut. Audio synced up manually, which took a while! If you like it see the other videos on the channel, and learn a bit more about the people behind it here.
This morning Tom Lowe (or Timescapes as he is usually known) put out a great new trailer of his epic mostly-timelapse movie filmed in the US. Hit the vimeo link to see even more about the movie and his eventual release, hopefully at 3k resolution 
For more, be sure to check out his blog, with loads of detail on production, locations, and more.
Found this on the internet this morning via Mark Rebilas’ Blog, pretty good video although it’s a shame there’s not a “moment of impact” video!
Be sure to check out his post over at Mark J. Rebilas Blog.
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