Technique - Kaleel Zibe

ANIMAL PORTRAITS

Kaleel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:43:47 +0000

Look this way big fella! It’s like herding cats…

I tend to think of wildlife portraits as finding the essence of an animal. Just like human portraits, taking animal portraits follows a lot of the same rules with a few major differences. Whilst you’ll have the advantage of not having to worry about hair styling, wardrobe and makeup, you’ll spend a lot of time waiting for just the right moment to actually take a shot. Never work with animals or children they say. And they’d be right: children can be extremely unpredictable and uncooperative. Not all the time of course. But animals – in particular wildlife – well that’s even worse: you have very little chance to direct the shot. And they might not even turn up. If that lion doesn’t look at you, you can’t take a full face portrait with him looking right at you. Luckily, some animals are curious to see what has just stopped in front of them, like giraffes for example. But be quick. If you’re in a safari vehicle, you should have your camera ready for the shot before you stop. The animals are most interested in you at the point you arrive. After that (if they haven’t scarpered) they’ll often lose interest and never look at you again. Often though, animals keep a constant look-out and will turn to look in different directions repeatedly on the lookout. Even predators do this, so their kills don’t get stolen. Try to catch the animal looking directly at you if possible.

Giraffes are curious creatures and will often stand and stare, as long as you don’t spook them

Luck plays a big part. But as with anything else, it’s possible to ‘refine’ luck by shortening the odds. Do your homework and find out when the animals are likely to be around. Go with a guide, or someone who knows the animals to increase your chances. There are times when certain animals don’t do much: lions are a great example! If you turn up at midday, they’ll be asleep. Find them at dawn or dusk and you’ll see them utterly transformed.

When is the best light? Usually golden hour is best, not just because it’s a lovely colour, but also because the light comes in at more of an angle and creates a more 3D effect. Or it might create back-light for extra drama. All is not lost if the light isn’t great though: often, converting to black and white and carefully processing the image can make a great image.

Gorillas are fantastic subjects for portraits. They’re playful, intelligent, wistful and most of the other things that humans are. They also work very well in black and white

Ok, so let’s talk technical stuff. In order to create a powerful connection with the animal, and so that you can show something of its character, you’ll have to decide how close to get. Most portraits work best when the animal is dominant in the frame. This is also a time when the rule of thirds doesn’t so much need to be used for the placement of the whole animal, as certain strong features of that animal. Think eyes on a thirds, or a hand on crossing thirds for example. Consider this portrait of a cheetah. Two of the signature features of cheetahs are the black ‘tear’ lines down each side of the nose, and those wonderful eyes. If you photograph the cheetah so that it’s small in the scene, those features won’t have much impact. So, zoom in with a long lens and make sure the eyes in particular are sharp. You’ll notice with the gorilla above that just one sharp eye works really well too. Zero sharp eyes doesn’t work, however! Speaking of sharpness, use as fast a shutter speed as you can get away with. If there’s not much light, crank up the ISO and use a beanbag or tripod. I know visual noise is undesirable, but sometimes a little noise is acceptable and is easily removable afterwards.

Close-up of a cheetah’s face: orange eyes and black tears. You can also see that it has just made a kill

Separating the animal from the background is a good way to make it stand out. Try to use a shallow depth of field: as wide as you can go with the aperture. Be aware that any long noses may be out of focus if you’re at a really wide aperture, even if the eyes are in focus. In the world of lenses, I’m afraid long, fast lenses really do make a difference – and cost a whole pile of cash. Not only will you get closer in, but the quality of the shot will be better: sharpness, background blur (bokeh), contrast and lack of aberrations. It’s often the lens that’s more important than the camera. My sweetest lens was a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 and it cost an arm and a leg. I still haven’t replaced it since moving to Sony, but the intention is there.

This post isn’t all about African mammals (although when in Africa, they are significantly easier to spot than UK wildlife!) I like to call this photo ‘Windy Day”. Red squirrels have delightful ear tufts in the winter. The tufts are part of what makes a red squirrel a red squirrel

As for post-processing, I like to do quite a bit to make sure the image really pops from the screen. As well as the usual exposure, white balance and so on, I usually add a bit more contrast, draw down the blacks and push up the whites and sharpen a bit more than I’d normally do. Also a touch of clarity and maybe a vignette or radial exposure filter with some dodging and burning. I realise that if you don’t know what these terms mean, this all may be a bit much to hear. It’s just to explain that my style is to perform quite a few tweaks to the image afterwards. Not always, but usually. And not always lots: usually subtlety is the best.

In this buffalo image, I’ve really gone to town with quite a bit of post processing. I felt it warranted the adjustments.

Whereas with this young chacma baboon in Botswana, I didn’t really want to do much, other than lift the shadows to balance the foreground lighting a bit

It’s worth pulling back a little sometimes and not cropping in too much. Whereas the cheetah’s face warranted a long lens and some cropping in post, the baboon above looked like it needed to a bit more space. It’s a portrait in its environment. The photo is still simple enough and the animal is the main subject, but there’s a little of its environment included, which I think enhanced the portrait.

Primates are great at showing emotion. Often an animal doesn’t have to look directly at you for a portrait to work. Make sure you leave some space for the gaze to carry on through some negative space

Or break the gaze rule! The profile of this lion portrait works, perhaps because of the line his body creates a strong shape in the frame. It’s less about the direction of his gaze than a graphical triangular shape in the photograph. NB I’ve used some split toning here to modify the monochrome colours

Some strong dodging and burning isolate this face of this beautiful lioness

I often photograph elephants close up to show the texture of their skin. But here, I’ve come out a bit wider to put the elephant in a little context. It’s still an elephant portrait though

And hey, if the wildlife won’t wake up, sleeping photos can be very restful. Use the same techniques to get in close so you capture the facial expression

Yep, a lion lyin’ around. They do a lot of that

Total transformation: piles of snoozing midday fur wake up in the early evening to switch into scary hunter mode

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THE BEAUTY OF BACK-LIGHT

Kaleel — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 14:19:31 +0000

A rufous-tailed hummingbird in Costa Rica

Back-light is, as you might expect, where the light on the subject is predominantly from behind. What this does is produce a dramatic effect, outlining the subject in rim light. All the more stunning if that light is warm in colour and there is some detail in the subject, like fur or feathers to make an interesting outline, or where the light can shine through those feathers or fur.

A bellowing red deer stag in Studley Royal deer park, Ripon, UK

Camera exposure is important, as you’ll have to capture a wide dynamic range. Shooting in raw will give you the best quality to work with, as you may have to brighten the foreground shadows in post production whilst keeping the highlights where they are. Typically you’ll expose for the bright back-light and make sure those bright parts are on the right hand side of your histogram. Cameras vary greatly in their dynamic range capabilities and the smaller the dynamic range, the less able the camera is to record everything from dark to bright and all in between. The reason I say that you should expose for the highlights is that there’s more data stored in those highlights. Even if the photograph looks a little too bright, you can darken the image later and retain more dynamic range than if you shot with a lower exposure. Just make sure you don’t blow the highlights out so that the brightest pixels fall just within the right hand end of the histogram.

Plains zebra running in the Maasai Mara, Kenya

In the zebra image above, the brightest parts of the photograph are where the sun is behind the zebras’ manes and on their hooves. These pixels will be at the right hand edge of the histogram. Make sure they’re almost but not quite white.

Exposing for the highlights with back lighting often ends up with silhouettes, or near-silhouettes. If you don’t want this effect, you can provide some fill light in the form of flash, or a bounce card. This isn’t always practical for wildlife, and sometimes it isn’t ethical if it would compromise the sight of the animal. I’ll do a separate blog on flash with wildlife, but it’s a very useful tool that’s often overlooked.

Fallow deer at Studley Royal

If flash isn’t an option and you have an image which you’ve exposed perfectly for the highlights with back-light, but the foreground is too dark, all is not lost – as long as you’ve shot in RAW. I was reminded of this when submitting some tropical bird photos to the RSPB’s image library yesterday, where the back light was often very strong. With a RAW image, you can boost the shadows quite a bit in post production without introducing blockiness or noise. This has the effect of balancing out the dynamic range in the image to be more what the eye can see. Very few cameras can match the range of the human eye, so RAW shooting is definitely your friend here. I’ll do an article about when and how to boost shadows in the future. The image of fallow deer above was shot with the highlights at the right hand end of the histogram and the foreground shadows needed lifting to balance the photograph.

If you have warm sunshine, particularly at dawn and dusk, the camera’s white balance (if on auto) will often assume the scene is a lot cooler than it actually is. You can counteract this by setting a warmer white balance of cloudy or even shade. Occasionally it may have to go beyond this. The best method is to shoot in raw and choose the white balance that matched what you saw in post production. The following image was taken at dawn and the colours really were that orange. I had to dial the colour temperature in to Lightroom afterwards to match what I saw.

Ultra runners near Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, UK

Similarly with this robin, I had to make sure the white balance matched the strong warm colours. Sometimes it will be necessary to boost vibrance and/or saturation to really bring out the colours, too.

A robin in our garden, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

Interestingly with this robin image, you’ll also notice the strong lens flare and out of focus blurring of direct sunlight into the lens. It can be quite a creative thing to harness, although be careful when looking directly at strong sunlight through your camera, as you could damage your eyes and the camera’s sensor.

I’ll round this post off with three more images which show the use of lovely warm back light: firstly a rim-lit wildebeest (its beard works perfectly for back-light), then a short-eared owl (the lovely evening back-light is when these crepuscular predators hunt) and lastly dawn in Kielder Forest (the back-light coming through the trees and other foliage makes the image so much more interesting than if it had been shot with the sun behind).

A lone wildbeest, Maasai Mara, Kenya

A short-eared owl hunting in the evening light, Northumberland, UK

Kielder Forest in December, Northumberland, UK

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TEXTURE

Kaleel — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 15:00:28 +0000

I don’t know how other photographers describe texture, but I always think of it as visually representing what you would feel if you reached into the photograph and touched the surface of the subject. By the way, don’t do this to an elephant!

Speaking of elephants, they’re one of the best subjects for showing texture in photographs due to their endlessly fascinating skin, particularly of the trunk. If you click the images to make them full size, you can see the rough texture. Making sure the texture detail stand out is a way to make the photograph more engaging and intimate.

It’s not just elephants that have interesting texture though. Following are a grey seal (feel the texture of the whiskers, the sand and the fur), a close-up of a leaf (the veins are so intricate and beg to be touched) a lioness hunting (if she wasn’t searching for breakfast, it would be lovely to run your hands through the grasses), and a crossbill in an evergreen (again, I just want to run my fingers through the soft needles)

To really home in on texture, it’s often worth cropping into the region that has most physical interest and increasing the contrast, sharpness and perhaps clarity in post-production. This brings out the edges in more detail. Often, it’s worth converting to black and white to concentrate the eye on the texture in the image.

Let’s go back to elephants for the last couple of images. They really are the kings of texture!

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STUNNING SUNSETS

Kaleel — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 14:00:30 +0000

There’s something incredibly evocative about the colours at sunset and sunrise. (In fact, I wrote a whole article a while ago about it for Landscape Photography Magazine)

In this blog post, I’ve collected a few thoughts about what I look for when creating a good sunset image.

In most cases, simply shooting an orange sky by itself is boring. Nice colours, and all, but boring. The thing that really makes it interesting is having some shapes in the frame. Whether that’s trees, buildings, clouds, animals – it’s up to you. Usually, at sunset, it’s getting pretty dark, so any shapes that are in the scene are dark and end up more or less silhouetted. Actually, this is perfect: what you’re looking for here is simple graphical shapes that look interesting against a sunset sky. So, a gnarled tree, or a line of giraffes is perfect.

Speaking of gnarled trees and giraffes, here’s one from Kenya:

Practically speaking, what you’ll probably have to do is push the white balance on your camera to the warmer end – usually warmer than the camera is likely to set by itself. The best settings are if you shoot in raw and expose for the highlights, i.e. the brightest part of the sky. Be careful not to expose for the sun if it’s in the frame though. Partly you could damage your camera’s sensor if pointing directly at the sun and partly because the sun will always be a burnt out highlight. So, get a nice bright exposure with your histogram biased to the right hand side, but so that the brightest part of the sky (except for the sun) is near the right hand end of the graph.

What this does is records the greatest amount of data available so you can adjust things in post-processing. Speaking of post-processing, don’t be scared to warm the white balance up and push the vibrance / saturation until the shot fizzes.

Using this technique of exposing for the highlights, this image of a storm cloud late one evening in France is very dynamic:

Mixing things up a bit, here are two urban images. The first is of the Angel of the North in Gateshead. The orange sky is actually a long exposure of streetlights reflected against the cloudy sky. The powerful shape of the Angel cutting through the frame makes the shot interesting. Secondly, there’s a shot of the Millennium Bridge on the Tyne. The colours here are gentler, but again, the shapes of the bridges and The Sage make the photograph worth taking.

Back to Kenya for a couple of evocative wildlife images – elephants then antelope and trees. With both of these, I’ve used the animals in silhouette against the sky to give a relaxing but graphically interesting photo.

It’s worth experimenting with sunsets and looking for animals or birds if they’re around. You don’t have to include the land in the shot if there’s enough interest in the sky. The next photo is of a flock of curlews flying past one evening. You know they’re curlews because they have curved bills. The simplicity of a silhouette nicely captures that against the sky.

Lastly, I’ll sign off with some UK images: again silhouettes but using the interesting shapes of the wildlife in their environment to create pleasing photos. The first is a roebuck at Studley Royal deer park in Yorkshire and the second is a jackdaw on a church roof next to where we used to live in Ryton.

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CHIAROSCURO

Kaleel — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 17:00:54 +0000

“What’s that?” I hear you say. Chiaroscuro is an Italian word which literally means “bright-dark”. It’s an artistic term used to describe the use of strong contrasts between light and dark areas to enhance the 3D modelling of the subject and create drama.

And I love it!

If you’re after a dramatic finish to a photograph, look no further. The technique used here is to selectively darken and lighten parts of the photograph to make a high contrast result that really pops.

And here’s the original image. To some, this might seem like cheating. The final photograph is obviously very processed. To me, it’s just art. As long as I’m not trying to pass this off as an untouched image, it’s just my artistic take on what I see when I look at this photograph. I see the texture of the animal’s horns, skin and hair and the contrasty treatment brings those out, along with some sharpening. I also see buffalo as dangerous, edgy, cantankerous creatures and post-processing the image this way emphasises those characteristics.

It would be a rare thing indeed to find wildlife in just the perfect lighting conditions, so photographers often use some post-processing license to make what they’ve taken into a piece of art. In fact, I regard post-production as about half the effort of taking and making a photograph.

I started in Lightroom by cropping into the section of the image I thought had most impact. For me, that was the curve of the horn with part of the face showing: I felt it created a pleasing composition, while showing some of the textural detail in the image. Then I played with the exposure, contrast, blacks, whites, shadows and highlights sliders to get close to the feel of what I was looking for. A little clarity and some sharpening can work well, but I don’t like to go overboard with those. Sometimes I add an exposure curve and vignette, or radial filter to help things along, too. Once I got as far as possible with those sliders, I selectively darkened and lightened parts with the brush. This is such a fantastic tool in Lightroom and it’s rare I need to take photos into Photoshop for finishing. The result of the brushing is to make only the parts I wanted to draw attention to pop out of the photograph.

Here’s a classical painting example: “The Matchmaker“ by Dutch painter, Gerard van Honthorst. Note how the use of selective light and dark areas dramatically draws the eye immediately to the woman on the right and creates a really dramatic image. As you can see from the buffalo, it works for wildlife, too.

And finally, here are a couple of my favourite African big cat images where I’ve used a similar treatment.

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CLUTTER: THE ENEMY OF PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION

Kaleel — Sat, 30 Mar 2019 13:06:00 +0000

A good photograph must grab the viewer’s attention. That usually means that the subject of the photo mustn’t have to fight with a lot of other distracting stuff in the frame. If there’s one thing that kills a photo immediately, it’s having a cluttered background. The eye likes things simple. Try to simplify the photograph into its most basic elements. Cut out anything distracting by repositioning yourself, or cropping in. Or just wait and pick a different shot.

Another way to simplify a photograph is to use a shallow depth of field so that the background gets blurred. This is exaggerated when you use a long lens.

Take these two different giraffe shots. The first has huge amounts of clutter and distraction: all the different bits of foliage dilute the impact of the shot. Attention gets lost trying to take it all in. On the right hand side however, the brain doesn’t have to separate the subject out from a mess of background gubbins. This is simply a picture of a giraffe and is much more impactful.

Similarly for these cheetah shots: the first image has quite a bit going on, where as the second image is much more simple. It’s about competition for your attention. The second picture doesn’t require nearly so much work to process.

Lastly, here are two images of small birds. The first is incredibly distracting. There’s stuff everywhere! The second is a kingfisher and, even though there’s texture in the background provided by a zebra in the distance, there’s enough simplicity to make this primarily a photo of a kingfisher. The zebra adds interest to the feel of the photograph without overpowering the kingfisher. Note that I used a shallow depth of field (wide aperture value) to create the blurred background and separate out the foreground from the background.

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How To Prepare and Pack For a Photography Safari to Africa

Kaleel — Mon, 06 Apr 2015 22:04:05 +0000

I’m writing this article because I remember the mixture of excitement and bewilderment at tackling my first African photography safari in 2008. What to take? What to leave at home? What to prepare? What clothing, money, insurance, visas? All these questions and more I’ll attempt to answer here.

Going away on your first photography safari is an incredibly exhilarating thing to do, but it can present a bit of a headache from a practical point of view.

I run safaris in Kenya’s Masai Mara and this blog post has a nod towards that destination, but really, most of the advice is good for a photo safari anywhere in Africa. I’ve also photographed the amazing wildlife in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Uganda.

How should I pack for air travel?

An airline-compatible camera case like this Tamrac roller is fantastic for cabin baggage. But make sure you have the weight allowance on your connecting flights within Africa.

For aircraft travel, I tend to make sure all my important and expensive stuff is with me in my hand luggage. That’s whether I’m going to Africa or anywhere else in the world. I don’t think I’d ever trust it in the hold. Hand luggage can actually be quite large and heavy and I use a camera case that has specially padded sections inside it. You don’t need to do this if you don’t have so much gear, but I find that solution very convenient and safe. The key thing is to take cameras and lenses in hand luggage so you know where they are at all times. I’ve often thought that if I have my main camera gear and a spare pair of underpants, all will be well if the rest of the luggage goes astray.

What are the airline weight allowances and are there any costs for excess baggage?

As a photographer, the heaviest part of your luggage probably consists of your camera(s), lenses, tripods and other photo gear. Excess baggage is unlikely to be a problem on international flights to African countries, but may well be if you’re transferring to regions within the country on smaller aircraft. Let’s take the journey from the UK to the Masai Mara as a good example. The international flight from the UK will have a hold luggage allowance of something like 20-23Kg plus a pretty generous hand-luggage allowance. The latter is often not weighed and the restrictions are more around the size and shape of the hand luggage and whether it fits into the over-head lockers. This is why a) it’s essential to check the specific airline for their specifications (they all vary) and b) it’s a great idea to put all your expensive, heavy stuff in the hand luggage!

So, the international leg isn’t likely to be an issue. However, when you get to Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi, Kenya, you’ll have to transfer to the smaller Wilson airport in order to fly into the Mara. Typically, the aircraft (run for example by Safari Link) are much smaller than the ones you’ll have arrived on at Nariobi. In fact, so much smaller, that your luggage allowance plummets to 15Kg including hand luggage. Yes, I did say including hand luggage. So that’s everything you have – no more than 15Kg. This is why it’s essential to plan ahead and book an extra allowance. The standard way of doing it with Safari Link for example is to book an additional child seat, which gives you an extra 75Kg. In practise, this isn’t actually another seat – that would also be one humungously heavy child! – but this allowance factors in the extra weight and bulk of additional luggage on the flight. When taking a group to the Masai Mara, I always make sure I book enough child seats to cater for the additional baggage of the entire group.

Either that or take your camera stuff and live in the same clothes for a fortnight. Just please don’t sit near me!

[Remember, I’ll have my spare undies ;-)]

Softly does it

There is one other consideration for these smaller aircraft, the hold-space is small and often a funny shape internally due to the construction of the plane. For this reason, the airline might request that you bring soft holdall type of cases so they can fit them into the awkward hold space easier. They warn that if they can’t fit your case into the hold, it may end up on the next plane. Or the one after that… This isn’t ideal for us as photographers and might require a bit of ingenuity! Fear not if you’re coming on one of my trips as I’ve already checked with Safari Link that the extra baggage I’ve ordered can include typical roller camera cases and tripods, but it’s certainly something to be aware of in advance.

Anyway, bear these possible limitations in mind when packing and if in doubt, contact the airline to check.

One of Safari Link’s aircraft landing in the Masai Mara

Which lenses should I take on safari?

Ideally, all of them! But that’s not usually practical from a weight point of view. I’m not renowned for travelling light (ahem) and there’s always something I want to take that doesn’t make the final list. This ‘something’ is often my 600mm f/4, but if I can get away with it, I will. You’ll probably find that most of your shots are taken between 200-600mm on a safari and teleconverters and crop factors (see below) will help you out here. Longer lenses are undeniably useful, but the biggest ones will often tip your baggage allowance over the edge, so there’s a compromise to be assessed.

Don’t rule out wide lenses for landscape shots and you may get a chance to do some macro, too. For flexibility, zoom lenses are the best, although be aware that cheap zooms can be far from good quality. I tend to think of lenses in terms of ranges and make sure I’ve got the following covered (based on a full size sensor):

ultra wide often including fish-eye: e.g. 14 – 24mm zoom, 20mm prime, 16mm fish-eye
wide to normal: 24 – 70mm zoom, 50mm prime
short telephoto: 70 – 200mm zoom
macro: 60, 105, 180 or 200mm
medium telephoto: 200-400 zoom or 300mm prime
long telephoto: 400, 500 or 600mm prime

I’m not saying you should rush out and buy the above list! One or two reasonable / good quality zooms will cover pretty much everything you’ll need.

Teleconverters

A practical consideration is a shorter lens with a teleconverter, but do try this combination before you leave; many lenses don’t let enough light in to enable a teleconverter to work with them and you’ll find the camera struggles to find focus, or fails altogether. Indeed some teleconverters are designed to only fit on lenses that the manufacturers deem good enough to cope with the loss of light. Some cheaper or older teleconverters are, frankly, crap. They’ll often soften the image too much and cause aberrations, so do check reviews of the exact one you’re considering or try it out. Teleconverters typically come in 1.4x and 2x magnification – although there are others available – and they cut the amount of light transmission by half and a quarter respectively. This is important because camera autofocus systems are rated to a specific f-stop, meaning for example that your camera simply won’t focus with a lens that has a maximum aperture of f/8. You may not think this is a problem with your current lens, but let’s take a typical lens as an example to illustrate.

Say you have a Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L. This is undeniably a good lens (unless you’ve got one of the Friday afternoon ones) and the maximum aperture at the 400mm zoom end is f/5.6. This figure tells you the maximum amount of light that the lens can let in. It would be very unusual to find a camera body that couldn’t focus quickly with an f/5.6 maximum aperture lens. However, as soon as you stick a 1.4x teleconverter on this lens, its maximum aperture at the long end becomes f/8, which is a lot dimmer, even if you do get a very useful 560mm. Some cameras will struggle with this lack of light. Now consider a 2x teleconverter on the same lens: 800mm – awesome! But at what cost? Well, f/11 actually, which all but top end cameras will fail to focus with, so beware. You can manually focus in these circumstances, but you’ll be looking through a dim viewfinder and will find it difficult unless there’s a huge amount of light.

Crop Factors

Because lenses’ focal lengths are listed as the number of millimetres when used with a full frame sensor (i.e. a sensor that’s the same size as a 35mm film camera), all of these lenses will give you greater reach on an APS-C sized cropped sensor because the latter is physically smaller. Cropped sensor camera bodies form the greater part of the non-professional gear line-up, so most people will benefit from a multiplication of focal length of between 1.5 and 1.6 times. Keeping with the 100-400mm lens as our example, the same lens on a typical Canon body with a cropped sensor will actually deliver 160 – 640mm, which is a radical improvement. Those physical pixels won’t be as big and therefore aren’t usually as good quality those on a full frame sensor, but the practicality of the extra reach is a boon for wildlife photography.

Rocket-launchers like this 600mm f/4 are great for long range shots, but are not necessary on a safari. Having said that, if you have the space and weight allowance, the more the merrier!

Big lenses

The light in Africa is generally excellent, although if you’re going to a heavily forested area you may find yourself very short of light. On the whole, the Big Five, big cats and Great Migration type of safaris are not short of light.

Having said that, it’s worth explaining why large lenses look like rocket launchers rather than big pencils. The width of the front element of the lens is what gathers the light and the bigger the diameter, the more light is let in. A large amount of light helps with autofocus and also has the pleasant consequence of allowing a larger maximum aperture, which gives a lovely background blur.

Lens Hire

If you fancy treating yourself to a big prime lens for your trip, there is an industry that has sprung up around offering short period hire on all manner of expensive kit. Just type in “lens hire” into Google and a whole raft will pop up.

Which camera body should I take?

This will be a rather academic question if you only have one and that’s the one you’re taking regardless. However, if you’re in the market for a new camera, or have more than one to choose from, it’s my opinion that you should have prioritised your spending on good quality lenses first and camera bodies second. A good lens can make an average camera stand out and a crap lens will make a good camera look awful.

Sensels

Having said that, if you do have the option, bring / buy / hire the best camera body you can afford. High resolution isn’t the be-all-and-end-all it’s often touted to be, although more pixels on a sensor will allow you to zoom in more digitally after the shot has been taken. Be careful though; the physical size of each sensel (sensor element – or pixel to you and me) is often inversely proportional to the ability of that sensel to record high quality images. In fact the best, top of the range digital cameras for wildlife photography have fewer, but larger sensels on the sensor than cheaper models and they produce images with better noise control and higher dynamic range than their more densely-packed brethren.

Ok, with the health warning out of the way, the light in Africa for most safari purposes is amazing and abundant, so high ISO values are less of an issue than if you’re heading off into the darkest jungles.

Speed merchants

Probably more important than astounding ISO performance in bright conditions is drive speed, or the ability to take multiple, quick-fire shots in a row. There are a few factors at play here. Firstly, there is the ability of the camera to physically take a high number of shots per second. Secondly, there is the speed of the camera’s processor that has to deal with all these shots and put them onto the media card. Thirdly – and this is often the one that catches people out – there is the buffer.

The buffer is an area of fast memory that the camera writes images to as soon as they’re taken. This memory is needed to put the queue of images into while the processor writes them to the media card, which is often much slower than the ability of the camera to take the shots in the first place. Buffer-lock-up / lock-out happens when the camera refuses to take any more pictures in a sequence because it hasn’t had a chance to write all the images in the buffer to the media card. The main factor that affects lock-up is the size of the buffer and more expensive cameras will have larger buffers than cheaper models. It’s also worth noting that media card speeds vary a lot and it’s worth checking the optimum speed for your camera. The slower the card is, the slower the camera will be able to write to it.

Ironically, having said that about fast drive speeds being more important than ISO abilities in bright conditions, fast burst speeds and good noise control and high dynamic range at high ISOs tend to go hand-in-hand on the top-of the-range cameras.

Should I take more than one camera body?

If you have more than one and you have the space and weight allowance, then yes, definitely. The main reason for this is that you can have a different lens on each body, which gives you immediate flexibility when shooting different subjects. It also gives you a backup if one of the bodies should fail, although that’s unlikely these days. Another reason that two bodies is useful is that sensor dust can be an issue when changing lenses and if you have two lenses on two bodies, the necessity for lens changes is significantly reduced.

Should I take a tripod, or other support?

If you can fit it in your luggage, I’d definitely recommend some kind of support.

Full of beans

On a typical photography safari, most of the photography you’ll be doing will be from vehicles, so a bean-bag of some sort is very useful. You can bring this empty, to be filled at your destination. I usually fill mine with small polystyrene balls, which are virtually weightless – the type that fill the sort of bean bag you sit on, although this does take up some room in your luggage. Polystyrene balls also eventually compress and need to be replaced. Indeed they’re not as solid as rice or other heavy fillers, but they do make an excellent alternative to filling the bag on arrival. A double bean-bag is best if you have one because the lens rests in a channel between the two bags. An attaching string is always a useful feature on a beanbag and will make a fallen beanbag recoverable even if there’s a lion two feet away!

Tripods and monopods

Tripods are perhaps a bit less useful as they’re quite cumbersome in a vehicle. Having said that, you can hang them out of the vehicle and rest them on the ground. If you’re going to shoot any video, a tripod is an absolute must! I found this out to my cost the first time I filmed in Kenya from a vehicle: the suspension of the jeep picked up every tiny movement and transmitted that directly to the footage. If in doubt, bring a tripod if you have the space. The usual adage about tripods applies: if you bring it, you’ll not need it; if you leave it at home, you’ll wish you’d brought it.

If you’re bringing a tripod, you’ll need a head for it. In general I find the best heads for large lenses are gimbal heads like the Wimberley. A shorter lens can be supported on any other type of head. For video, you’ll need a fluid video head.

A monopod is a good compromise on weight and portability, but obviously isn’t free-standing. It can still be useful for hanging out of a vehicle, or using collapsed within the vehicle.

For a more detailed article on camera supports, see When to use a tripod, monopod, beanbag or other camera support.

Tawny eagle roosting at the end of the day. Masai Mara, Kenya

What other camera equipment is useful?

I tend to take a flash with me wherever I go, just in case. You never know!

Make sure you have plenty of batteries (with their chargers) and media cards for the entire duration. If in doubt, bring more than you need.

If you’re into filters for landscape use, then bring them for that. It’s unlikely that you’ll need any for wildlife, although a polariser can reduce reflections on water and wet foliage at the expense of cutting down two stops worth of light.

I always have some kind of tape with me – in fact I’m rather known for it! A small amount of gaffer tape can fix a multitude of things in the field.

If you’re shooting video, don’t forget to include an external microphone, as onboard sound is rubbish. It’s beyond the scope of this article to cover video because the amount of equipment needed to do it properly seems to multiply every time I press ‘record’.

How do I keep everything clean?

A soft lens-cloth is essential to keep the front element of your lenses clean. As mentioned above, if you have two camera bodies, you immediately cut down the possibility of dust entering into the system. If you do have to change lenses whilst out and about, try to do so inside a plastic bag and use a rocket blower to gently blow the back end of the lens and camera lens mount. If you find that your sensor has spots on it that can’t be removed with a rocket blower, you’ll need something that directly cleans the sensor. I find Visible Dust’s Arctic butterfly a great piece of portable kit for sensor cleaning. It’s lightweight and small and can be used without much fear of damaging your sensor – although please read the instructions before you attempt a cleaning operation. The ingenious piece of kit uses static to attract dust particles from your sensor.

If you find you have more stubborn marks on the sensor, you may need to wet-clean the surface. This involves buying sensor swabs and special sensor cleaning fluid. This shouldn’t be undertaken without reading the instructions for the swabs and if you’re in doubt, leave this to a professional to clean your sensor. Having said that, it doesn’t help you if you’re stuck up the Congo!

A quick tip if you have a dirty sensor and can’t clean it immediately is to only use wider apertures such as f/2.8 – f/5.6 so that the camera doesn’t ‘see’ the sensor muck as much. i.e. it looks straight through it. Sensor dirt is most noticeable at small apertures where the depth of field is greatest.

A lens cover for rainy conditions is essential, although in the dry season will seldom be needed. A cheap plastic shower cap can be used to guard against dust and rain and is easy to pop onto the end of your lens at a moment’s notice.

Should I bring a computer and/or backup device?

The first thing to do is to make sure you have plenty of storage media: SD cards / compact flash. Don’t be too tempted by massive capacities as it’s probably best to take more smaller ones than one big one that, if it goes wrong, takes your entire trip’s worth of images with it.

Standard USB 2 is dead slow with large raw photos and particularly video crawling onto your computer from the card reader. If you can, use USB3 or Apple’s Thunderbolt to transfer your files.

I do fret a bit about backups. Under normal circumstances, I have my laptop and a couple of external USB drives. This is the extent of my photo / video library and is portable enough. I then make sure I have two independent backups of all this storage, one in my office and one at home. That caters for most eventualities. But what about in the field?

When I first started travelling with photography gear, I used a Jobo Gigavu backup / viewer device. It was ok, but eventually broke and would’t have nearly enough storage for my needs these days. I think I’d be hard pressed to find an all-in-one device like this now and they have been superseded by laptops or even tablets and phones.

I did do one safari with an iPad. I cleared off everything I didn’t need and connected the compact flash reader via an adaptor. The iPad then allowed me to copy all my raw files onto the device and view them there. Phones can be connected in the same way. The nice thing about using tablets and phones is that they have a good screen with which to view your images – many even catering for raw files directly. The down-size is lack of storage. If you’re in Africa for a week or more, that’s a lot of photos to backup and it’s extremely unlikely that any tablet or phone will have enough memory spare to take all your raw images.

These days I always travel with a laptop and some external USB storage drives.

What clothing do I need?

It’s warm or hot during the day in most parts of Africa, but be aware that it can get cold at night at altitude. Specifically for Kenya / Tanzania, the Great Rift Valley, which contains the Mara – Serengeti ecosystem, is actually quite an elevated plateau at 1500m+ above sea level. For those early morning starts and evening / night drives it’s definitely worth taking a fleece or other warm clothing. I’ve found that lightweight walking trousers are good on the bottom half and a t-shirt or shirt on top during the day. A lightweight rain coat is useful in the wet season.

Bring a hat to ward off the sun.

Adult & baby giraffe – Matopos, Zimbabwe

What documentation do I need?

You’ll need a valid passport to travel to anywhere in Africa and it must have at least 6 months to run after the end of your trip, as is standard advice in most places in the world. If you need to update your passport, it’s best to do this in non-peak holiday periods to avoid the rush. If you’re running a bit late, you can pay extra to expedite a passport renewal, but you’ll have to visit a specific passport office in person.

There are so many different countries in Africa that I couldn’t possibly list all the visa requirements; not least because it depends on your nationality as well as where you’re visiting. The best place to start looking (if you’re coming from the UK) is the Foreign Office Travel Advice portal.

If you’re visiting Kenya, visas are not a problem and are simply bought online for about $US 50 in advance. Check to see if you need a valid yellow fever certificate in your passport.

Other Practical Stuff

Mosquito repellant with a high DEET content
Mosquito net if your accommodation doesn’t have full screens
Torch
Sun cream
Books, apps on wildlife and countries visited
Chargers / mini power generators
Maps, compass, GPS if you’re not going with a safari company
Anti-bacterial hand wash

What Insurance do I need?

Travel / holiday insurance?

Yes. If you’re coming with me, I have public liability insurance in case of my own negligence (e.g. if you trip over my tripod!) but you’ll need to cover yourself against any problem that may happen, such as if you become ill, the flights are delayed, someone nicks your camera, or your luggage is delayed. That’s not an exhaustive list and travel policies vary quite a bit. Travel insurance tends to come in two flavours: one that is for your holiday only and the other is an annual policy. The latter can be surprisingly cost effective if you travel abroad more than once and this is how I cover our entire family. If you’re not sure what you need, talk to a trusted travel agent or insurance broker that specialises in travel insurance.

Do I need camera equipment insurance?

That’s entirely up to you, but I’d definitely recommend it. If you don’t have specific photographic insurance, chances are your household contents policy will cover you at least in part. It’s essential though to check with them that your camera equipment is actually covered away from home and specifically on the trip you’re about to embark on. I would never rely on my own household insurance and have specific photo insurance, but your home insurance might be more comprehensive. Do check with your insurance whether your gear is covered in the hold of an aircraft. Some policies specify it must be in hand luggage.

Young chacma baboon – Chobe, Botswana

Batteries

Most camera batteries contain lithium, which is a potential fire risk. Airlines have regulations about where you can carry these batteries and how big they can be. If you come on safari with me, I send out comprehensive information on this. Look on your airline’s website for their policy on carrying lithium batteries.

Medical

Check the country you’re visiting, as each has its own recommendations. Anti-malarials are recommended for many countries. I personally find Malarone (or their generic equivalent) the best tablets and s pharmacies several pharmacies and supermarkets offer cost-effective treatment course. If you travel a lot, monthly plans might suit you. Ask a pharmacist or travel clinic.

You may need travel vaccinations for your destination. Kenya, for example, requires you to have a yellow fever certificate in your passport if you’re coming in from a yellow fever risk area. The easiest thing to do is visit your doctor / nurse or a pharmacist that offers a travel clinic and they’ll advise on what you might need.

Again, the Foreign Office Travel Advice portal is useful here.

Kenya-Specific Advice

Currencies

For Kenya, the most useful currencies are US dollars and Kenyan Shillings (KES). I would take the bulk of your money in dollars and a smaller amount in shillings. The shilling exchange rate can be found here.

What electricity will be available?

It’s the same as the UK at 240v and 50Hz, with the same three-pin plug sockets. If you’re traveling from a country other than the UK, a UK adaptor can be used. Check with the camp / operator you’re using as the availability of electricity may vary depending on the time of day. It’s worth asking whether your room / tent will have power to it or just to a communal area. Either is fine, as long as you know in advance.

What time of year is best?

August! Well, I would say that, as I’ve scheduled my own safari for this month. Actually, any time of year is good but August is in the dry season when the grass isn’t too long to hide the animals and they are more likely to come to waterholes to drink. All good for visibility and great photos. The Great Migration should be happening at this time, although being a natural phenomenon, it’s impossible to predict. The wildebeest will follow the rains around the Mara / Serengeti ecosystem and hopefully we’ll see the spectacle of tens of thousands of animals on the move and possibly witness a river-crossing.

What’s the weather like?

Kenya is pretty dry in August and very pleasantly warm, with comfortable humidity. Even though Kenya lies on the equator, the Masai Mara is at an altitude of about 1,500m, so you can expect mid 20s celsius during the day and about 10 at night. Early mornings can be quite chilly, so it’s worth bringing a warm top for early starts.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this article and that the information has been useful you might like to come on one of my photography safaris, check out: photography safaris.

Bon voyage!
Kaleel

The post How To Prepare and Pack For a Photography Safari to Africa first appeared on Kaleel Zibe.

How to use Auto ISO

Kaleel — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 08:07:54 +0000

Auto ISO is something that, until I wrote this article, I simply didn’t use. Now I find it indispensable: the ability to use ISO as a third control (in addition to aperture and shutter speed) that automatically adjusts based on the available light – particularly in manual exposure mode – has change the way I shoot.

This article was written for my regular column at Landscape Photography Magazine when it still had a wildlife photography section. You can download the full PDF here: LPM Auto ISO article

Recently, whilst photographing gannets with friends at Bempton Cliffs in North Yorkshire in England, the issue of Auto ISO cropped up again. I felt I should probably give it another go, and the aspect that finally won me around was the discovery that Auto ISO works extremely well in manual exposure mode.

As a post-script to this article, I’ve taught a number of people with Canon cameras, some of which don’t have the ability to set the exposure compensation independently whilst in Auto ISO mode. This is a real pain and I don’t know of a solution to it. If you do, please let me know. The newer Canons don’t seem to have this problem.

The post How to use Auto ISO first appeared on Kaleel Zibe.

Is Professional Photography Gear Worth The Money?

Kaleel — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 14:07:51 +0000

In this short article for Landscape Photography Magazine (when it had a wildlife photography section), I contemplate whether pro gear really is worth the money. You can download the PDF for free here: LPM Is Pro Gear Really Worth The Money?

The latest pro-specification DSLRs are bristling with features that sometimes make even a technophile like me scratch his head in puzzlement and wonder. However, top of my ‘important list’ as a nature photographer is the incredible ability of sensors to control noise at high ISO values in extremely low light, compared with cameras further down the food chain. This can mean the difference between getting the image and ruining it with camera shake or noise. I photographed a series of images recently of a wild lioness having her teeth checked in near darkness at ISO 20,000 and the results were gratifyingly clean.

The post Is Professional Photography Gear Worth The Money? first appeared on Kaleel Zibe.

Bird Photography

Kaleel — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 13:57:02 +0000

In this article for Landscape Photography Magazine (when it had a wildlife photography section) I looked at how to get the best out of bird photography. You can download a PDF of the full article for free here: LPM Bird Photography

I was a reluctant birder. It took my first safari trip to Africa in 2008 to truly appreciate what birds really look like. I know that sounds absurd, but I had never really considered how subtly beautiful they are until I started taking pictures of brightly coloured rollers and bee-eaters in between the usual big game and actually looking properly at the shots I had of these amazing creatures. I brought that enthusiasm back home with me and gradually started to understand the fascination of birds and how to photograph them, even if our native avifauna is – at a distance at least – rather more dour.

The post Bird Photography first appeared on Kaleel Zibe.