New Gear.

 

Pylons in Lake Michigan. Click to see a larger version.Well the day has come.  After a lot of researching and debate I've finally gotten a Canon 5D Mark II.  I'll spare you a lot of technical jargon and simply say it's a very nice camera.

So we've had such a lovely weekend here in Chicago that I've had a lot of time to try out the body as well as what is quickly becoming one of my favorite little lenses... the Lensbaby Composer.  This lens is what you'd call a "selective focus" lens.  That means you can select a single focus point in the image and from that point, everything blurs outward.  Some of you may be familiar with a Tilt-Shift lens which acts similarly.  However, a tilt shift lens will give you a line of focus, the lensbaby gives you a circle.

I took a lot of photos this weekend, three more you can see here after the break.

Read More

Africa, How I Long for Thee!

Masaai tribesmen walking back to camp.Today I responded to a gear question on a digital photography forum. It was specifically in reference to an African Safari the gentleman was planning and what lenses/cameras he'd need, etc. Well it got me thinking about my Tanzanian safari and let me tell you, the memory flood gates opened wide.

I remember the first day, we were in Tarangire National Park riding around in the Landrover, kicking up dust in the morning sun. The first animal any of us saw was a giraffe and it was about 75 yards away. We all pulled out our cameras and started snapping away pictures like it was the Oscars and Angelina Jolie was walking up the red carpet. By the end of the trip we would pass giraffes within 10' ft. of the 'rover and say "Oh, it's just another giraffe... we don't need to stop."

Africa tickles the senses. By morning you can smell all the aromas of the grasslands, the flowers and dew. By night the sounds of the wild lull you to sleep, like one of those new age waterfall sound tracks you get at best buy. Your vision is constantly overloaded by amazing landscapes like your living inside a portrait.

Africa is bigger than any of us. Spending time there reminds us just how small we are in the greater scheme of the planet. I've never been humbled like I was in Africa, and not a day goes by that I don't dream of returning.

And now on to the advice I gave in the forum. Here is my full post unedited...

I went to Tanzania on a 14 day safari 2 years ago and all I brought was a 30D and a 35mm f/1.4, I couldn't afford much more than that and while I wished I had more range at times, I was very happy with the results I got.

Having done that I have some advice and mistakes I can share.

First off, the animals will be a lot closer than you anticipate (Lions would use the car as shade...). So a 24-105 should give you plenty of coverage in general. If your looking for shots of leopards in trees or lions off in the distance, then you'll probably want that 100-400. But most other animals will at some point be very close to you. Personally, I like having a wider lens on to give the animals context within the environment.

While traveling in the 4x4, you'll get covered in dust. It's unwise to lens swap unless you absolutely have too. With that in mind, your lens should give you a range your comfortable with. Every night when you get back to base camp, clean your sensor.

I can't speak to the whole of Africa, but when I was in Tanzania, from 10am-3pm the light was horrendous. Good idea to have a polarizer and maybe some ND filters. After 3pm, everyday like clockwork, these puffy clouds would roll in and the light was beautiful.

If your going to be walking through towns (Urban and tribal), take some gaffers tape and cover the Canon logo on your camera body and lenses. When people see Canon or Nikon they can get intimidated or decide your a good target to rob.

One final piece of advice, if you want animal pics just go to the zoo. Your chances to get close ups are a lot better, its cheaper, and overall its easier. If your going all the way to Africa use the opportunity to be creative. Maybe try a lensbaby or Holga. Utilize all the elements together (Wildlife, landscape, people, etc). Looking through a 400mm you can lose yourself in the lens and forget where you are. Try to bring the location into your shots and never forget that your in an amazing place. I still have dreams from my time in Africa and not a day goes by that I don't wish to return.

Greg

Pan that camera!

Lincoln Park Zoo, ChicagoI'm very excited to present my first Greg Inda Photography "How-To." Today I'm going to talk about panning with the subject to eliminate annoying vertical bars at zoos.

At the zoo you find lots of great photographic subjects. Lions and tigers and bears Oh My. But unfortunately you'll also confront cages. A photographers worst nightmare. Might as well be a big screen that says "No Photography Allowed!" Someone looking at a photograph wants to be brought into the world your creating, and the bars disconnect you from that world. So the way we get around this is panning with the subject, in my case the lion.

To understand panning I need to explain two concepts. The first is shutter speed. Shutter speed is the amount of time light, or to simplify things, the amount of time the lion is being shown to the camera sensor. That amount of time can be anywhere from hours to minutes to thirty seconds to 1/8000th of a second. On your average photograph it's usually around 1/60th-1/250th.

The next concept is panning. Panning is when you follow the subject with your camera. It's used frequently in auto racing photography to produce that blur you see around a car. Picture locking your camera to a tripod and only being able to rotate left and right.

So now let me lay this out there, a slow shutter speed + panning creates motion blur. Note that a slow shutter speed is determined by the speed of the subject. 1/20th is slow for a lion but really fast for a slug or three toed sloth.

Now, on to the images top to bottom.

Image #1
This was the situation when I arrived at the lion habitat. Big male pacing back and forth. It was dark in the lion house, so I was shooting at ISO 1600. I wanted to get an initial look at the situation and evaluate my settings, so this image was a test. Other settings were 1/100th and f/4. My biggest concern from this point on is eliminating the vertical bars in front of the lion.

Image #2
This was my first attempt at panning. I propped my elbow against the guard rail to stabilize myself and my camera so I could pan with the lion. I dropped my shutter speed to *1/40th and increased my apeture to f/9 to compensate for the change.  Upon review I realized the shutter was still too fast and the bars were still too visible.

Image #3
One fear with regard to panning is focus.  Since the subject is moving while your shutter is open, you are generally going to lose some degree of focus.  So the slower your shutter speed is, the more in sync you need to be with the panning speed of the subject, keeping their features in line while you pan.  For this image I dropped my shutter speed to 1/8th of a second and managed to eliminate the bars entirely from the scene.  As you can see scrolling from the top down, you start off with a strong sense of the cage, but by this image you start to feel near the animal.

Image #4
This is the final product after taking image #3 through photoshop.  I've stretched the lion to the left to eliminate the blue bar, but more importantly, to give the lion more space in the frame.  I don't want the lion to seem constrained or shrunk within the image, so this was a simple selection and stretch.  After that I warmed up the image to better represent the colors as I saw them in the exhibit.  You can view this final image large in my Animal gallery.

*For those of you with point and shoot cameras, you can manipulate these settings by using "exposure compensation." Though a lot of things are happening to create proper exposure, in most cases if you want to increase the amount of time your shutter is open you will compensate to the right (otherwise known as the + side). And if you want a faster shutter, open for less time to freeze motion, you want to compensate to the left.

 

I hope you found this helpful, if you have any questions or or feedback, feel free to leave me a comment below.  Thanks for stopping by!

Greg Inda

Chuck

Click for larger versionWell I don't know what it is about guys holding beer, but I seem to get a lot of shots of it.  Maybe I'll put together a show of guys with beer some day. 

Anyway, this is my friend Chuck who I see about once a year usually at the Phoenix Improv Festival.  He's a very talented improviser who performs out of Wisconsin and Minnesota.  He was in town this year to teach an improv masters class, but sat in with Joker and Jester and then later performed in a "Bat" which is basically improv in the dark (not a good show for picture taking ;).

This shot was taken after those shows had wrapped.  Chuck snapped into this "determined" pose after he saw me approaching with the camera.  The ambient light in the theater was very dark as it was the festivals party time, so I shot this at ISO 1600 f/2.8 1/100th.  I really like balance created by the two lights in the upper left.  I went with black and white in this image because some of the lighting was gelled and generated an ugly color cast.  As with any ISO 1600 image, we get a lot of grain.  Some people love grain, others hate it.  I'll hold my opinion for now and ask what do you think of the grain?

If you've got any questions or feedback feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for stopping by,
Greg Inda

PIF 8

This past weekend I was in Phoenix for the eighth Phoenix Improv Festival (PIF).  I've been going for the past couple of years to perform with the Phoenix Neutrino Project and run lights and sound for Chicago's Bare.

This year the festival took place at the Herberger, a beautiful theater in downtown Phoenix.  It had 3 seating levels including the main floor, mezzanine, and balcony.  It provided a ton of great shooting angles, but my favorite quickly became level 2.  It was high enough to isolate the performers on clean backgrounds, yet low enough to still get facial expressions. I chose to shoot mostly from the "house left" side as it allowed me to use the festivals logo as a background element.  Its always important to me that I give a context or a sense of place, and that logo brings those elements together.

Shooting in theaters can be challenging depending on the lighting.  Some shows are very bright, some are dark, and it's often out of your hands.  The stage at PIF had a lot of gelled light which put some wonderful colors on the performers, but it did cut down the power.  Flash was not allowed, so I shot at ISO 1600 often at f/4.5 and 1/60th.

Below are two photos from the festival that were shot from the 2nd level with the goal of isolating the performers against a clean background that offered some context.  I'd love to hear your feedback in the form of a comment.

ToySoup out of Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the festival highlights.COG from LA's iO West, a perennial festival favorite in their last show.Thanks for stopping by,
Greg Inda