Photo notebook

The event at Parliament and the event in the Wairarapa were both amazing learning experiences. I would like to do one more before then attempting to get paid for this work.

Wairarapa

1. I was way too shy when shooting folks and I reckon I missed some big opportunities by not being a bit more interactive. That is a fear I need to overcome.
2. I had a brand new (used) lens, which I used a lot. In hindsight this was really risky as those lenses — Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 — have a reputation for varying quality. I was lucky as the images were OK, but it could easily have been a different story.
3. The client seemed very happy with the images and I was so pleased and relieved about that.
4. I was still a little surprised how few keepers I had from the day… I took a lot of images but so many were binned, only 23 were given to the client. Now this could be a much higher number but I was strict on editing.
5. Missing key moments: I needed to be switching lens more frequently between the two I was replying on, and it was also disappointing that I completely missed some moments – or at least had shots that were barely usable.
6. It was a kaupapa Māori event and I was quite shy about photographing at moments that may have been sensitive, my understanding of tikanga is more than most pākehā but still very limited.

Gear list:

1. Large timbuktu bag
2. Bodies
   • D810 (not used, in the car)
   • Z8
3. Lenses
   • 180-600 Z (not used, in the car)
   • 24-70 Z
   • Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 F (used heavily)
4. Power
   • 4 ENL-15s
   • 8 spare AA eneloops
5. Lighting
   • 1 flash
   • 1 controller (not used)
6. In the car
   • tripod / monopod
   • cleaning stuff

Parliament

• This was the first gig that I have photographed where I was either not the client or I was friends with the client
• The light was very challenging
• my jpeg settings (vivid colour etc) was really not good in terms of review and with the colourful stage lighting – it totally freaked me out as I reviewed them as everything appeared overexposed
  • CHANGE: use neutral, think about skin smoothing and high iso tweaks
• The brief was not not to do crowd shots although that would have been a cool thing to try
• The initial review of the JPGs was REALLY scary, they looked so bad. the RAW files were OK and responded well to noise reduction.

• The MC: they were amazing but they did not look up much so they were very hard to capture, and while they were not a hurried talker, they did not really pause.
• Host: semi-animated, relatively easy to shoot but did not pause much
• speaker one: looked up a few times, good pace, did not move and was not animated, so most pictures look the same
• speaker two: very lively and animated but photogenic, a lot of interesting shots. great eye contact with the audience, a joy to photograph
• speaker three: halfway between, mostly the same set of mannerisms, so not a lot of variation, but had great eye contact with the audience. I should have gotten a bit closer to him.
• panel: tricky, got closer to them for some shots, need to think more about this

Lessons:

• get closer and don’t be afraid to get closer and be visible
• move around more
• try lower shutter speed at times to bring the mega high iso down
• change lens more frequently – should carry the 24-70 around with the 180-600 (a 100-400 would be better for the smaller venues, and 70-200 for even smaller, and much less intimidating)
• be more attentive to all venue staff, and especially the organiser
• not being able to do video is going to be a big problem as it is essential for many events
• adjust JPG format in event bank
• adding copyright to the camera and enabling it for commercial gigs
• need to strip metadata from my images before posting to the portfolio

What worked well:

• white balance did capture the light well (flash or 5250k)
• 180-600 reach and range was good, but a little slow
• had everything I needed and more
• the silence of the Z8 was really good

Gear list:

1. Both timbuktu bags (only needed the smaller bag for the Z8 and 24-70
2. Bodies
   • D810 (not used)
   • Z8
3. Lenses
   • 180-600 Z
   • 24-70 Z
   • 35 F (not used)
   • 105 F (not used)
4. Power
   • 4 ENL-15s
   • 8 spare AA eneloops
5. Lighting
   • 1 flash (not used)
   • 1 controller (not used)
6. not taken
   • tripod or monopod
   • cleaning stuff- that was a mistake, need to have this

I have been obsessing a little over sharpness recently. While my most used lens is not the sharpest (at the moment that’s the Nikon Z 180mm-600mm f5.6-6.3), I have some obtained some very sharp results with it in good light.

I go on about the challenges of shooting fast moving subjects in poor light blah blah blah, but there are various reasons that make getting pin-sharp results harder.

Having said that, I still want to get the best results I can when the need arises, although many of my favourite shots are far from sharp; but for some wildlife images that is what I am attempting to get to prove to myself that I know how to do it. The example below is well off what I want.

The shot of the Tīeke was in harsh bright light, the subject was roughly 4 or 5 metres away from me. I was sure I was nailing some keepers, but on getting home most shots:

• missed the eye repeatedly. To be fair, it was feeding in a tree with a lot of leaves and twigs to interfere, so I was trying to avoid reacquiring focus too often.
• were exposed poorly. I forgot to change to spot metering.
• may have been less well defined due to the shutter speed being too slow. Given the light I could have gone up considerably.

But most importantly, I realised that at the maximum aperture of f6.3 at 600mm I had 2mm DoF. I knew I was working on limited DoF with the longer focal lengths, but seeing how shallow it was, was a surprise. Even at f11 at 600mm I would only get 3mm.

Ansel is fantastic photo editing software which is a recent discovery for me. It is a fork of Darktable, and is similar in many ways, but, the UI has been considerably simplified. The maintainer has removed many of the duplicate modules and the result is a far simpler and easier to use version of Darktable.

Darktable has perhaps been a little too permissive with allowing new features. I do like it, but I find it completely overwhelming. I would often fluke an OK result, and when editing something a few weeks later be at a loss to remember which modules I had used.

While Darktable is a very powerful tool for advanced users, and not designed to be as simple to use as Lightroom, it is extremely intimidating for newbies or infrequent users. Coupled with a general dislike of post-production work on my photos, I started to realise that Darktable’s complexity making me reluctant to edit my photos.

While searching for an alternative to Darktable I came across Ansel.

Ansel has been a revelation for me, and I don’t just enjoy using it, I love using it.

Even though Ansel’s UI is much cleaner than Darktable, if I had not watched a few explainer YouTubes by Aurélien Pierre first I would have struggled.

Like Darktable, Ansel is incredibly powerful and has features that I am unlikely to ever use — I prefer shots as close to how they come out of the camera. My recent need to edit is due to shooting small fast moving targets in poor light, requiring high shutter speeds and high ISO, resulting in images that are either well under exposed or noisy, or both.

Ansel is alpha software and comes with the usual warnings, but so far with my simple needs it’s been stable and requires very few workarounds.

A couple of happy accidents yesterday.

While I need to be mindful of metering, after a number of BIF sessions with Wide Area Large and a lot of shots in focus, I was blown away. The AF was picking up the bird well, I was amazed.

This was also the longest I have spent in one spot, close to 90 minutes, which gave me a good sense for which animals were doing what and some of the patterns.

Wide area large (WAL) on the Nikon Z6

This was the first time I tried using WAL for an extended period, and I was impressed. My expectations were set that Wide Area Small (WAS) was the better bet for bird in flight photography. I examined the results from seven bursts with WAL and two with WAS.

The light conditions were bright, backlit, with misty rain that was enough to really mislead the AF a few times, but overall the light was magic, and even with the haze and droplets between the lens and the subject it was refreshing to be shooting in relatively bright light for a change.

From five of the WAL bursts I got an in-focus rate of 59%, and the two bursts of WAS I got 69% rate. This is by no means scientific as the two WAS bursts were towards the end when my technique and discipline had improved.

I eliminated two of the WAL bursts that had 25% in focus rate due to user error in one, and a very busy background on the other.

I can see why WAS is generally the way to go, but that WAL is worth using if the background is not too busy.

Mindset: Track – Acquire Focus – Shoot

I started to shift my mindset to Track / Acquire / Shoot: tracking to allow the camera time to acquire focus and then shoot, a process that takes a second or so. It’s part of the technique that I need to work on.

Focus between shots

Reviewing the shots there were a number where focus slipped for a frame but was sharp either side.

Conclusions, things to change

• Focus limiter – work on a technique to change it if needed
• Metering – I was in spot metering the entire time, which is almost hopeless for BIF shots
• Shutter speed – on a couple of occasions outside of the bursts above I was in a slow shutter speed. If used intentionally it could be quite effective.

Shortcuts to consider on the camera:

• change metering – on the i menu
• change AF speed – on the i menu
• need a dedicated BIF setting on the camera, U2 or U3 could be repurposed for this

Sample images – screencaptured and unedited jpg files

This morning I missed a lot of opportunities and missed shots, all because I did not alter my settings more frequently or dramatically enough.

I consider the photography I do at the moment as training or practice, and like training for something (like a long ride or a run), so I can be ready for when something remarkable happens. I need to be using these opportunities to get way more comfortable changing and checking my settings.

Yesterday I got the opportunity to photograph Kererū that were sitting beyond the canopy in decent light. It was quite the revelation, and it gave me a boost in terms of my confidence.

Shooting in the light with slower targets made for a pleasant change, with much higher keeper rates than I’ve had recently, and even a few satisfying results.

Recently it has been rare for me to get the auto ISO below 9000, as the high shutter speeds I need have pushed that right up resulting in a fair bit of noise and lost detail and very underexposed images.

These conditions were a lot easier for the combo of the Z6 and the 180-600mm to shine. In the better light conditions focus was snappy.

The weather while I was out walking at Ōtari was pretty damp and cold so there wasn’t much activity until I was leaving when the light improved and the wildlife appeared and I got these shots.