The lion sleeps tonight

Well...not only tonight. Actually, lions sleep most of the day and generally only hunt during the night or very early morning hours. That means that whenever you come across a pride of lions during a game drive, chances are about 100% that they will be lazying around. That does not make for very interesting photos.

Nonetheless, most people take pictures of dozing lions that excel at doing absolutely nothing, and then rush on to the next sighting. I prefer to just sit and wait. Eventually, the lions will do something interesting. Cubs start to play with eachother, the big male will yawn or a lioness will lick its paws.

In this case, a lazy lioness rolled over on her back and stretched her feet into the air. A fleeting moment that lasted only seconds, but just long enough for a photo of a part of a lion that you don't get to photograph very often. At least not without being hurt...

Lazy lioness; Canon 1D Mark III w. EF 500/4 IS and EF 2XII; 1/400s at F8, ISO 200; Beanbag from car window.

Backyard habitat

Although I love to go on a photographic holiday, either in the Netherlands or someplace far away, the far majority of my images is taken in a nature reserve very close to my home, or even in my own backyard.

Visiting a place near your home over and over again enables you to get to know that place and the flora and fauna that call it home. You'll know in what season you can find a certain species. Also, you'll know exactly when and where you can expect the best light conditions.

This knowledge about light and your photographic subjects will certainly show in the quality of your images. You'll spend less time looking for your subjects and the right light and can instead concentrate on getting the best possible photograph.

This simple graphic image of a common honeybee was taken in our backyard, which is just a few square meters in the centre of our village. With the right kinds of flowers and plants and a very small pond, lots of insects are drawn to our little garden. That means there's always something to photograph whenever your shutterfinger itches again.

Honeybee on sunflower; Canon 1D Mark III w. Tamron 90/2.8 Macro; 1/800s at F4, ISO 400; Gitzo tripod with Markins ballhead.

Festival time

The last three months of the year are festival time in Europe. In October, November and December, all of the premier nature photography festivals of the continent take place. Here is a short overview:

Luxemburg: October 10 and 11, with Brutus Östling and Edwin Giesbers
Germany: October 24-26, with Klaus Nigge and Orsolya Haarberg
France: November 20-23, with Jim Brandenburg
Belgium: December 12-14, with Dietmar Nill

Visiting these festivals is a great way to meet other photographers, see some great work and find inspiration for your own nature photography. Give it a try!

ND Grad filters

When photographing landscapes, especially during sunrise and sunset, the difference in light levels between the foreground and background (mostly sky) is often too large for the camera sensor to cope with. Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem.

The old fashioned way is to use ND Grad filters at the time of shooting. The bottom half of these filters is transparent, while the upper half is a neutral grey. They come in various densities (1-3 stops) and in soft-edge and hard-edge varieties. The soft-edge filters are useful when there is no obvious line between foreground and background (e.g. a mountain scene), the hard-edge filter is perfect for hard transitions, such as the horizon in seascape images. For this image of Lake Malawi at sunrise, I chose a 3-stop hard-edge filter.

In this digital age, it is also possible to take two (or more) photos at different exposures and blend them in Photoshop. My experience is that it is often difficult to blend seamlessly in Photoshop. I therefore still prefer to use ND Grad filters whenever I can.

Lake Malawi sunrise; Canon 1D Mark III w. 17-40/4 L; 2s at F16, ISO 100; Gitzo tripod with Markins ballhead; 3-stop hard-edge ND Grad filter handheld.

Shorter focal lengths

My 500mm lens is currently under repair because of some cosmetic damage it got from when I dropped it on a concrete pavement some time ago. My next longest lens is a 70-200/4, quite a gap in milimeters!

When I found two immature kingfishers near my home, I decided to give it a try with the 70-200/4 coupled to a 2x extender. I have to say you need lots of light when you are forced to shoot at F8. Also, the birds should not be too shy, as the hide needs to be placed a lot closer than with a 500mm (with an extender).

Last friday, the birds cooperated very well and I got many nice shots. Although I already had lots of similar kingfisher images, these really add something to my archive. Because of the shorter focal length, the background is less compressed, meaning more of it is recorded in the image.

In the image above, the kingfisher is not doing anything interesting, other than being the focal point in the photo. It is the colorful background that completes this image and sets it apart from the solid color background shots that I already had. So if you ever find a very confiding bird, give it a try and shoot with a shorter focal length for completely different backgrounds in your images.

Common Kingfisher; Canon 1D Mark III w. 70-200/4 L and EF 2x II; 1/80s at F8, ISO 800; Gitzo tripod with Markins ballhead from hide.

Tritone conversion

Today a travel image from Marrakesh, taken last year. I liked the original color image a lot, but felt it would convey the dark 'tea-house-mood' better in B&W. Instead of a plain B&W conversion, I chose tritone, a technique that gives an 'antique' feel to your image. Basically, it's just B&W with two colors added to the mix.

As I copied the technique from a tutorial on the internet, I am not going to quote all the steps involved here and pretend I discovered the technique. Instead, here is the link.

Be sure to experiment with the two colors you add to the B&W mix for different results. I started out with the values mentioned in the tutorial but ended up with slightly different tones to match my image better. Hope you like it!

Follow the crowds

Well, normally I try to go my own way in photography and I hate following the crowds. For this one time, I had to make an exception and be the next in (the long) line of people to have their own weblog. But for a reason: I simply cannot find the time to update my website on a regular basis. A weblog, which is easy to maintain from just about everywhere, seems like a usefull add-on to my website. It will enable me to update the site with new images and photographic news with relative ease and without having to redo the whole website (which is basically built in Photoshop with very little html coding) everytime I think I have something nice to tell or show.

The idea of this weblog is not just to show you some new work and old favourites, but mainly to share some useful insights into the making of the images presented, such as location, camouflage, exposure and PS work.