Images, thoughts, and crib notes from near and far.
Jan 16th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Aug 2012 brings another safari to Tanzania. This safari will feature the all of the highlights of Tanzania. From the elephant rich Tarangire National Park to Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the famous Serengeti National Park. This safari gets it all including the northern area along the Mara River. If you are interested, check out all of the details here.
Jan 29th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
It has been a cold snowy past week (actually last week) in the Seattle area. On the heals of this, the 48 hour flu ht me right between the eyes, just as I was planning to travel to San Diego to do some nature photography.
On my mind these days is my next safari in March. I’m leading a private safari focusing on Wild Dogs and Rhinos in Kenya. Operating exclusively in private conversation areas, off-roading and foot tracking will be the order of the day as we strive for outstanding up close and personal photography of these wonderful subjects. We will also be spending time with a local Samburu Village for some wonderful travel shots. Below is a shot from my recent trip to the Mara Plains area. Place this in Google Earth to see where the image was taken at:
1 24.12921S, 35 8.3947E , elev 5182ft.
Drinking in the Mara
Nikon D3s, 200-400 VR @ 200mm, ISO 320, f/8 at 1/320 sec
Cheers and happy photoing.
Tags: Africa, Eyes On Africa, Kenya, Mara Plains Camp, Masai Mara, Safari, Thomson Safaris, Travel
Jan 16th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
A setting sun and the majestic Mount Kilimanjaro in the background with wonderful cloud formations and not an animal in sight; what’s a guy to do? Looking around the parched river bed, I located the skull of a Wildebeest and decided it was going to be the best that I could do. I placed the skull in an angle that would throw nice shadow off to the left with the setting sun over my shoulder. After the shots were taken, everyone decided to name our find Fred. Fred found his way onto the front of our jeep, going everywhere we went for the rest of the trip. Clearly we were in good hands with Fred on guard.
Our Man "Fred"
Nikon D3s, 24-70mm @ 50mm, ISO 400, f/8 at 1/80 sec, spot metering mode, EV-2/3rds.
Cheers and happy photo’ing
Jan 10th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Another week of announcements: The long awaited Lightroom 4 Beta is out and can be downloaded over at Adobe Labs for those of you that are willing to accept working in a Beta environment. If you decide to download and install this Beta, please be sure to read all of the fine print associated with the using the Beta (there is always some level of risk in using Beta software, so plan accordingly).
After a fast review of the new features in LR4 (Beta), I can once again say that Adobe has done things right! Several of the new features in LR4B are ones that I have been hoping to see in LR for a long time. The most critical improvements for me include a local development brush that has gone crazy with enhanced adjustments, the ability to create photo books directly from a dedicated module, a wonderful soft proofing capability as well as the ability to match your print brightness and contrast to that of your monitor, tonal adjustment controls are designed to extract the entire dynamic range from cameras for shadow details and highlights, and enhanced support for video including the ability to develop the video. Lastly, there is a wonderful way to now email images directly from Lightroom using any email account, including Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail. All pretty slick, if you ask me. If Adobe sticks to their normal release schedule, I would expect to see LR4 ready to release in late spring or very early summer. Yes, I’ll be standing in line. Meanwhile, spend some time over at Adobe Labs or over at National Association of Photoshop Professionals’ Beta Launch Center.
Cheers and happy photo’ing.
Jan 6th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
The much awaited Nikon D4 was announced last night (Pacific Time) and if the specs pan out, this will be a killer camera. With the D3s as my primary work horse, I have come to rely on the high speed capture rate (frames per second) and the second to none low light noise free shooting. I can’t tell you how many times this camera has saved my bacon when it comes to shooting in the low light conditions of first or last light of the day. Night city-scapes are also a breeze when shooting with the D3s. In reading the specifications of the D4, it looks like nothing but a GRAND improvement over the D3s and I simply can’t wait to get my hands on one. As soon as I run this camera through its paces, I will report back with my observations. With any luck, I will own one of these before my trip to Africa in March. Meanwhile, you can read about the D4 over at B& H Photo. And now, here is the D4 with an estimated price of $6,400 US – OUCH.
Nikon D4
Dec 21st, 2011 by Randy Hanna
Happy Holidays to All
I’m going to be taking a couple of weeks off, so no (or limited) posting for the next two weeks unless I sneak a photo or two in.
Meanwhile, some exciting news: I will be leading a photo safari for the Smithsonian into Tanzania next December. This will be an exciting adventure and will put me in the bush for Christmas for the first time. You can read about December Smithsonian Photo Safari here.
Dec 21st, 2011 by Randy Hanna
On each safari, I always learn from things that did not go as planned. All of the items below have funny stories, for the most part, to go with each entry. Just let your mind wonder and I am sure you can conjure up images to go along with tag lines. If you are on a future safari with me, be sure to ask about any of these.
That’s the very last trip update for this past trip, yes is has taken some time to get to here. What a great adventure and most importantly, a fun time was had by all with plenty of stories to go around.
Cheers and happy photo’ing.
Dec 19th, 2011 by Randy Hanna
A very early morning on the Mara Plains with sun kissed grasses and balloons in the air.
Nikon D3S, 24-70mm @ 65mm, f/6.3, ISO 800 at 1/200 sec, 6 images stitched together.
Cheers and happy photo’ing
Nov 29th, 2011 by Randy Hanna
I almost always shoot in aperture mode, as it allows me to control the depth of field or zone of focus. I use this technique to control what the viewer “sees” in my photograph or to call attention to a particular part of the image or to isolate the primary image from the foreground or background. Combing this technique with the image compression of a telephoto lens, one can really start to isolate the subject. In the image below, I used a wide open aperture on a 200-400mm zoom set at 310mm and focused just in front of of the cheetah. Focusing in front of the Cheetah allowed me to keep the first cat in crisp focus while allowing the second cat (only three feet behind the first one) to go past soft focus and begin the transition into the blurred background. The result is a tact sharp cat in the foreground with a pleasing out of focus background, yet showing enough detail in the second cat to maintain interest. Having shot with the 200-400 for a number of years, I am pretty good at guessing the hyperfocal distances (I’ll save that topic for another post) within my normal shooting ranges. Like most shots, when you take your time and make use of your knowledge, you will increase your chances of walking away with a solid image.
Outside of the Massai Mara Plains, two brothers on alert.
Nikon D3S, 200-400mm VRII, set at 310mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.0, matrix meeting, aperture priority
Cheers and happy photo’ ing.
Tags: Africa, Eyes On Africa, Kenya, Mara Plains Camp, Masai Mara, Safari, Wilderness Safari Company
Nov 23rd, 2011 by Randy Hanna
