For me, this happens in particular when I am travelling.  Typically when I travel I have one chance to get the shot.  After that, we will visit a different place or leave the area.  On some occasions when I have a good hotel location, I do receive multiple chances – but the reality is I usually have to take what I get.

Until recently, I found I would get annoyed quickly.  I would get impatient at the person with a camera cell phone attempting to photograph something that just isn’t possible with it but refusing to believe that this is the case while standing right in front of my camera.  Even more annoying was on a recent trip to China a guy sat right in front of what I was photographing and then motioned for me to get away so his wife could take his picture.  OK, I still get frustrated at these people – but I now have a new strategy.

The strategy is simply to make your enemy your strength.  Instead of getting frustrated at that which is preventing the picture you desire, look at what opportunities this opens up.

The shot above is a beginning example of this.  While we were in Beijing, the light was horrible.  Due to the strong pollution there, everything in the entire city was washed out and we did not see a single patch of blue sky while we were there.  I realized that the light was just simply not going to improve, so I chose to zoom in instead.  I rather like the shot above.  True, better light could have made it spectacular, but it would have had to come from a perfect angle and I think this shot isn’t so bad without it.  In this case, I used the poor light to push me to take more closeups that have less dependency on light.

On another trip to the Great Wall, we were stunned to wind up in a part that was literally overflowing with people.  While there are parts of the wall that have fewer people, our tour guide (ChinaTours.net – I do not recommend them) took us to one of the most crowded parts and there were so many people that we were literally packed like sardines.  It took forever just to move several feet.  Clearly I was not going to obtain the images I was hoping for.

So instead of trying to avoid people – I chose to focus the shot on them.  While I am still not completely happy with this shot – I think it needs some more post processing – it is one of my favorite shots from the Great Wall.  It clearly demonstrates what we were up against and what the Great Wall has become.

While we were in Xi’an, we decided to attend a Chinese cultural theater presentation.  The theater was very nicely decorated and the costumes and dancing were all very well done, but very often while I attempted to take pictures several guys in front of me would lift their small cameras as far in the air as possible to get a shot.  It became very annoying just when I thought I had a great shot I would find a camera in the middle of it.

Thinking about it a bit more, what would become of my shots anyways?  I couldn’t sell them, as I didn’t have the model releases.  A few of them I would show to family and friends, but that was about all.  Therefore I decided to try something different.

I really like this shot, even though my wife hates it so much she forced me to remove it from our photo album from China.  It still needs a bit more post processing, but is still my favorite shot from the evening.

In both of the cases above I deliberately made use of the thing that was annoying me to get a shot I liked better than most of the rest anyways. 

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

As many of you know, one of my strongest passions is for travel photography.  Every year a great deal of time is spent determining where we will go on our next trip.  Once the next trip is decided upon, I spend a great deal of time debating which lenses and equipment to take on the trip and what types of things I want pictures of.

After spending seventeen days travelling through Beijing and Xi’an in mainland China, then Hong Kong, the following is a post mortem of what wound up working well for me and what did not.

What went well

Having two cameras

This is the first vacation where I took both my 5D2 and my 7D.  This provided quite a few advantages over a single camera – primarily that I did not need to change lenses often and could rapidly switch between closeups and wide angle shots.

The configuration I most often used was a TS-E 24 II on my 5D2 and a 70-200/4 IS on my 7D.  I would often zoom in on details of a building with my 7D, then take the entire building with the 5D2.

I did not always have both cameras around my neck at the same time, and on some short trips I took only one camera (typically the 5D2) so as to not overly annoy my wife, but overall the combo was extremely useful.

Using tilt shifts

As I use my tilt shift lenses more and more, I really am starting to feel that autofocus is truly overrated.  Sure, it is extremely useful for action, sports, and wildlife shots – but for most travel photos it is just a convenience – not a necessity.

On this trip I brought my TS-E 17, TS-E 24 II, and TS-E 90.  By far the TS-E 24 II was the most used.  I also used my TS-E 17 for a number of situations – though for the majority of situations it was too wide.  The TS-E 90 was used sparingly – primarily from our hotel room.

I used shift far more than tilt for most shots.  I did take a few shots playing around with tilt – such as above, but the majority of shots used shift for architecture.

Arranging for private tours in Xi’an and Beijing

Mainland China can be difficult to figure out.  I chose to not bother trying and pay a local to do this for me.  This enabled us to very quickly move from site to site – whereas in other trips we would often spend a tremendous amount of time finding places.

What went OK

China Tours

We used China Tours (ChinaTours.net) to book the private tours.  The guides were cordial and we saw for the most part the places we wanted to see, but what we really did not like was that each day we had to stop at one or more shops and spend a specific amount of time there.  We paid for a tour – not to stop in shops.

For others travelling to China, I would not recommend this agency and I would instead specifically enquire whether any time would be spent in shops.  Once already there, it is generally much better to just hire a taxi – as they were OK with us not wanting to go to shop (they didn’t even ask).

What didn’t work well

Monopod

I did not use this a single time and for our next trip I will not bother to take it.  A monopod works extremely well when shooting with longer lenses such as my 300/4 or 100-400, but for the shorter lenses it is fine to just shoot hand held or when not a tripod is required.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I also do not want your picture because if you are in my shot and I want to sell it, I either must figure out how to clone you out of the shot or I cannot sell the shot.  So it is in my best interest to take steps to assure that you (and by “you” I mean any one of the other six billion odd people out there) are not in my photograph.

The problem is, when traveling people are like locusts.  Especially if you travel to a popular destination, they are everywhere.  They walk in front of you while taking a picture.  They climb monuments you are trying to take a picture of so that their friend can take a picture of them at the top of a 300 foot tall structure with a wide angle lens.  The new cameras in cell phones are even worse, as it is generally not possible to do a quick shot.  The user stands there for awhile, trying to get the picture he/she wants on the screen.  Then the picture doesn’t come out so he/she tries again, while you are waiting patiently to get a real picture.

Unfortunately, unless you are an emperor or dictator, you cannot do anything about this.  You can plan things so you photograph when the least number of people are around – such as early in the morning or you use your own transportation so you arrive between the tour buses, but for some sites large crowds are unavoidable.

Patience goes a long way here.  Very often, when I want a particular shot I will take out my camera, frame my shot, then wait for the best moment.  That is what I did for the first shot in this blog.

The only problem that sometimes happens is others see my large SLR and think “there must be something interesting there”.  So they take out their cameras and shoot away.  I do not mind this, except when by taking the shot they wind up in my shot.  As I often use my 16-35 2.8 and they often have small compact cameras, this is too often the case.  I won’t characterize stereotypes here, but after traveling and photographing for awhile, you can often get a general idea of the kind of people who do this.  Most of them are part of large tour groups who blindly follow their tour guide from place to place.  In this case, I just wait for the crowd to pass and then aim my camera and take my shot – by which time they can’t get back to take the photo for fear of losing their guide.

Of course, as I travel with two kids and my wife, this is often not possible and they lose patience with me long before the shot is ready.  Therefore, I often need to use tactics that take less time.

The two things that work best for me, which I learned while vacationing in Mexico – where the crowds were the worst I have ever seen – are to either go long or go wide.

For the shot above, there were about twenty other people in the room with me but I managed to wiggle my way to in front of this cave painting in Cappadocia and get my shot.  No, I did not use a flash (which the others in the room would do whenever the guard was not looking).  In this case it helps to have a camera that can do ISO 3200 without much noise.  I used my 16-35 to take the shot.

Using a wide angle lens works best when you can make sure you are closer than anyone else to the subject.  This actually worked out quite well in Chichen Itza as people are not allowed to climb the ruins any more. 

It does not work as well when people are allowed to climb the ruins.  In those cases, you have three possibilities.

1) Frame the shot without them.  If the people are at the bottom of the ruin, you can photograph the top.  Of course, this often doesn’t work as they are spread out over the ruin.

2) Wait for the crowd to be lower.  As I mentioned before though, this often isn’t an option or won’t work.

3) Wait for the people to get in a cloneable area.  If the person is in front of something that doesn’t have much detail, I will take the picture knowing I can clone the person out if I want to.

The other technique is to go long.  In this case, you are a distance from the subject and use a telephoto to get the shot.  Of course, if people are climbing over the object you will still need to be either patient or clone them out.

I used this technique to get this shot of the Blue Mosque – which usually has a throng of people around it.

I deliberately aimed up slightly to avoid the numerous people walking around.  The other nice thing about using a telephoto is you can capture the detail of the building, which many people often miss.

For a telephoto, I most often use my 70-200 4L IS.  I also own a 100-400 but use it far less frequently.  The greatest thing about the 70-200 F4 is its weight.  It functions great as a walk around lens and the IS is amazing.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

About a month ago, my wife, kids and I traveled to Turkey for seventeen days. We spent time at three main places – Antalya, Cappadocia, and Istanbul – in that order.

First up was Antalya.  We really liked Antalya, but the six days we spent there were probably one day too much.  Five days would have been much better.  The old town is very nice and I had a lot of fun walking around one morning, getting shots of the interesting houses there.

We spent a good deal of time there going on day trips and saw Kekova, Aspendos, Perge, Myra, and Termessos.  Perhaps on future posts I will go into these in more detail, but they were very interesting Greek and Roman ruins and I got a lot of shots I am very happy about.

Some of the minuses in Antalya were that within the old city there weren’t a tremendous amount of things to do.  We did take the boat ride and it was nice walking around in the old city, but most of the activities are outside the city.  We did love our hotel there – nestled in the old city.  Staying in the old city was also much better than staying at one of the huge resorts along the coast – which aren’t Turkey at all.

The other major problem we had, which we had throughout Turkey, was the habitual lying.  It was close to impossible to get any kind of truth out of the people who deal with tourists there.  For instance, we thought we might pick up a nice carpet there – as we had heard that the selection and prices were great.

First, I will give you the hard fact.  Unless you are a carpet expert, I would absolutely not buy a carpet in Turkey under any circumstances.  The carpets are expensive compared to places like Dubai and the majority of carpets are fake.  By fake I mean they are manufactured by machine in China.  This is true for many of the high end rugs which are advertised as Turkish silk but are in fact made by hand or sometimes by machine in China – where the labor is much cheaper.

Of course, figuring out which rugs are fake and which ones are real is close to impossible.  Real rugs exist there, but you cannot trust anything the carpet dealers will tell to you.  Many carpet dealers there are happy to point out tricks towards telling what types of carpets are fake – and many of these tips helped us.  However, once you piece together all of the different tips from different dealers, you’ll realize that determining the real carpets from the fake is close to impossible.

I will end my discussion of that and move on to Cappadocia, which was by far our favorite part of the trip.

There are three things that any visitor to Cappadocia must do.  If you do not do these things, IMHO you have not properly visited the place.

1) Stay there at least three days.  There is simply too much to see there.

2) Stay in a cave hotel.  We stayed at Kismet Cave House and it was one of the most interesting places we have ever stayed.

3) Take a balloon ride – even though they are expensive.

We rented a car and drove from Antalya to Göreme, which was an interesting drive if you discount our insane GPS which we wound up just disregarding.  We also used the car around Cappadocia – which worked out very well.  We were able to spend the amount of time we wished at each place and we missed many of the huge tourist buses.

The whole region is just spectacularly beautiful and deserves its own post in the future. In particular, the owner of the Kismet Cave House chatted with us often, served as our guide around the area, and my kids played with his kids and his new puppy.  In the end, all of us had a great time in Cappadocia.  People were also much nicer and honest in Cappadocia than in Antalya and Istanbul.

The trip ended in Istanbul, where we spent seven days.  Again, one day less would have been great here.

There are a number of very interesting things to see around Istanbul – the Haghia Sofia, Dolmabahçe Palace, the Blue Mosque, Topkapı Palace, the Basilica Cistern – and I absolutely would not visit it in two days like many of the cruise ship passengers we saw.

We stayed near the Blue Mosque, which for tourists is probably the best place to say as it is within walking distance of most of the interesting sites.  Interestingly, the best hotels in Istanbul are far away from the action, while the hotels closest to everything were more moderately priced.  Go figure.

The biggest disappointment in Istanbul was the Grand Bazaar.  Although it truly is quite large, as stated with the carpets a great number of items there are fake.  The prices are also very high compared to other countries we have visited like Jordan, Dubai, Malaysia, and Thailand.  We were excited about seeing the Grand Bazaar, but in the end we didn’t buy too much both due to the prices and due to the fact that we could not tell the real items from the fake ones (which is fine if prices are very cheap – but when they are expensive you at least want something real). 

Even the fake clothing was a problem.  Obviously they do not have real Prada purses and even they will tell you that – but it was difficult to determine the real quality of the fakes they offered.  My wife, who loves fakes, feels that Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand had the best quality fakes for the best prices.

In the end, while the lying and deceit certainly put a damper on our trip, the sites more than made up for it.  It was also a good location for our kids, as Turks tolerated our kids misbehaving very well – much more so than in the US, England, or France. 

At the end of each vacation, my wife and I rank the vacation we just went on.  I would rank this vacation third – behind Peru and Dubai.  It is just ahead of Thailand and much better than the Riviera Maya (Mexico) vacation we went on last year – which we placed near the bottom of our list.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I am certainly no expert in pigeon shots – these being my first attempts – but the following is what I did learn.

First, it is obvious here that a fast shutter speed is necessary.  I used 1/3200 in order to get the flying pigeons in midair.  I probably could have gotten away with 1/250 to 1/500 for the kids running around, but pigeons move quite a bit faster and my first attempts had the kids in focus surrounded by blurry pigeons – which didn’t look so good.  By using a much faster shutter speed, the shots looked a bit better.

The other thing I did was use my 580EX as a fill flash.  Due to the high shutter speed, I did not diffuse it at all but aimed it straight at the subject – one of the very few times I ever did this.  Despite the high shutter speed, the flash definitely helped – particularly in lightening the pigeons a bit.  In my first shots the pigeons were quite dark.  It also helped with the faces on Eitan and Nathan – removing some of the shadows.

What I found rather humorous was how Eitan and Nathan made their own terms for the pigeons.  A large group of pigeons ready for scaring was called a “pile” and they constantly ran around searching for piles.  They still ask if there is a place in Seattle where we can chase pigeons, but I suspect due to health issues and such those places are very rare here.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The reality of course, is that this is often not an option for us mere mortals. We do not have the flexibility to get up at the wee hours of the morning and trek to a good spot that we scoped out the day before and stay there for several hours getting good shots.  If we did this, our families would kill us.

Therefore much of the light we get to shoot in is of the worst kind.  It occurs when the sun is high above during the mid day.  The other reality is that you may find that the sky is cloudy and ugly on that particular day.  However, this does not necessarily mean that all hope is lost.  There are a number of options available to you and in this post, as well as future ones, I will go over these in more detail.

First, there are some things that you can do to get that ideal morning or late afternoon light without dragging your family out of bed.  This is possible through prior planning.  If you make sure that your hotel is located near some interesting sites, you can wake up early in the morning to photograph them and return to join your family for breakfast.

For instance, on a recent trip to Turkey I made sure to stay in the Sultanahment area – which contains the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sofia – along with a host of other interesting places.  This enabled me to get out and shoot some photos in the morning.  I would wake up around six in the morning, shoot for a bit, then join my family for breakfast.  It also enabled me to get some shots of these crowded places with fewer people in the shots.  My wife loved this solution as she appreciated sleeping in a bit and when we did get out I didn’t stop every few minutes to take a picture.

However, this does not work well for day trips – when you are seeing locations further from your hotel.  In these cases, you almost always wind up seeing the site during the middle of the day.

You will of course not get dramatic sunrise or sunset lighting during this time, but a blue sky is better than a blown out sky.  There are several options that I make use of during these times.

The easiest option is to simply pay attention to the light.  For example, most of the time if you are facing horrible light, if you turn around you will find the lighting much better.  Always avoid shooting towards the sun.  This sounds very simple, but you would be surprised how many times you’ll find yourself doing it.

There will be times though, when you simply cannot get behind your subject or your prefer the viewpoint that looks almost right into the sun.  In this case, you will have to contend with the wide dynamic range.  Of course, you don’t always have to get all of the dynamic range in there.  I am a sucker for silhouette shots, though many others don’t like them.

Another option is to take an HDR shot.  This is particularly useful inside dark buildings where the outside is very bright.  Of course, you may not like the effect, but in many cases this is the best way to get the closest to the full dynamic range.

Even in this shot, the dynamic range was too much to get the outside behind the door correctly exposed.  However, it did improve the gleaming light on the floors and in the windows above.  As tripods and monopods are often not allowed, I shoot these HDR shots handheld using exposure bracketing.  Unfortunately, Canon is still brain dead in this area and only allows three shots on all but the 1D series cameras.  To compensate for this, I set the bracketing to every two stops and shoot in RAW.

The other option, which also works for cloudy days when even exposed sky will be white, is to add the sky in post processing.  This is quite easy to do, though it takes some time to get it perfect.  The following is a shot taken during a cloudy day.

The following is the same shot with a bit of editing.  It is still a bit raw, but gives the basic idea.

To do this, I took the shot above and another shot with a better sky and did the following.

1) Copied the shot above as a new layer on the one with the sky.

2) Selected the white sky using the magic selector.

3) Deleted the bad sky – replacing it with the better one.

4) Burned the building a bit in order to make it look a bit more natural.

I do not advocate using this as an escape, but there are times when the scene is very interesting and the weather just refuses to cooperate.  A true pro would stay in a location for a good period of time and wait for the right weather, but the rest of us need to deal with what we are given.

This certainly is not an exhaustive list of what is possible, but I hope it has illustrated that it is still possible to get good shots without waking the family at 4 AM every morning and trekking them to the same spots to get the best light.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

After nineteen days of travel in Istanbul, Antalya, and Cappadocia, we are finally back!  Actually we got back a few days ago, but it has been difficult getting back to this time zone and taking care of various issues.

The trip was very interesting and was one of the better trips we have taken.  Everyone had fun and I set a personal record with over 2000 pictures taken and 80GB of data.  Rather than discuss at length what we did, I thought I would cover what went well and what did not in terms of the photography planning I did for the trip.

What went well

Canon 100-400 lens

This was my first vacation with this lens, and it was very useful.  Admittedly, I did not use it nearly as much as my 70-200 F4 IS or my 16-35 2.8 II but I did use it about 15% of the time.  In particular, it was very useful during the balloon ride and when on sightseeing boats.

Slingshot 200 bag

This was the first vacation where I used this bag and it was certainly very handy.  I used it for walking around town and carried my 70-200 F4 IS, 16-35 2.8 II, and a 580EX II flash.  Sometimes I also added my 50mm 1.4.  The bag was very light and seldom caused problems.

Canon 5D Mark II

I simply cannot imagine what it was like now with my old 5D.  The two features most useful were the high ISO capabilities – allowing me to photograph in dark caves and churches – and the video functionality.  I took several videos while there that I know will be family classics.

Canon 70-200 F4 IS and 16-35 2.8 II

These are the main lenses I use for traveling and again they did not disappoint.  I find that I need to go either very wide or need a medium telephoto.  The IS of the 70-200 worked splendidly in museums, while the 2.8 aperture of the 16-35 worked wonders in dark caves and churches.

Nexto DI backup HD

I borrowed a 120GB unit from a friend and it turned out to be a very wise decision as my Digimate III died on the trip.  I was a bit nervous, but this device read the cards quickly and worked like a champ.  Without it, I would have been limited to the capacities of my flash cards.

What went just OK

ThinkTankPhoto Airport Accelerator v2.0 bag

I cannot trash this bag as it did fit easily into the overhead and IMHO is the best solution for transporting the maximum amount of equipment in the overhead.  On our return flight, a Lufthansa representative almost did not let me take it because it weighed more than the allowed 8kg.

What really bugs me about this bag though is it is a very poor bag for the field.  Its lack of pockets meant that I had to dig through the two pockets provided when I needed something.  I rarely carried it in the field, but did take it on longer day trips.  Some time in the future I will probably buy a different bag for use around Seattle and at times abroad.

Gitzo GM5561T monopod

I wound up finding my monopod useful only once – during an air balloon ride in Cappadocia.  Although it was extremely useful there, otherwise I did not use it at all.  I did try using it with my 100-400 on a boat, but the rocking of the boat caused all of my shots to be slanted.  I obtained better results hand held.  Also, the foot fell off the monopod and was lost, though I understand it is easy to replace.

What did not go well

Canon 180mm macro and macro flash

I took exactly three shots with my 180mm macro on the trip and did not use my MT-24EX at all.  I did see a lot of interesting insects, but there were simply too many other things to photograph.  For future trips similar to this, I will leave all of my macro equipment at home.

Pocketwizards

I played with them once but otherwise I didn’t need to bring them on this vacation.  On future vacations, they will stay home.

Digimate III

I always try to bring two backup hard drives, and it turned out to be a very wise decision on this trip.  My Digimate III died on the trip (wouldn’t stay on for more than a few minutes – even when fully charged) which would have been a disaster had I not borrowed a friend’s unit.

Turkish GPS

Though the GPS was in English, it drove us in circles for an hour and a half until we put it out of its misery and just used a map.  I’m not sure what was wrong with it, but it clearly had no idea how to handle round abouts and sent us in the opposite direction from where we needed to go, but once we started using the maps it agreed with our course.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The park is not very far from Seattle and is one of the many nice waterfalls we have around here.  This is one of the great benefits of living here.  While back East we had Niagara Falls (which I have seen perhaps a hundred times but never photographed) after that the waterfalls taped off a bit.  Not that case here – as we have a good number of waterfalls over a hundred feet tall.

Ironically, I feel that the best shots from the trip were not of the waterfalls itself.  They are nice waterfalls, but I believe it is necessary to get down to the waterfall level for a truly nice shot.  Unfortunately conditions were not favorable that day towards doing that.

The picture here shows part of my problem for the day.  Due to the weather conditions there was just too much dynamic range in the shot.  I considered doing on HDR shot but I just didn’t think it would make a good HDR shot either.  I am not against HDR, but I think too many people use it too often.  Like other things, it is a tool that has its purposes.  Here’s a closer shot with shadow/highlight added – which is kind of like an HDR effect.

Some people may like this shot better.  I’m a bit conflicted, but I think the biggest issue with all of these shots is the viewpoint.  In particular the trees on the left side distract from the waterfall.  This particular viewpoint of the falls is very small, so all photographs from this location look very similar.

Going up the path a bit further there is another cascade above this one.  It has a much better positioned viewing platform and I found an interesting tree trunk that was stuck in the falls.

I like this shot a bit better than the ones of the larger falls.  The shot is a lot simpler and more direct.  I’m not calling it a masterpiece, but I do think this is one case where bigger isn’t necessarily better.  Here is a closer shot of the log.

I think this shot is interesting, but something in the framing is a bit off.  Perhaps I should have come earlier that day.  I do think I should have played with the framing a bit more.  I took only a handful of shots of the tree.  This reminds me that when I find something interesting I need to really explore the subject.  It also doesn’t help that I overexposed the water behind the tree.

There are also a number of smaller cascades and streams in the park.  A number of them are very pretty, though I don’t think I did them justice.

Finally, I couldn’t resist taking out my macro lens.  In particular I found some moss hanging from a tree with drops on it.  It was simply irresistible to take out my MP-E 65 and get some shots.

I also found some interesting insects that day, but you will have to wait for the next posts for them.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

First, I will divide the trip into the different types of photos you may take – landscape, wildlife, and macro.

Landscape photography

The landscape is absolutely beautiful there – and most of my favorite photos taken there were landscape shots.  However, this is mainly because I lacked a good telephoto.  If I had had an SLR with a telephoto lens, things would have been the other way around.

The best lens to take for landscapes would be the 16-35mm 2.8L II.  In this case, the 16-35 is a much better choice than the 17-40 4L because the 2.8 aperture really makes a difference – especially when you are in the jungle – which is very dark.

However, you will not have a tremendous amount of time for landscape photos because you’ll find yourself on the move quite often.  Unless you go on a photography specific tour, you’ll find the need to shoot handheld most of the time because you won’t have the time to set up a tripod.

Wildlife photography

There are actually three different ways to see wildlife on a trip like this.

A lot of the time will be spent in a canoe similar to the one above.  This is actually the best way to take pictures and most of your keepers will likely be from the canoe.  Most of the time, it moves quite quickly – but the engines stop whenever they spot something interesting.

For a canoe, if I had one lens and one body I would take the biggest telephoto I had.  Ideally I would take the Canon 600mm 4L.  Most of the interesting critters will either be on the shore or high in trees – which often is a good distance from the boat.  Therefore, you’ll need a very long lens.  Even with the 600mm I would be tempted to use a 1.4x extender.

The main drawback with such a large lens is weight.  On the trip I went on, we were severely limited in the weight we could carry due to the small plane we took back.  You will need to make sure to work this out with the company before going.

Even more ideal, I would bring a second body with the Canon 100-400L lens.  In order to accomplish this though you will need a second helper.  You will not have time to pull a camera out of the bag and you need to secure the lens well when the canoe is moving – which is often very windy and wet.

The next best way to see wildlife is from blinds.  During the trip, we went to two different blinds.  At the first blind we saw hundreds of macaw parrots and at the second we saw a tapir late at night.

The poor quality of this shot is due to the night vision feature of the F717 – probably the only time I used that feature for a real purpose.  However, Tapirs don’t mind flashes so if you plan to view tapirs a flash would be a good thing to bring.  Otherwise, I would not bother for a flash unless you want to take pictures of your traveling party.

For a blind, the same equipment as mentioned above would be important.  In this case though you’ll have time to set up your tripod and get a lot of shots.  In the tapir case, we were quite close to it so even a 70-200 would have worked just fine.  However, for the macaws I definitely would have wanted a 600mm – expect when taking pictures of a number of macaws at the same time which would require the 100-400.

For walking around in the forest, you’ll probably be disappointed.  The majority of wildlife will not stick around for awhile once they notice you – which in the majority of cases is before you notice them.  Monkeys are probably the only exception.  You’ll need to shoot them handheld – so I would use a 100-400 for this purpose.  You will not have time to setup a 600mm – so leave that back in the camp where it will be perfectly safe.

Macro photography

This is the place for macro, but unless you go on a photography specific trip you’ll notice that you won’t have much time to take shots.  On my trip the guide was constantly on the move.

You will have time when at rest around the camp.  For this purpose the best lens is the MP-E 65.  However, for some things such as army ants I probably would bring the 180L because I want to keep some measure of space between us.

It’s not a bad idea to bring a 180L when walking in the forest.  Most of the shots in the interior will be macro shots because other animals won’t stick around very long.  This will also allow you to get some monkey shots if you happen to see them.  Make sure to bring a macro flash like the MT-24EX because you will not have time to setup a tripod.

Recommended companies

The two main companies I am familiar with are Manu Expeditions – which is the company I used – and Inkanatura.  If I were to go again I would use Inkanatura.  I felt the group in Manu Expeditions (10 people) was a bit too large and Inkanatura uses smaller groups – though charges more.  When I was there I also ran across two individuals who arranged for an individual guide – which in my opinion is the best way to do a trip like this.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

At the time, Eitan and Nathan were 23 months and 10 months old.  Nelya wanted to take a nice relaxing vacation.  Her ideal vacation was resting by a beach, but she wasn’t against shopping.  My ideal vacation was exploring an exotic location.  I spent months searching for the ideal destination, with the end result being the island of Sentosa in Singapore.

Sentosa is a small island literally connected to downtown Singapore.  While it is very close to sites to see, it is geared towards families and has an aquarium, animal enclosures, a man made beach, and paths going through small patches of jungle.  The merlion above, which is the symbol of Singapore, is also found in Sentosa and at night there is a laser light show near it.  The following shot came from our hotel window.  Of course, the background leaves little doubt that we were in one of the busiest ports of Asia.

Singapore is a great place to photograph animals.  They have three zoos, seashores, and a large patch of tropical jungle called Bukit Timah.  Unfortunately my camera fogged up there so I don’t have any shots of it.  I do have shots of the other zoos.

They have an ‘ordinary’ zoo, which is a large form of the zoos we have near us.

However, they also have two very unusual zoos.  The first is a night zoo, which is located right next to the normal zoo and opens right when it closes, making it possible to do both in a long day.  The night zoo contains only nocturnal animals.

Finally, they have Jurong Bird Park, the largest zoo devoted to birds in the world.  The zoo is humongous and features the largest aviary in the world.  I would love to go back there with better lenses someday.

Singapore is extremely safe and about as clean as possible.  Everyone there is very friendly and helpful (friendliness is part of the schooling there) and I was rather taken back by the fact that whenever I looked lost, someone would stop and actually ask to help me – without any ulterior motives of selling me anything.

Nelya loved that her favorite flower, the Plumeria, was everywhere around.  Actually one of the most famous varieties of it is called Singapura.

Nelya also loved shopping, particularly in nearby Malaysia where she picked up the latest in fake fashions.  I liked the electronics malls, though the prices were higher than in the US – even after bargaining.  As for what Eitan and Nathan thought of the trip, the pictures tell more than words.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.