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.

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This particular image is a focus stack from two images.  I have been working a bit more with focus stacking using Zerene stacker and find it very useful – in particular for someone like me who does not have a lot of time.

Dandelion seeds can actually be rather tricky to photograph.  I usually find that more than 1:1 magnification is required so I use my MP-E 65 anywhere from 1:1 to 2:1.  Generally the seeds do not stay still so a flash is required.  It can be quite tricky though getting the seed in your viewfinder and in focus as they tend to sway quite a bit in the wind – causing the seed to come in and out of my viewfinder.

This swaying further complicates getting a good set of images for a focus stack.  The only way I have found to combat this so far is by taking a number of images.  After taking a good number of shots, I am able to evaluate them right on the camera so the majority of the shots never see Lightroom.

The above shot was taken closer to 1:1 so you can see the magnification difference.  It also suffered from extreme swaying and due to the number of seeds involved I was not able to take a set that worked well enough for focus stacking.  Still, I rather like the shot though my wife says I needed to ‘add’ one more seed to make it an odd number.

Using flash with dandelion seeds can also be a bit tricky.  The problem is the dandelion makes up only a small part of the image so the camera will often overexpose through the flashes.  This tends to cause the seed to be blown out.  The best way to compensate for this is to dial the flash back.  I often dial my MT-24EX back between –1 1/3 to –2.

This image I liked better as I was creating it than I like the final product.  The image I wanted was successfully executed – doing a multiple image focus stack so all of the seeds are in focus.  However in this case I believe the seed head is exceptionally ugly and really distracts from the shot.  The seed head looks rather old and stale.  Still, I think it is an idea worth exploring more – perhaps with a full head of seeds.

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The sunflower starfish is the largest starfish in the world and one of the most feared predators of the ocean.  I remember watching them on Planet Earth one night and thinking how cool it would be to actually see one.  I later learned that one can find them in the Pacific Northwest but figured that my chances of actually seeing one were slim.

While walking on the beach at Kopachuck State Park, someone mentioned that there was a starfish with many legs.  Excited, I walked over and sure enough it was the starfish I suspected.

As starfish go, the sunflower starfish moves quite quickly.  While we were on the beach it did not move at all, though the small bristles under the starfish were moving and it was definitely still living.  I only hope that the huge numbers of people who were at the beach that day did not disturb it.

Sunflower stars begin their lives with much fewer legs and grow more of them as they age.  Nothing was near this starfish on the beach and I’m sure that was not a coincidence.

They can actually move at one meter per minute – which is blazingly fast by starfish standards!  They also have the ability to shed their own arms in order to escape predators.

Kopachuk is quickly becoming one of my favorite parks, though it is somewhat ruined by the huge numbers of people who come there – some of whom do not care for the life they share the beach with.  Still, if you get to the park early there is a tremendous amount of marine life there waiting for you.

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In truth, sand dollars look quite a bit different when they are still alive.

These two sand dollars were found at Kopachuk State Park, where it’s literally impossible to not find a sand dollar.  They can be found in the thousands there and in places it is difficult to walk without stepping on one.

This one appears to be Echinarachnius parma, or the Common Sand Dollar.  Interestingly, sand dollars are either female or male – just like other animals and insects.  Even more interestingly, sand dollars are one of the first creatures found to use cloning as a means for self defense.  The sand dollar will deliberately break of parts of itself that are small enough for predators to not bother them.

Taking a look at the sand dollars on the beach, it was very clear upon looking at them that they are truly living – as it appeared something was moving on them.  Of course I had to take a closer look.

All over each sand dollar are thousands of miniscule spines.  These spines direct food to the mouth of the sand dollar.

This is what the spines look like close to 5x.  They are constantly moving and give the sand dollar a ‘glistening’ look.

Here you can actually see that the sand dollar actually has water over it – as the spines barely touch above the thin layer of water that covers the sand dollar.  Without this water the sand dollar would likely dry up and die – becoming one of the white sand dollars we know them as.

Finally, we found some smaller sand dollars.  These ones looked like babies and were found hidden near several much larger sand dollars.

Sand dollars are found throughout the world and are very common.  Still, in just a short time at a beach I learned a lot about an animal I ordinarily do not pay much attention to.

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My goal with this shot was to emphasize the legs coming right out at you – as if they harvestman were about to grab you.  I created several versions of this shot, but this one I like the best – with the body of the harvestman just visible behind. 

For those not familiar with our friend the harvestman, they are not spiders.  They are arachnids, but are in the order Opiliones while spiders are in the order Araneae.  Of course, for the squeamish that isn’t very important.  Most people know the harvestman by the common name “daddy long legs".

In this shot, I tried to emphasize more the geometry of the harvestman.  I spent some time trying to get the legs at the correct angle to form a triangle with the two upper corners.  This is the closest I got.  This particular shot is also a focus stack of two images.  The image wasn’t taken as a panorama – but was cropped to remove some distracting elements from the picture.

This shot is a bit closer to my everyday shots of harvestmen.  I wasn’t too crazy initially with the lighting of this shot as it is one case where I would have preferred to use a tripod and a long exposure to get rid of the black background caused by the flash.  However in this case I warmed up to the lighting as I like the emphasis on the right foot.  There’s actually a very small drop at the end of it that I think is rather cool.

In the future I plan to continue to experiment with harvestmen – coming up with even more original shots.  I hope this will become a common experiment with critters that I have already photographed quite a bit – such as spiders and pill bugs.

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Not far from being back in my office I suddenly heard several loud knocks as a I passed a tree.  I’m not a birder, but neither am I an idiot.  I immediately knew what that could be.  After several moments, I located the culprit.

I must admit that I had to look up what type of woodpecker this is, and it is a Northern Flicker.  It is actually quite common everywhere in the US and I’m sure for many birders this is a rather ordinary bird – but for me at least this is the best look I have had of a woodpecker.

According to the materials I have, these particular woodpeckers actually prefer the ground and only drill in trees around this time of year to nest.  Given the size of the hole it was working on, I suspect it is building a nest.  As this is quite close to my office, I will be easily able to check on it from time to time.

For me, this is a huge achievement – managing to get this close to a bird that is not a duck.  I’m sure some day I will look back at these shots and laugh at how awful they are, but today I am quite proud of them.

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It then occurred to me that the answer was quite obvious.  First, by switching to my 7D instead of my 5D2 I reached an effective magnification (compared to my 5D2) of 8x.  Second, I was curious if my 1.4x extender would work with the MP-E 65 – so I fit it on to give me an effective magnification of 11x.  I decided to ignore the inevitable diffraction and try it out.

After trying it out on the carpet, I decided to find a real subject so I went outside with my contraption.  I quickly found a fly that was temporarily willing to be a still subject – or at least up to 3x when it flew away.

I quickly noticed a number of things about the combo.  For one thing, while hand shooting at 5x is a challenge, when it comes to 11x things take quite a different turn.  Not only is it incredibly difficult getting something to stay still in the viewfinder, but the viewfinder is even darker than usual.  For the first time in awhile I was forced to use the lamps on my MT-24EX just to focus.  While normally the viewfinder is dark at higher magnifications, I can see barely enough to be able to focus.  This wasn’t the case here.  Also, I noticed that the image on the viewfinder itself looked much ‘noisier’.  This was a bit of a surprise and took getting used to.  I’m not sure if it is an effect of the 7D or the 1.4x extender, but the viewfinder quality was definitely worse.

After playing around with the fly I decided to look for a smaller subject.  Aphids on our rose bushes have always proven a challenge.  While they keep relatively still, they are quite small.

For comparison sake, here is an aphid taken at 5x with the 5D2 on the same day.

And here’s a different aphid – even smaller than this one on a different leaf at 11x.

While I was very pleased with the result, there are obvious drawbacks.  FIrst, image quality suffers – which one would expect.  I am honestly not sure how much of this was due to the increased diffraction inherent in the small sensor of the 7D and how much was caused by the 1.4x extender.  I will have to try the extender some time on the 5D2 to get a better idea.

Diffraction, at least, can be combated.  For instance I can take multiple shots at a lower aperture and focus stack them.  I may try this some time with this combo to see what type of quality I can get, but on this particular day I did not have much time.

While I will not go through the lengths to post the 100% crops here (this is not a review blog) I did compare the crops from the 5D2 and the 7D/1.4x combo and it looks like they are roughly equivalent.  In other words, about the same detail is visible from a 5D2 image at 5x blown up to the equivalent size compared to the 7D + 1.4x.  Still, at first sight the 7D + 1.4x certainly looks more impressive!

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This weekend, though, I decided to do something a bit different.  Given a home I had to photograph in Monroe, I decided to take a trip to Ben Hierland’s Wildlife Park.  I took along my 100-400 and my 7D and used my monopod for stabilization.  I’ve had my 7D for a good month now, but this was the first time I had actually used it for wildlife.  The idea was that the crop factor should give me a good idea what magnification I truly needed and which lens would work the best for me.

I must say I was completely shocked at what the answer turned out to be.

Over the period of the day, I came to realize two very painful things.

First, I know almost nothing about photographing wildlife other than insects.  I spent a great portion of my time there traipsing around and proceeded to scare away a great number of very interesting looking birds.  Heck, even an 800mm would not have helped me.  I need to learn some serious technique.

The shot above is one of the few shots I did not delete.  I should have deleted it along with every other shot from the trip, but I felt sorry for myself.

The second thing I realized is that the 7D really sucks for low light.  I had already been aware of this but this was the first time where I was forced to truly see it.  To date I had mainly used the 7D during the day and hadn’t really been forced to go above ISO 400 for anything I truly cared about.  The extra stop of a 500 or a 600 will not help here.  With my 5D2, I feel fully confident in shooting at ISO 3200.  Beyond that the shot may look interesting on FlickR  – but commercially will be unusable.  With the 7D, I would not go above ISO 400.

The simple fact is that when it comes to taking early light photos of birds and other wildlife, the 7D will not cut it for me.  At some time before I truly get into wildlife photography I will need to look into a 1D Mark IV.

However, to be honest the real limitation here is my abilities as a wildlife photographer.  A 1D4 will just help with the low light solution.  It will not help me learn how to get close to many of these birds and many other techniques of wildlife photography.  To learn those, the best way for me to improve is to keep using the 7D with the 100-400 and hope for good light.

The result of this entire escapade is I concluded that I am not yet ready for a large telephoto.  I remembered back to how I started in macro.  The MP-E 65 was not my first macro lens.  I started out with the Canon 500D diopter and used it for a year – slowly improving my macro techniques.  After some time I hit a wall with the 500D.  I knew I needed more magnification and after a great deal of research I concluded (correctly) that the MP-E 65 paired with the MT-24EX was the answer to my problems.

For that reason I am now learning towards investing the money originally aimed for a large telephoto into more macro equipment.  I haven’t yet come to an exact conclusion on what I will purchase, but I will certainly move towards taking more tripod based macros as today pretty much everything is hand held.  However, given my experience with shooting macros I am fully confident I will make the right choice when I do purchase something.

Sometimes, you just need to take a step back and realize that better equipment will not help you.  The real difference maker in photography is technique.  It is certainly true that sometimes equipment will allow you to do something that is otherwise not possible, but unless you’re fully able to use that equipment it still will not make a difference.

That is the case with me and a large telephoto right now.  I will need to spend some time practicing and studying before I can truly say that I am limited by not having a large telephoto lens.

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There has recently been a growing chatter about the rise of the amateur photographer and the threat this poses to professional photographers making a living today.  The claim goes that, since these photographers offer their photos for free or for pennies on the dollar, true professional photographers can no longer make a living.

This argument has grown quite heated at times.  One the one side, you have professional photographers trying to convince good amateur photographers to sell their photos for a good rate.  On the other side you have amateur photographers complaining that professional photographers are trying to control the market.

There is no denying that the market has changed.  Places like Shutterstock and IStockphoto have certainly changed the equation and people on FlickR giving their photos away for free are also changing it.  Journalism has also significantly changed, meaning many once employed photographers are now looking for jobs as newspapers fold and news organizations look for amateur photographers on the ground.

However, just because the market changed does not mean professional photography is going the way of the dodo – far from it.

Case 1: Event photographers

Nine years ago my wife and I needed to find a professional photographer for our wedding.  We eventually found a place that charged $2200 for both photography and video.  This wasn’t a guy who happened to own a camera, but involved photographers using medium format cameras, very expensive video cameras, and involved three photographers and some work done in their own studio.

In a few years we will need to find another professional photographer to photograph our sons’ Bar Mitzvahs.  It is true that there are now many amateur photographers charging $500 or even less to photograph an event.  However, if we want it photographed well, we’re talking between $3000-$4000 – and that does not include video.

How can a photographer make a living when there are other individuals undercutting him/her by several thousand dollars?  The simple answer in this case is you get what you pay for.  This doesn’t seem to be lost on their clients either – as many of them are booked very far in advance.

Are economics killing these photographers?  Far from it.  Consider also that with the rise of digital – costs have come down significantly for many of these photographers.  If you have the skills and equipment, you can make a lot more in event photography today than ten years ago.

Case 2: Amateur ‘advisers’

For a more modern example, look at sites like Strobist.  I like this blog and try to read it every day.  This is a guy who started out as a low paid newspaper photographer who I suspect is not hurting for cash today.  Could he have done what he does today ten years ago?  I severely doubt it.

There is a new market for professional photographers today and that is telling amateur photographers what to do with their equipment.  With the rise of the amateur photographer there is now a huge market today of photographers too busy or clueless to figure things out for themselves.  They want to know what equipment to buy, how to take a picture, why their pictures suck, and how to post process.  They are willing to pay money to do this.  They may click an ad on a blog, click a link that gives a kick back to the blog owner, buy a book by an author, or attend a class from the photographer.

There are quite a few people these days other than Strobist who make their living doing exactly this.  This is an entire market that barely existed ten years ago.

Case 3: The stock photographer

“OK”, you may say.  “I’ll give you the above two, but what about the stock photographer?”.  What about the stock photographer?  In the old days, many photographers made money by selling many of their shots through stock agencies.  Some photographers did this exclusively, while others did it in addition to their normal photographic duties.

What many do not realize is the traditional stock market is not dead.  Images are still being licensed for thousands of dollars.  Images are also being licensed for a few cents today and are also given away for free.

There are still companies that are very specific about the images they need.  They will spend a significant amount of effort in finding the image that perfectly suits them and have no problem spending several thousands of dollars for the rights to that image once they find it.  Often, the image is not possible to find at any stock agency and they pay a photographer to take it.

Other companies are less particular about the image they need.  They may need a photo of a particular location or of someone doing something.  For these companies, the microstock sites work well.  For professional photographers, microstock sites offer the ability to make something from the shots that didn’t make it.  Even for the top photographers, stock sites typically take only 5% of their photos.  The microstock sites offer an avenue to sell the other 95%.

It is true that it takes a lot more savvy these days to make it as a stock photographer.  A professional photographer needs to market himself today more than ever before.  Companies will not just find you – or will they?

There is a growing trend of companies finding images on FlickR and then offering licenses.  Some of these companies offer little to nothing but there is a sizable contingent of companies willing to pay good prices because a particular image fits their needs exactly.  There now exists a growing base of photographers who even make a living selling photos through these methods.

Case 4: Amateurs giving their photos away for free

So what to make of amateur photographers giving their photos away for free?  Is this hurting the photography market?  My argument is this is far from the case.

Most professional photographers these days make the majority of their income from paid assignments.  The client needs something very particular – something that cannot be found through FlickR or any stock site.  This is how I make the majority of my photo income and these photographers are not really affected by those giving images away for free.

It is true that some companies rely on finding photographers who do give their photos away for free.  However there are even more companies out there willing to pay a fair price for something they need.  With the international nature of the web, a company in Japan can now find a photographer from Mexico who happens to have the photo they need and sign a license agreement with him/her.  This was not possible before.

So who are photographers who give their images away for free really hurting?  They are not hurting the professionals.  They are hurting themselves.  Many of these photographers argue that they take photos for the love of taking photos and seek no monetary rewards.  For the companies out there looking to profit from their images, this works out for the better.

In today’s market, the line between a professional photographer and an amateur photographer is very blurry.  However the line between photographers who are taken advantage of and those who are not is as strong as it ever was.

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It isn’t difficult to find mites whenever taking macro shots.  They are everywhere and you really just have to turn over a leaf that is decaying on the ground to find one.  Photographing one, though.  Well that’s a different story.

Complicating getting a good photo of one of these little buggers are two things.

1) They are extremely small.  The shot above was taken at 5x – and even then I cropped it.

2) They move rather quickly and do not sit still

About a week ago, though, after not finding much anything else to photograph that day, I decided to take my chances.

I spent a good twenty minutes tracking this little mite as it wandered across this leaf.  Most of my shots were blurry – it isn’t easy tracking something at 5x – but unlike past attempts I kept at it and got some decent ones.

Of course, I have absolutely no idea what species this is.  As there are over 45,000 described species of mites and scientists estimate this makes up about 5% of the total species out there, I’m not going to try very hard to figure it out.  Mites are arachnids – just like spiders.  However, they’re not spiders – but are related.

Another interesting fact is that one of the strongest animals on earth is a mite.  It can carry 1182 times its own weight.  I did a quick search on what that would mean, and it’s roughly equivalent to one of us picking up this boat.  Remind me if I’m ever reincarnated as something extremely small, to not mess with a mite.

Of course, most of us know mites as garden pests or waste bin pests.  I doubt this particular one is of any concern as I found it by a trail near my office.  I strongly suspect that these particular mites have a big part in the decomposition of leaves and creation of soil.  In that respect, they’re probably partners (or predators) of our friend the springtail.

So what are the lessons I learned from my little pal the mite?  Well, for one when faced with a difficult subject – take lots of shots.  Also, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean with some patience it’s not possible.  I had numerous opportunities to photograph these in the past, but didn’t bother to have the patience until now.

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