30 December 2012

On Photo Safari: The Challenge of a Black Bird

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We were driving in the Masai Mara when our very bird loving wildlife photography course attendee suddenly shouted stop. There was a crested eagle just in front of us on the top of a tree. All cameras started clicking immediately, also from the not so fanatic bird lovers, because it’s a beautiful bird. But soon moaning was to hear and panic, the bird was only a black silhouette in front of a bright over casted sky. Flash, no option, exposure compensation, probably the best, but the background will be very bright, spot metering, lets try, a combination of exposure compensation, f-stop correction and spot metering? Let’s try. The results were great and the faces turned happy again and the bird continued to be very patient with us, taking his time scanning the area for prey.

This was the start of a wonderful morning and some more people started loving birds and seeing them suddenly everywhere.

Any birds in your garden or just outside your window? They are very beautiful and also challenging photographic subjects, rewarding the patient photographer.

Happy snapping!


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Where to Find Your Life's Quest with(in) Photography

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You might plan to watch the new larger than life epic movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey or you have seen it already, just like many of us saw The Lord of the Rings and often more than once. What draws us to these kind of movies?

These movies are about a life’s quest, about someone who embarks on a journey, often not consciously, but ending up perseverant following the quest. Maybe we all would like to embark on such a journey as in the movies, but are we not doing that already? Well the wizard’s name is most likely not Gangalf, but maybe George, your neighbor, and you are most likely not called Bilbo, but isn’t Frank an even better name? You didn’t notice that you were on a journey?

Ask your camera about that. Go out (or just stay at home) and shoot away, with all your questions in mind, just shoot. And then look at the images. What do you see? Whom do you inspire with your work and care? How does your photography make people happy? Where is your
photography going?

If photography is your life’s quest, photography itself will guide you and it will also reveal, if your quest is a different meaningful purpose. The images tell.


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Featured: Canon 6D

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It is about 10% smaller and between 10 % and 20 % lighter than its brand siblings, does that make the Canon 6D a good alternative?

The photo above shows a lineup of the Canon 5D Mark III, the Canon 6D and the Canon 5D Mark II. See the larger image on the original
PetaPixel post here.

But there is more. The new Canon photo printers can print directly from the camera, the Canon 6D. Read more in PetaPixels review here.

Interested? There will be more reviews coming from the actual use of the new camera, but it seems that it is an interesting devise for several reasons. So far also from comments of Nikon D800 users,
photographers seem to enjoy that the camera is light, not so much to carry around when being on holidays or struggling with luggage allowances on safari flights.


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

The Infinity of Photographs for Music

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An image is endless. A photograph is a captured moment, yet a moment of infinity and so is the photo, infinite. No rewind, no replay button, its doing it all by itself.

With music one had to rewind and/or press replay to listen to the favorite song again, but not anymore. For those who cannot get enough of Gangnam Style or other persistently for replay asking hits
Infinite Jukebox has arrived.

Read how it exactly works
here and experience the infinity of a song, just like the infinity of a photograph.

Or are photographs a bit different infinite?


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Happy New Year

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Popular Camera Settings 2012 & Their Meaning(lessness)

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Reuters made a list of what they think the best photographs taken in 2012 with a whole range of information including camera settings.

Now the photography enthusiast and Reddit user
hallbuzz made a list of all the camera settings of the 95 images from the Reuters list including camera brand, lens type, shutter speed and f-stop. Then another Reddit user mathiasa turned all this information into charts. See the charts on petapixel.

When looking at the charts one could be tempted to think that in order to be one day on the list of the 95 greatest
photographs of the year, chosen by Reuters, one just can buy the equipment mostly used and the settings mostly applied. But is that so?

How often do you shoot a sports event like the Olympics? Are the best photographs shot with a Canon, rather than with a Nikon?

What are the charts tell? Photographers of press agencies get equipped by their employer and the employer chooses a camera brand of good quality he can get a good deal with. Same for the lenses, reflecting also in the f-stop stats. And from there it’s a bit of everything, depending on subject and location.

So, what does this example of stats of popular settings tell us? There is nothing like a popular setting one can just use, because others do. Camera settings always depend on the light and nothing else.

Happy snapping!


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Travel Memories 2008: On Safari in Africa - Day 19

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Unfortunately the bats had left behind quite a mess in the bathrooms and it was really a shame that nobody had thought about nets to keep them out. The facilities were really nice, except the other visitors. I found out later that every morning people are coming to clean the whole place and it’s fine until the bats come back. Nobody seemed to be bothered by it.
 
Tsavo East is well known for the elephants and we went out to find some. It was very dry and then the best thing to do is going to a waterhole. According to Paul there was a big dam where we could find plenty of animals. When we got there the dam was dry. Even Paul was surprised. He had never seen the dam dry. Not far away was another smaller waterhole and there the elephants were. It actually didn’t look much like a waterhole, more like a mud-hole, but the animals seamed happy with it. The elephants were standing in the mud, enjoying cooling down.
Zebra, warthog, jackals and ostrich carefully tried to sip water from the mud. We stayed for hours.
 
In the afternoon we cruised through another part of the park and also there were plenty of elephants. Beautiful red colored elephants, from the red soil in the park.


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com


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