In Kruger we often enjoy lingering on a scarcely traveled dirt road in the middle of a family herd or close to a watering hole.  I love watching the hierarchy in action and the protection and caution enforced by the senior females.  They truly seem to enjoy simple pleasures such as the daily drink at the watering hole and a choice tree branch.   On the private reserves it is not uncommon to be so close that you can hear them breathing, smell them, and hear them chewing.  Often the herd is spread across the road: you can not see all the members because they have an uncanny ability to hide in the smallest of trees and walk silently but you can hear the distruction of trees.

Two Juveniles Practice Sparing

Elephants are not shy to go about their business in the presence of the safari vehicle.  Our guides have to be very aware of the attitudes of the herd members and sometimes moves us away if something such as sparing gets out of control.

A family Drinks at a Watering Hole

Parking at a watering hole is great entertainment: you never know what you might see.  Elephants cautiously approach with the matriarch leading the way.  The young ones are kept close and in the middle of the herd.  They love the water and spray and drink with the babies causing mayhem.  Some seem so young that they do not know how to drink properly.

A mother shows her two young ones how to dig a water hole

This was a great day in Kruger.  The elephants were digging in the dry riverbed to make a mud and water hole.  The mother showed her juvenile how to dig – making him do most of the work while the baby got in the  way and enjoyed all the fun.  Mom got impatient and pushed the kids out of the way so she could drink.  On the other side of the vehicle was a large wallow full of mud and elephants – splendid.

Playing with water

Watching an elephant use its trunk is fascinating

I have decide that I want a trunk: it is such an amazing appendage and when used by a master such as an elephant it is remarkable what they can do.  Watching them strip bark, fling water, and caress their children evokes respect and wonder.

An Old Friend

This is a very old elephant who lives on Thornybush Reserve (our neighbor). He comes very close the vehicle and casually demonstrates how to pick and eat a good lunch.  He was famous for breaking the fence to our reserve and camping out at our marula tree gorging on fruit until he was herded back to his own reserve.  Sadly he has now passed away.

When there is no mud, dust will do the trick

This is one way to introduce color to a neutral colored elephant!

Good from any angle

Interesting shapes and texture brings interest to photographs and elephants have it all that.  There is not a boring angle or detail on them.  When they get too close, I like to snap close ups of skin, tusks and eyes.  Elephant hair from their tails was once used to make a traditional  bracelet.

I hope you have been inspired and entertained by my elephant photos and stories:  join me on safari and experience this joy first hand.

Even with all of the long lenses on safari I still carry a good set of binoculars.

I like these because they are compact and not too heavy.  The multicoated lenses give a beautifully sharp image.

I prefer to observe though binoculars when we are stationary and waiting for further action.  It is easier to scan the scene for hyenas or other animals hiding the bush with these than it is through the camera. This way I do not need to reposition the camera once in place.

They are fun and essential for non photographer “spotters”  too

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/671383-REG/Nikon_7295_Monarch_ATB_10x42_Binocular.html

They are a good value and they are on sale right now at B & H Photo

The only  flaw is the lens caps which are such a bad design that they get lost almost instantly.

Read about his discovery and the efforts to conduct further study on this slow and cold member of the shark species.

http://www.geerg.ca/

get face to face with a tiger shark March 2013

March 8 – 14 2013   $2,700

Join us for an exciting week of diving in the clear warm waters of the Bahamas and Tiger Beach. This is all about sharks and a great opportunity for underwater photography

This comfortable and professional liveaboard has been in the business for years and has been on Shark Week many times.  Experience your own Shark Week  - book now or miss out

This could be you in March 2013

” The best dive trip I have ever been on”   – comment from 2012 guest    See my trip log  here

All the details are on my website  www.TigerSharkDive.com

See my other trips:  South Africa Wild Safari, manatee photography workshop, Sailfish and Whale sharks in Mexico

1 space remains for these dates.

Price will be $3,500  which includes shared hotel room , airport transfers, and some meals.

Some openings are available on these other dates.  Please enquire about securing a spot.

Dec 29th (arrive) – Jan 4 (depart)

Jan 3 – Jan 9

Jan 9 – Jan 15

Jan 20 – Jan 26

Jan 25 – Jan 31

Jan 30 – Feb 7 ( 7 days on Boat) *inquire for price

See details on my website  or contact me

All the guests signed the TIger Shark Flag after our first encounter

The 2012 Tiger Shark Dive Expedition was fantastic!  The weather was great and so was the company.  All of the photographers came back with great photos and some said it was the best dive trip they had ever been on.

Read my Expedition Report on my Website

See all my photo tours

Still have spaces for my April Safari in South Africa  - inquire now!

With all of these features and with more integration tools, added image adjustment capabilities, and printing options going into the program, it is easy to forget that LR is a database. Like all databases, it is only as good as the data is complete and detailed, but if you manage the detail you can create a powerful learning and efficiency tool.

I am a wildlife photographer and a habitual photographer who photographs in the same location over and over and with the same subjects.  The conditions and sometimes fast action do not leave much time to fuss with settings and adjust.  I do get some chances to experiment, but I want to be in the ball park when I enter the water or get in the game vehicle.  This is where a little extra time in LR  provides me with a valuable learning tool.  I consult it before each trip and keep charts for each camera and lens as a quick cheat sheet based on real data.

Settings, time of image, flash use, and equipment are all recorded in the metadata automatically (make sure you adjust the time on your camera for time zones and daylight savings!) but I also enforce the discipline of  recording the location in detail  (for example: north corner or in canal), the sky and lighting conditions, and for underwater – the visibility.  Next I will try to add tides to that.  I also rate each photo before I do much adjusting to it and I keep all but the really embarrassing shots – at least until my disk gets full.

I have learned some surprising things such as all of my best manatee photographs happened between 9am and 9:30am.  There was a significant drop off in number of quality shots before and after this time and the golden time ranges later as it gets later in the season. This makes sense due to the lengthening of days and the sunrise getting later.  Knowing this, I no longer have to get up before dawn!

Using the Library Filter panel in LR I can use it like a query tool to see a count of images with the keywords I have chosen and combinations of the ISO, flash, rating, etc that I choose.  The tool is not a perfectly flexible query tool but you can be clever with your keywords and how you record data to get it to track and measure what you are interested in.  Maybe improvements to this will make it into a future release.

When I have my manatee workshop next week I will be able to look at the time, weather, and water conditions and recommend settings.  I prepared the following chart using meta data in LR.

For use on my safaris, I am using the  data to come up with animal specific settings given lighting conditions.  Of course you can use the histogram on the camera screen and your experience to do the same thing, but many times I cant take the time to analyze and adjust in the field (while cageless with sharks or at a lion hunt) Thus is the nature of wildlife and sports photography.

If you needed another reason to keep you photos organized and properly loaded, taking this “big picture” look at a collection of images of your favorite subject  is very rewarding.

Everyone disembarked the boat a bit tired but exhilarated by the 5 wonderful days of diving and sharks.  The weather could not have been more beautiful and the tiger sharks were abundant.  The photographers in the group returned with excellent photographs and the non photographers in the group had some exciting memories.

I really enjoyed meeting all of the wonderful people on this trip and seeing again the excellent crew on the Dolphin Dream.

I am still trying to secure dates for a Feb or March 2013 expedition on this popular boat and I have booked March 1 – 7th for 2014.   See my photo tours website for details on this and my other trips  or visit www.TigerSharkDive.com

May 30 – June 10   12 days including 2 nights in Sabi Sands and 2 nights at the big cat lodge. Only 2 spaces left for 2 people who will share accommodations.

$4,785 per person inclusive most expenses except airfare to Johannesburg.  See my safari website for more details.

Your travel dates will be: May 30 morning pick up in Johannesburg with transfer to tree house lodge.  June 10 depart for JNB after walk and breakfast

This safari will be similar to our April photography safari with the added feature of staying 2 night in the Sabi Sand reserve.  This famous reserve borders Kruger and has no fences between them and the great park.  The lush river fed land makes this reserve famous for leopard sightings.

We start the safari at our very own tree house lodge where we enjoy  traversing rights on the Thornybush reserve as well as many great photo ops right on our own reserve and those nearby.  We also visit Kruger. The last nights of the safari are spent on a big 5 reserve where we can enjoy close encounters with big cats as we take a morning walk with cheetahs or a lion cub and visit their lion breeding program.

http://www.africawildsafaris.net/photosafari.php

We still have space for 4 more guests on our April 17 – 26th  safari  and 3 spaces on our Photo Safari with Yoga and Mediation

My slide scanner - no bulk feeder unfortunately

My slide to digital adventure started in 2007. I was already well into digital and my last film trip was in 2005 (remember those x-ray proof bags?).  Most of the slides were not in trays and I didn’t have many trays due to the fact that I sold the trays on Ebay while the market was still high.  Add to that the fact that the bulbs in my projector were so expensive and kept braking, and I was ready to commit to get all of these slides digitized. My main goal was to get them into digital form just to see what I had, but I still scanned them at the highest specs and quality  that my scanner could do.  The physical slides would then be organized and stored so any really nice image could be pulled and treated to a drum scan or better.

In summary it went like this:

Triaged   maybe 8,000 – 9,000  slides

Cued up 6000 slides to scan

Scanned most of those

Today still have  4850   slide based files in the database

Each file is  124.6 MB  and 5568 x 3724  pixels

The first step was to triage on the lightbox and number each of the ones that passed beyond the “junking” step.  This number would then become the file number for the digital file. My naming scheme was similar to my usual naming scheme but had an indicator for slide.

One of my prize slides - a white lion

This was the comparatively fun part:  Each scan took around 15 minutes to perform and I set a minimum goal of 20 slides per day, everyday.   It was a drain on my system and nearly caused my computer to catch fire in the hot summer months but I stuck to it.   I scanned with no extras such as adjustments or cropping; just a straight scan with the eye toward fixing them with the expert tools in PS or Lightroom. After they were scanned and saved I added them to the Lightroom catalogue then added keywords and the metadata including the location, dates, and other things if I could remember.

An aerial photo of Palau selected for publication in a book

Close to a year later I was finished – this was the worst project I had ever done, but now I could really assess what I had.  Some of the slides have been removed due to my improving skills or technical issues I just could not over come.  Occasionally I rescan a slide to try to improve the original, but many taken at locations I frequent have been surpassed by digital images and thus languish with a rating of 1 star or have been removed.  The unique images in my collection, however, still hold promise.  At this time I am waiting on word as to whether a collection mostly slide images will be selected for publication in a dive tourism manual.