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[Music]

thank you

hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to

optic West

you guys are sitting in the Explorer

stage and if you check the back page of

your show specials you will see the

schedule for this stage as well as the

main stage if you haven't checked out

the main stage that's through those

doors want everyone to be aware of that

and we have a lot of exciting things

planned but before we jump into our

presentations let's see where y'all are

from raise your hand if you guys are

from in and around Monterey

okay we got the locals in the house

that's great how about San Francisco

a few very good how about out of state

let's see yell it out where what state

Milwaukee yeah okay

nice where else

Utah in the house

Oregon I love it West coasters are here

but b h brought the East Coasters to

come and have an amazing couple of days

with y'all if there are any questions

about the show about the cruise tomorrow

look for a friendly b h face there is

the help desk down over there they'll

answer all your questions you'll get

that golden ticket maybe and we'll see

you on the boat but let's jump into the

education the inspiration we are kicking

things off with Colby Brown and without

further Ado let's get into it Colby

we're ready for you

perfect

thank you guys thank you Mike for the

introduction thank you b h thank you

guys for being here today

um thank you guys for watching on the

interwebs uh everyone coming in

today I am talking about something that

I'm very passionate about Wildlife

photography we're going to talk a bit

about gear we're going to talk about

some kind of tips and techniques that I

recommend for you guys we're going to

talk about some different case studies

to kind of really walk through images

and what it takes to get certain kinds

of shots from the settings the features

and all the different pieces together so

it's going to be a bit of mixture of

inspirational and educational and

hopefully we'll have a little bit of fun

I try to make them interactive but I

have a lot of things to talk about as

well if you guys have questions we can

kind of figure out if we can field them

here or certainly afterwards I'm going

to be able to talk at the Sony Booth I'm

a Sony Artisan as well so let's go ahead

and Jump Right In

so little housekeeping started off with

even though Instagram's a little bit of

a Dying platform these days you could

find me at colbybrandphotography.com

photography on Instagram certainly on my

website tons of information gear setup

guides as well as photography workshops

all over the world and of course the

plug-in a little video series that I did

with b h that we filmed this summer in

the Amazon which was awesome it's a

seven part series it's all free on B H's

YouTube channel there's some great stuff

on there talking about Wildlife macro

landscape you know putting together

travel trips it's a it's a fun series we

had a lot of fun with it and b h was

awesome to sponsor it so with all that

being said let's go ahead and Jump Right

In

so as a photographer I've been doing

this professionally for roughly 18 years

and throughout the course of my career I

have photographed a wide variety of

different genres this is by Design when

things get too consistent for me it kind

of freaks me out a little bit I have to

change things up I have to find new

challenges to kind of keep up the

passion levels and so when I started out

initially it was because of a love of

travel and then it was landscape an

Astro and the last like six years it's

been tied towards this idea of Wildlife

and the challenges that it brings itself

and I think for a lot of photographers

that

get into Wildlife photography it doesn't

necessarily start there it's something

where we end up but it's not necessarily

our Inception point of what brought us

into photography

for me

it was because it was based on

opportunity so I'd find myself in places

like Alaska photographing glaciers or

you know in parts of Africa

photographing different cultures like

whatever it was from the travel space

that pulled me in and there just so

happened to be some beautiful species to

be there and so initially this love of

wildlife photography started out just

based on opportunity for some of you

guys this could be just you know certain

you know birds or species you guys find

in your backyard but whatever it is it's

something that was accessible that one

that forced me to think about trying to

learn new techniques or trying to dip my

foot or my toe into this kind of

photography

and then from there it brought me to

some amazing locations around the world

that allowed me to have the space to to

Really digest and invest myself into new

challenges Wildlife photography is not

easy it's not for everyone especially

once you start traveling around the

world you have different gear

requirements you have you know a lot of

the species you're trying to photograph

could be quite far away the species

themselves of course not like you're

working in a studio they don't know what

you want to do so you have a lot of

these elements that you typically don't

have in a lot of other genres of

Photography and it was that challenge

that really brought me together

and then of course when it comes to the

actual experiences that you can have

around the world when it comes to

Wildlife it's really just awe-inspiring

there's some amazing creatures out there

like silverback gorillas that I

photograph in East Africa every year uh

to cheetahs like you guys just saw bald

eagles all sorts of amazing things out

there where photography has been the

conduit that allowed me to travel the

world to see some amazing experiences

and of course to learn to document them

in different challenging environments

we're going to talk a bit about that

throughout the course of our talk here

so starting off let's talk about gear

again there's no way around it unlike

the more accessible you know stuff when

you're shooting in a studio or you're a

landscape photographer and you get your

Ultra wide and tripod you can go out and

shoot anywhere

Wildlife photography is a little bit

different so let's talk a little bit

about gear as I mentioned I'm a Sony

Artisan so everything is based around

the Sony gear system that I'm talking

about today but of course depending on

whatever you guys are shooting there are

usually close proximity products that

you guys can see or play around with

here or you might own yourself

so starting off my main camera systems

that I use these days is the Sony A1

this is a 50 megapixel camera

it is by far the favorite camera that

I've ever shot with you're talking about

30 frames per second High dynamic range

15 stops dynamic range at least at ISO

100

you get true silent capable you know

shooting which you can get with a a

backlit CMOS sensor that is stacked on

top of each other so you get crazy

sensor readout speeds 120 times a second

it's tracking autofocus all sorts of

amazing technology this is my go-to

camera that I use in the vast majority

of stuff that's out there

before the A1 came along I used the a92

which is 24 megapixels has a lot of the

same technology just from a few years

before so we still had 20 frames per

second it was really great in a lot of

situations

um it's obviously it's a more affordable

option than the A1 if you're a sports or

wildlife photographer that is trying to

think about getting into this kind of

space a lot of people don't realize the

value of resolution which we're going to

talk about during some of the settings

and the tips and techniques but also the

dynamic range the frames per second help

like all these different variables again

come together to really help for

wildlife photographers out there

and then the new released a7r 5 which

just was announced last week I believe

um I've only been able to use it for a

few weeks now I'm actually taking with

me I fly out tomorrow to Alaska to go

photograph bald eagles for the final

um Salmon Run of the Season up there in

Haynes

um it is a really interesting camera

that I'm excited to put through the

paces a bit more uh especially because

obviously the resolution is 61

megapixels but it is the first camera in

the entire industry that actually has a

dedicated processor to AI learning and

what I mean by that is that it's going

to be able to sit there and recognize

that I'm photographing a bald eagle or

an insect uh you know a spider or a

certain kind of bird and then Project

based on AI learning it's perceived

movements and what that's going to do is

it helps the auto focus be much more

accurate much faster and so I'm excited

to see how this technology moves

throughout the Sony ecosystem when it

moves up into maybe the next series of

the A2 and everything else that Sony has

line up but for now now this is the only

camera that has this dedicated processor

specifically to AI learning and AI

projection for movement which is pretty

awesome

so lenses these are a handful of

different lenses that I use in a given

trip for wildlife photography

there are some I use more than others

I'll talk a little bit about that and

obviously these are at wildly different

price points depending on whatever your

cup of tea is so this is the Sony 100 to

400 this is an F 4.5 to 5.6 variable

aperture G Master Series lens this lens

is really great lens for those that are

looking for kind of a upper mid-tier

budget option to get into Wildlife space

at 400 millimeters you are a bit limited

when you're talking about bird

photography unless it's the larger Birds

the bald eagles things like that if

you're looking at more like Kingfishers

and a lot of the other small things you

guys got out there 400 is really not

going to cut it in most situations I

found myself using this quite a bit in

places like Alaska and in East Africa

South Africa India for tigers lions

leopards a lot of the bigger mammal

species it's a really great option it's

very sharp it's quite fast it's been

around for few years so I'm sure

there'll be an update at some point in

the next few years for this particular

lens but it still is a great lens option

for me out there

you have the 200 to 600 this is also

another variable aperture lens this is

going to be a 5.6 to 6.3

so the caveat to this is that it's not

the fastest lens which means that you

need a decent amount of light to really

be able to use it that we just cut out

here hold on

let's see

yeah well they'll talk about tech

they'll work on Tech to get that back up

but anyway the 200 to 600 is a really

great option again like I said if you

have a little bit of light to work with

but if you're working under dark

canopies or dunk dark jungles like I

have to find myself in it's usually not

fast enough but the beautiful thing

about this particular lens is the short

distance that you get when you go from

200 to 600 it's about a two inch shift

change on your zoom zoom ring to go from

200 to 600 which means that you can

really quickly go to from subjects that

are close by to Far Away really easily

it's quite nice it's very sharp it's

actually the most affordable I think

it's around like 1800 us for the MSRP

for it so it's a really great kind of

starter lens to get into this Wildlife

space from a Sony perspective and it

does a good job like I said assuming you

have enough light

talking about the bigger boy lenses

these are lenses that I use most often

that I have to find new and creative

ways to shuffle around the world we have

the 400 F 2.8 G master and also the 600

F 4G master

now these two lenses when they first

came out which was about two or three

years ago they were the first lenses in

the mirrorless space designed for

mirrorless cameras these lenses

generally were very heavy usually in the

set you know seven to nine pound range

and what Sony's done with them if you

guys get a chance to play around with

them here at the at the event at the

Sony stage is that the design for them

instead of being front heavy which is

what most of the glass used to be with

these big lenses where it would be very

difficult for you guys to hand hold

things for a longer period of time than

you know a few minutes because they

would dip forward all the heavy glass

elements were in the front so in all

these newer big lenses everything is

back towards the camera which allows it

for a lot better weight distribution so

you can hand hold these things for a lot

longer it's not for everyone obviously

some people will still struggle because

they are still around six pounds but

they are phenomenal lenses the two the

400 is something that I personally use

most often again with larger Predators

so these are going to be your Lions your

tiger your Jaguars in Brazil

your your Bears up in Alaska Pumas all

sorts of fun stuff anything that is a

decent size and the 600 is something

that I use predominantly when I'm going

on a bird specific trip so this is

something where I'm photographing you

know rollers in India or certain types

of Kingfishers the 600 both of them are

amazing lenses when you compare when you

pair them with something like the A1 as

I mentioned before you have stacked

backside illuminated sensors on the A1

so the linear motor is found on these

cameras mixed in with that high sensor

readout speed means that you have just

an insane amount of autofocus

capabilities to be able to track your

subjects and to have tack sharp results

when you mix things with like things

like eye autofocus which we're going to

talk about here in a second

and of course you have teleconverters

these are things that I use sparingly

um you have the 1.4 and the two times

teleconverters both of these have

trade-offs 1.4 is a One-Stop trade-off

two times teleconverter is a two-stop

trade-off based on your minimum aperture

speed so when you put glass like this in

front of your your lens or certain

lenses that support it you can extend

your reach but you're sacrificing a bit

of that speed of the lens itself not

shutter speed but just in terms of the

amount of light that you can reach in

there with that minimum shutter speed

I've had some amazing results with the

two times teleconverter with the 600 F4

photographing from a safari vehicle with

like a bean bag so you're shooting at

1200 millimeters and you're getting tack

sharp results which I couldn't get back

in the day when I was shooting with

digital slrs but it has to be in the

right situations we're going to talk a

little bit about that idea of settings

in the right type of settings you need

for a lot of wildlife situations based

on your choice of lenses but we're going

to do that in a second

and of course we have the Sony 90

millimeter F 2.8 macro I threw this one

in here because later today on the main

stage at two o'clock when giving a talk

on macro Wildlife photography this is

the idea of using a macro lens your

camera and generally a flash in order to

photograph some really amazing creatures

out there that are often overlooked

sometimes they're vilified if you're

talking about like snakes or spiders or

scorpions frogs some amazing creatures

out there it's a really fun talk and I

briefly talk about it during this

particular talk but something like to

mention because it is a really great

lens to use for a lot of these kinds of

situations

so let's start off and talk here now

about kind of 10 tips for wildlife

photographers so these are things

they're going to be talking a little bit

about settings we're going to talk about

some of the different features to really

help make your life easier as a wildlife

photographer

I always say that no matter what camera

system you're using any camera

manufacturer in the last few years has

really made this industry or this genre

much more accessible and much easier

that technology is made or should always

be made to make our lives easier to take

less time to think about the technical

side of things so we can focus on the

creative side how can we create the most

impactful image possible while allowing

technology to help us achieve those

goals rather than to get in our way

which used to be the case

so number one this is the tip that I

give really for any of these talks that

I talk about Wildlife photography or not

is it's customizing your camera this is

something that again I think a lot of

people don't really put enough time into

any of the mirrorless cameras can do

this obviously again I'm talking about

Sony in this particular case but

customizing your camera is the best way

to make sure that any of the features of

functionality that you need quick access

to you can always have it at a finger

click away

so this is a picture of a Sony A1 again

these are the the cameras that I use the

most these days and every button that I

have an arrow pointed to can be fully

customizable

so once I get a new camera I can go

through the menu settings I'm trying to

figure out what are the settings that I

need the most access to maybe it's my

autofocus Zone area maybe it's you know

how do I want to adjust ISO

you know by default on the A1 for

example I have to press right on the

rear wheel and then I use the rear wheel

to kind of dial things in I personally

don't like having that extra step so I

make it so just moving that dial on the

back of the camera just my ISO and I

know it's there but for people that

aren't aware they can accidentally hit

that and bump up their ISO when they

don't mean to but it's little things

like that makes a big difference when it

comes to being out there in the field

needing to make a quick adjustment and

being able to dial in these settings to

give you the results that you want I

think the biggest thing that I hear

because I've taught workshops for 18

years now with clients that come on

workshops in the wildlife space

especially is that they've moved to a

new camera system

they don't know it and so they spend a

lot of time out there in the field

fumbling around the menus coming to me

and saying how do I do this how do I do

that this solves that problem no matter

what camera system you're on Canon Nikon

Sony Fuji Olympus like spend time to get

to know your camera try to think more

proactively about the different features

that you need the settings that you need

to have access to and then dial them in

so that when you're out there in the

field you're just focusing on what's

important which again is taking images

to begin with

shutter speed is King this is something

that sounds basic but I find that a lot

of people again struggle with it

especially you know I I run a handful of

large groups on on Facebook photography

groups again titled around the Sony

system and I get a lot of people that

are like you know why are my images soft

in these situations and more times than

not it's they're not using the right

shutter speed when it comes to Wildlife

photography the reason for that is that

the speed that you use for your shutter

speed should be predicated on a handful

of different variables

number one is going to be the movement

of your subject that's pretty obvious

you know fast moving hummingbird is

going to require a different shutter

speed than something like uh like a

flamingo

um or or a bear or a Cayman like it

really just depends on the type of

situation the other variable that plays

into a role that again people I think

don't think about as much anymore for

some reason is that the millimeter

length that you're shooting at also

plays a role now before I talked a

little bit about using the 600 F4 and

putting a two times teleconverter on it

to photograph a kingfisher which would

be great if I had it as a demonstration

but I didn't put it in this presentation

and the reason that that worked because

I was shooting at 1200 millimeters and

what that means is that I really need to

increase my shutter speed even if I'm

stationary because every single small

minute movement can make a big

difference in having things just

slightly off focus to completely out of

focus the best analogy that I can give

for this is that if you guys are sitting

outside and you see a plane moving

across your frame if you're looking at

it with the human eye and you look up

into the sky it looks like the plane is

moving incredibly slow

but all of a sudden if you look at it

with your one of your lenses even if

it's a 7200 or you know a 600 F4 all of

a sudden that thing's moving fastly

through your subjects through your

composition and so that's a good rule to

remember is that if you are shooting or

the higher millimeter range that you're

shooting at mixed in with the speed of

your subject you need to use a much

higher shutter speed than you might

actually think that you need to and then

when you mix that with the situation

that you find yourself in are you

shooting from a gimbal are you hand

holding if you are hand holding how good

are you about actually holding and being

stable a lot of people have natural Sway

and movements as they're just standing

there breathing makes a big difference

like all sorts of different factors come

into play so the first thing that you

should think about when you're taking

pictures if your images are coming out

slightly less sharp than you think they

should be especially when it comes to

things like bird photography increase

your shutter speed and see if you're

getting better results it's a really

easy way to kind of jump into it but in

situations like this again for flamingos

aren't the fastest moving Birds they're

kind of clumsy actually but because I

was close and I was using a 600

millimeter F4 lens I needed to shoot at

1 3 200th of a second to make sure that

I was getting tack sharp results

throughout

I was able to drop that down when I was

photographing Bears so photographing

brown bears is that McNeil River up in

Alaska and being able to photograph and

capture this particular bear because I

was shooting from a gimbal head there

was a ton of extra movement I wasn't

shooting at 600 f4s with the 100 to 400

I was able to get really nice results by

lowering that shutter speed saving

myself some ISO and some noise to deal

with in post-processing and then

shooting from a boat photographing a

large Cayman in Brazil same thing the

boat was wasn't moving very uh very much

I was much closer to the subjects again

this was something around the 400

millimeter range and so I didn't have to

use such higher uh shutter speeds so

looking at your images again number one

make sure that you're using a shutter

speed that is conducive to the speed of

the the creature of the species you're

trying to photograph but also that it's

in relation to the millimeter length

that you are actually using in order to

try to capture the photograph to begin

with

so more frames the better this is again

is another just one of those variables

that plays a role when it comes to

Wildlife photography this is again one

of the things that I love about the A1

a lot of people that I know well a

handful of people that I know when the

A1 came out especially people from other

competing uh you know Brands said why do

I need 30 frames per second says every

single person that hasn't used 30 frames

per second

once you actually get used to it

assuming you're using it in the right

positions you're not actually using 30

frames per second with a bird perched on

a tree and you have 300 images from you

know six seconds of holding down your

shutter speed

that makes a huge difference in making

sure that you're getting that exact

moment Wildlife photography is a moment

that is measured in nanoseconds there

are times when you know the you know

specific species of bird for example

have the sheen that covers uh comes over

and covers their eye like bald eagles

and if you miss that one moment where

you might have everything else perfect

you have the wings clipped you have the

the claws and Talons outspread to pick

up the the um the Burr the fish that's

in the water

but then all of a sudden you have that

one to sliver of moment where it missed

if you had a higher shutter speed camera

with higher frames per second then you

would have better results so frames per

second matter they're not everything but

they help a big difference and like for

me when I go from the A1 with 30 frames

per second to like the new a7r five

shooting at 10 that's a big difference I

have to think about that when it comes

to what type of application I'm going to

find myself using those particular

cameras in because 30 frames per second

is awesome if you have the ability to

shoot 30 frames per second

animal eye autofocus is a game changer

Game Changer is such a horrible you know

terminology that everyone uses way too

often but I think in this case it

actually is true it's great to see

um that some of the other major brands

in the mirrorless space also have caught

up and are offering similar

opportunities regardless of what camera

system you have if you have the ability

to shoot with eye autofocus specifically

for wildlife images

it makes your life so much easier it is

so nice to be able to find yourself in

situations where no matter well I don't

say no matter what 99 of the time you're

able to lock onto the eyes every single

time and get the shots and the result

that you want you get to focus more on

composition making sure you have the

right kind of exposure but in situations

like this you can literally see on the

Sony you have this Green Dot that goes

around the the frame and it follows the

eye wherever it's going and when your

aps-c your continuous autofocus mode

then you're sitting there and you're

tracking it the entire time knowing that

anytime you take that shot you know that

you have a much higher probability for

those images to come out and if you were

a digital SLR shooter or you're shooting

with a camera that doesn't have that

feature I'm sure you can relate to the

fact that you're like oh I nailed the

shot it's great then you check it out on

your laptop when you get back to your

hotel or whatnot and like focused on the

nose Focus just behind the eye all sorts

of situations happen out there eye out

of focus is huge and what initially

started off with just mammals mostly it

was it was honestly built for cats and

dogs but it ended up porting over to a

lot of the bigger feline cats is that

bird autofocus has played a big role so

being able to use bird iaf to track your

subjects in Flight as they're moving at

full speed in most situations is

incredible you no longer have to worry

about the beak you know grabbing the

beak and missing the eyes you don't have

to worry about it being off in other

certain areas you always know that

you're going to get the results that you

want and what's happening now is it's

also moving down into insects and

smaller creatures this is a small baby

chameleon I photograph in

Uganda just a few weeks ago and being

able to see it track the eyes and

species that have

different facial structures because

that's essentially how this technology

works is each of these manufacturers

load thousands and thousands of images

into a processing unit on the cameras to

sit there and say you know these are

different types of birds these are

different types of mammals these are

different types of insects for example

now and then it's going to look at what

you're looking at and try to match it

the close that it can so it has an idea

of what the eye is supposed to look like

so that's how it's trying to figure out

what's happening and as technology gets

better as processors get better like you

have in the a7r5 where you have a

dedicated processor specifically to AI

learning this is only going to continue

to elevate and get bigger and bigger and

bigger in terms of the feature sets that

you can do with these cameras moving

forward

and then the results are pretty

astounding when you could find yourself

in a situation where you you know this

is a photographing a puffin in Iceland

this is what the Sony A1 with the 200 to

600 millimeter lens turned around I was

photographing a group of puffins

um about five meters to the left of it

turned around saw the sky standing on a

rock on the outcrop turned around took

me about half a second to focus took a

couple shots bird took off got the shot

that I wanted wasn't even intended in

planning for it but if I didn't have

those other that technology iaf in there

it would have made a much more difficult

shot and I might not have been able to

capture it

yes I appreciate I'll take that as a

compliment

yeah I was it was a close shot and

because they were they were above me I

was laying on the ground we'll talk

about perspective in a second I was

laying on the ground looking up at the

Puffin and that's why I had the the blue

skies in the background kind of just

washed everything else out and it was so

close it was right there at the minimum

Focus distance for that particular runs

which I believe is around 10 feet so I

didn't have to crop in at all this is a

full frame shot 50 megapixels

um but yeah it was again it lucked out

it was a second you know a chance of

nanoseconds you had a just a couple

seconds to grab the shot or you missed

it

all right so let's talk let's keep going

talk about this because we have 35

minutes left and still a lot to cover

so steady shot modes this is again a

something that is not the most sexy

thing to talk about but a lot of people

have these big you know beautiful lenses

that you guys use to photograph wildlife

and I think the majority of people

probably three fourths of people don't

even know what the different steady shot

modes are or stabilization modes are on

your particular camera again these are

tied to Sony's latest lenses but they're

similar throughout a lot of the

different manufacturers out there so

the first mode mode number one is by

default that's your standard

stabilization mode this is essentially

just if you don't know the type of

situation you're going to find yourself

you leave it in mode one by default and

it just makes sense the reason for these

modes is a little bit of a back story is

that the gyro inside of the lens mixed

in at least with the Sony system you

also have this sensor stabilization work

together depending on the type of

movement to help stabilize things for

you and so when you have a standard

stabilization it's going to do kind of

the generic approach to stabilize a

stabilization based on those the Gyros

mode number two is best for panning

shots so this means that instead of kind

of your standard movement that you have

just kind of moving left and back or

left and right in terms of breathing or

whatnot is that you're actually panning

left to right doing full movements left

to right chasing a bird or a motorcycle

whatever it is you're trying to pan so

number two is best for panning

situations

mode number three is for erratic subject

movement this is again in the Wildlife

World this is if you're photographing

hummingbirds family you guys photograph

hummingbirds you know that they move

fast and quick in in all different

directions and so this is one of the

best ways that you can make sure that

the stabilization will help you in those

particular modes making sure that the

gyro is accounting for the different

types of movement that are out there so

for your particular lens brand if it's

not with Sony just check your your

manual but make sure that you know it is

a feature that can help you with certain

types of shots especially if you find

yourself shooting with slightly slower

shutter speeds that you might have

initially intended to

so being okay to shoot at High isos

as I mentioned before the vast majority

of people that I know that have entered

the wildlife space did so after they

first entered another genre of

Photography especially a lot of people

are in the landscape space then all of a

sudden they're like me they found

theirselves with opportunities and like

hey I want to learn how to photograph

birds or Bears or leopards or snow

whatever it is and so they find

ourselves coming over here and they take

with them the lessons that they learned

especially the landscape photographers

this is the most common where they're

sitting there and they never want to

break free from using ISO 100. now

utopian world with beautiful light which

we'll talk about a little bit later

that's great I'd love for everyone to

shoot ISO 100 for all of your Wildlife

needs it is just not a reality out there

and the reason for that is because you

need to shoot at higher shutter speeds

so higher shutter speeds in order to

counter for like we talked about before

subject movement millimeter length that

you're shooting with you need to shoot

at higher isos in order to counter for

that so the higher isos has been great

because it allows you to really freeze

moments in time that you couldn't

otherwise do and so with the 30 3200 ISO

I was able to shoot I think was at 6400

in order to get the shot perfectly with

both of these two hummingbirds being in

the same plane of focus with the 600

millimeter F4 lens

and the reason that the iso isn't well

a couple things one session technology

is much better than it was before so

it's going to handle your noise much

better especially if you're shooting in

daylight or list with some light you're

not going to have as much noise to deal

with just because sensors are better

they're handling them on top of that

post processing tools are much better

than they have been before there are

software out there such as topaz's

denoise on one has their own denoi

software you have pure raw with dxo all

sorts of great options to find yourself

in situations where you're shooting at

incredible high isos that you would have

normally not wanted to and they can

clean up the results and give you

amazing results to be able to work with

after the fact I like to use this

particular image this is a photograph of

a female jaguar in the lower Amazon

basin and the panzanol region of Brazil

and this particular shot was shot after

Sunset so Jaguars are the only big cats

that actually hunt in the water almost

all other cats hate water if you have a

house cat you understand this they did

they despise it Jaguars don't Jaguars

hunt in the water they hunt Cayman

capybara so they spend the majority of

their time in the water which is why

they're actually beefier cats they have

more muscle mass because they have to

swim through the water to feed for uh to

get most of their food and so to

photograph these or to find these you're

on boats in this particular region of

the lower Amazon basin going up and down

the different river systems and it was

at the end of the day after the end of a

safari we saw this female that was out

there and she was hanging out and the

light had already gone down so even

though you're shooting at 3200 ISO there

was almost no visible light left or very

little visible light left and so this

image was incredibly noisy I shot it

with a Sony I think it was actually the

a92 at the time and the 400 millimeter F

2.8 at 2.8 trying to ink out as much

light as I possibly can out of this

particular shot and then running it

through topaz at the time being able to

clean up the shot and have an image like

this you wouldn't think that it was shot

way past Twilight with 400 ISO it would

be full of noise but it's a beautiful

shot it might not be something that I

would blow up massive size or license

someone to have on Times Square what not

because you might still find some noise

there but the vast majority of practice

of applications including printing it is

a phenomenal shot still so shooting at

higher isos and being comfortable with

that is a really big lesson for those

that get into this space from another

genre where like I said you'd prefer to

shoot down everything at ISO 100 and I'd

be there with you as well so

so be silent when possible

this is something that has become I want

to say an issue something that's more

prevalent now than it ever has been

before and what I mean by that is that

now you have so many cameras out there

that shoot truly silent so the A9 series

with Sony was the first one in the

mirrorless full-frame space to actually

do this now all the rest of the Sony's

lineup does this you also have this with

Canon and Nikon and a lot of the other

options out there and a funny story

um so when the A9 first came out I found

myself in East Africa no South Africa

actually and I was with a ranger that I

had been known for years I arrived I

dropped myself at the hotel we went on

our first game Drive

and we were out there for three or four

different hours photographing a wide

variety of different things we're

stopping we're seeing cheetahs and lions

and rhinos and elephants and after about

three or four hours he turned around to

me and he said hey man

Colby are you gonna take any photos

I go what are you talking about I've

been taking photos the whole time I've

taken like a thousand or two thousand by

now but it was my camera was on Purely

silent he was used to the sound of

digital slrs and what's happened now is

that because the silent mode has gotten

so much better with a lot of the issues

that they first started with a lot more

these manufacturers have them and now

when you find yourself on a trip where

you have a handful of digital SLR

Shooters out there as well with their

mechanical shutter going off it's a

deafening sound it makes a lot of sound

out there in situations and in some

situations that actually can still be

problematic for certain kinds of species

so if you do have a camera that can

shoot in silent mode take advantage of

that because the results can be great

and you find yourself not distracting

from the animals pulling away from them

or scaring them off especially when it

comes to the macro space I can see with

the Frog there on the left the glass

frog so silent mode is a big piece

save custom camera modes this is

something again most people don't really

think about this is something I highly

recommend if you find yourself shooting

either different types of genres of

species at the same time or if you find

yourself dabbling with still and video

work at the same time so what this is is

essentially the different custom modes

you have on your cameras most camera

manufacturers you see this at the top

dial this is where you have one two and

three here again on the Sony A1 and what

you can do is you can custom save very

specific settings to each of those

different modes so if you find yourself

shooting in a situation well let's move

forward here I'll come back to that so

if you find yourself photographing a

jaguar in in Brazil and then all of a

sudden the boat takes off and you're

going down the river and you find

yourself you know grabbing an egret

caching a fish those two are going to be

generally very different exposures very

different types of shutter speeds and so

you can save different camera modes

where you can make sure that you have a

faster shutter speed on mode one slower

shutter speed on mode 2 and you can dial

those in more times than not coming back

to the settings I actually dial mine in

for photos and video because I take a

lot of b-roll of animals when I'm out

there so when I come across a scene like

the Jaguar especially if I have the time

I'll meter for exactly the type of

exposure I want save those settings

change into video mode really quickly

adjust my settings for proper video mode

and that way for the rest of that

session I can go from mode 1 to mode 2

in a second and make sure that I'm

dilating for each of the different needs

that I have

so it's a really great tool like I said

if you find yourself photographing

different types of genre or different

types of species or if you are dabbling

with still and video work at the same

time

so Chase quality light again this is

something that is relatively

self-explanatory but is again probably

the biggest cause of people wanting to

elevate their images to be better

oftentimes when I do events like this I

also do portfolio reviews and I walk

through and talk to people about their

stuff and they're showing me their

images and it might be a beautiful

species but it was taking at the wrong

time of day and it's backlit and things

just you don't get the detail that you

want

shooting in the right kind of light

makes a huge difference no matter how

skilled you are at Photoshop or

Lightroom or Capture One or whatever

software you use you can't elevate a bad

photo into an amazing one you can make a

bad photo less bad

but you can't necessarily turn it into

an epic shot and a large portion of

Photography in general no matter what

genre you're talking about is always

about wanting to find the best light

possible for wildlife photography this

generally means that the beginning or

the tail ends of the day like anything

is taken really outside but it makes a

huge difference in the quality of light

that you're trying to go for and this is

where you can find yourself shooting at

lower isos than you might you know

otherwise not be able to because of

there actually is Light Within the scene

that can allow you to really capture

those colors and that that contrast

and the same thing can be happening it's

not just the early morning light you get

like this Jaguar again in Brazil it can

also be overcast Skies overcast skies

are great for wildlife photographers

every time I go to places like Costa

Rica where this Keel build toucan was

taken I love overcast skies because it

gives me that even light even though

it's a little bit darker that means that

I know I'm not gonna have any hot spots

it's going to be a really great easy

light to work with especially when it be

in a post-process really bring back some

of those colors that might have been a

little bit flat because it was taken

during overcast but really saves things

and and creates to me some really unique

images

and then the same thing can be said

about macro photography

so macro photography again I have a talk

at two o'clock specifically about this

but the beautiful thing about Flash is

that when done right it allows you to

pull out so many different colors that

you couldn't see naturally which is

really amazing this is a very unique and

rare poison dart frog that I

photographed actually in the Amazon for

that same YouTube series with b h you

guys can see

um on on YouTube but it was amazing to

use the off-camera flash system to be

able to pull away with results like this

with beautiful color beautiful detail

pull all the different pieces together

and the only way I was able to do that

was being able to use Flash within my

current setup

so don't forget your macro lens this is

again something that we we talked a bit

about

um this is that idea that a lot of

photographers

kind of shrug off this idea of wildlife

photography from a macro space but this

is probably the most accessible kind of

wildlife photography that most people

can get into there are certainly

different types of bird species that you

can probably find in most of your

backyards whether you guys are here for

Monterey or around California around the

United States or anywhere you're

traveling around the world but there's

so many amazing creatures that you can

truly find in your own your Parks your

state parks your backyard depending on

where you live that you can use macro

Wildlife photography to really learn to

take advantage of to to apply new

techniques to to enjoy new challenges of

using Flash and Come Away with some

really amazing results

um to me for the last couple years it's

really opened my eyes to a whole

different genre style of Photography

it's really caused me to think more

proactively about the subjects I like to

photograph uh the different kinds of

images I like to go after and to use

Flash as in a way to elevate the type of

work that I'm trying to do with

something five years ago I would have

said the same thing that most of you

guys that don't shoot flasks or that

don't know flash probably said the same

thing which is I'm a natural light

photographer it's not something that's

for me

the reality is if you guys I mean you

guys are here you guys probably will

watch Scott kelby's talk tomorrow about

Flash he's kind of The Flash King from

the education standpoint like he'll tell

you that most people that say that don't

know flash if you know flash you know

how to do it well you know how it can

help in certain kinds of situations it

can truly be beneficial for certain

kinds of Photography and from the

wildlife space I'm personally most

comfortable using this in these types of

environments rather than with the bigger

mammals or species that a little bit

more susceptible to flash and how it

affects their eyes and things like that

compared to the diurnal animals that you

get in the macro space the amphibians

and the reptiles and the insects but it

really opens up like I said a lot of

doors stuff you guys can do in your own

backyard and like I said I won't I won't

focus too much on that because we will

have a whole conversation about that for

those that have the ability to join at

two o'clock for that specific talk

so let's talk about a few different case

studies so we can talk actually about

settings and kind of workflow process

what I'm thinking about and kind of go

from there

so Jaguar on the move this is again a

similar image from not too many minutes

after one of the images I shared a few

minutes ago this was a particular shot

of a female Jaguar that was known in

this particular region of the river

systems we were navigating and what was

happening is that she was in hunting

mode so she had two Cubs

mostly more sub adults than Cubs but two

little ones that she was feeding and

still hadn't fully trained so I knew

that in the morning she was going out

hunting and generally she's moving from

left to right or right to left along the

Riverbanks and having an idea of where

she might go helps with anticipating the

movement so what would happen is that as

we're down there I'm talking to my boat

driver I'm a guy that we have down there

that I work with on a regular basis and

I sit there and I'm going to see where

the Jaguar is when we first arrive and

then I'm gonna try to predict

where that creature is going to go and

this comes from studying the creatures

that you're photographing or if you

don't have the time or if you're

visiting a place for the first time

finding guides that know what they're

doing because this makes the biggest

difference when it comes to working on a

safari of any kind whether you're in

Brazil or in Africa is to work with

people that can get you in the right

positions at the right time with the

right gear and having everything kind of

come together but in this particular

situation I saw her

um it was about 100 meters further to

the right but she was moving left to

right I know from previous experience

with this particular female that she

liked to jump on these logs to look for

cayman she would go up there she'd look

around to see if there's anything that

she could pounce on because the Caymans

are too fast in the water for them to

swim after them so they're lunge at them

to try to go hunting so I knew exactly

where I felt she was going to be

positioned our boat while everyone else

that was out there on this particular

river system was all photographing her

behind weeds and as walking around no

one getting any good shots and then I

parked our boat right in front of the

exact tree I thought she was going to go

on to dialed in for all my clients sat

there and waited for about six minutes

and sure enough she came

positioned herself it jumped up and gave

us a couple of these shots looking

straight down the goal of the tree that

had that was downed so positioning

yourself dialing in your shutter speed

if you want to get that jumping movement

of what's happening and dialing in all

the different features that count for

the specific kind of light that you have

these are great situations where you

have that time as we were waiting for

the Jaguar to approach to really dial in

our exposure so even though I had myself

the rest of my workshop clients looking

at the just the tree branch and the

light that was there dial in all your

settings so that you're not fumbling

around once the ACT creature actually

gets there dial it in there wait for it

jumped up turned around had about two

and a half seconds of it looking

straight down and then I continued to

walk down eventually sat down and we got

some great portrait shots on other

things afterwards but these were some of

my favorite whereas looking straight

down at you making eye contact getting

that kind of look through the window of

the soul but for this particular case

study it's that idea of anticipating

moments of being able to prepare

yourself with beautiful light getting up

early in the morning every morning out

there we're out around five o'clock in

the morning getting out on the water so

we're in the right places at the right

time and of course making sure everyone

has the right gear as I mentioned before

usually when I'm photographing larger

Predators I love the 400 millimeter F

2.8 because the background bokeh that

you get at 2.8 with that particular lens

mixed in with the compression is just

it's addictive to be honest

um but it is that combined with all the

different features kind of coming

together that's how we pulled off this

shot so participation right time right

place right gear dialing your settings

and waiting for the shot

so birds in Flight as we talked about

before this is that idea of making sure

that your settings are accounting for

movement speed and I'll talk a little

bit more about uh perch and take off

shots in a second in another case study

but in this particular case making sure

that you're having you're dialing in

using high enough ISO so in this case it

was ISO 100 we're shooting at F4 because

I'm shooting with the 600 millimeter F4

and so the plan of focus in most of the

situations where I try to place myself

especially when it comes to larger birds

like bald eagles is that I'm placing

myself to get the shots that are more

parallel or I guess more I guess more

perpendicular for the shot I'm trying to

get which means that my plan of focus is

going to be the same I don't need to

worry about shooting instead of f4 I can

shoot a you know A 5.6 F4 gives me

enough to make sure that the wing tips

are sharp the birds and sharp as long as

I nail focus and then one two

thousandths of a second because bald

eagles don't move that fast there are

actually kind of slow Birds if you've

ever seen them actually flying but when

they're Landing they do or they can pick

up speed and have quick jolts of

movement so I always try to make sure

that if it's General in Flight with bald

eagles usually I'm shooting more so

around our thousands or 1200 of a second

somewhere around that 1250 but when it

actually comes to them Landing feeding

or fighting I usually quickly jump up my

shutter speed for those particular

moments usually in these types of

situations I'll have my ISO set on to

Auto and then I'll drop my exposure

compensation which essentially drops

that ISO down just a little bit by about

a stop just in case so I don't blow out

the highlights usually there's more snow

on these situations for the bald eagles

with the white feathers snow in the

background but this just helps worry

about overblowing your highlights and

then make sure that the rest of the

settings are all dialed in and then

you're just tracking the subject as it's

coming along again taking advantage of

30 frames per second I probably should

should have shown the sister images here

we have the different movements of the

birds and the feathers but this was by

far my favorite get the blood on the

beak of the eagle had just finished

fishing on the salmon going in for the

landing it was you know all the pieces

kind of coming together but those were

those were the different elements of the

exposure that I thought were most

important and why I chose to use them

and when you mix that with again bold or

sorry hummingbirds as we talked about

before this is where we had to should

hire isos this is a similar situation

that other photo that I shared but still

using the 600 millimeter F4 and this is

where I positioned myself this was

actually at a it was near a feeder in

quetzales National Park in Costa Rica

shooting with a 600 millimeter F4 I

literally measured out from the feeder

to figure out exactly where 12 feet was

which is the minimum Focus distance for

the 600 millimeter F4 and I literally

had to have my tripod and gimbal head

against the the back wall of the area

that we were at to get that minimum

Focus distance knowing that I was going

to get everything in Focus because they

were always coming in kind of at the

side angles and then jumping up and

shooting with that higher shutter speed

making sure giving you a higher

probability to get the mostly tack chart

in the winds it's very difficult to get

tack shark Wing shots when it comes to

hummingbirds because they move so fast

but being able to pull two of them

together in a situation like this

pulling in your ISO using sometimes

they're feeling like this they're

actually hanging around for a second or

two as they go for the nectar and so you

actually can get eye out of focus to

play a big role in these types of

situations which is pretty amazing to

think about just how fast these these

subjects move but it can be a lot of fun

and the last one for birds in Flight I

actually like to talk about using flash

at night so this is again in Costa Rica

this is actually photographing fruit

bats we use a four camera or four flash

four flash off-camera setup and so we

set it up around a particular

plant uh giving it a little bit of

nectar this particular area is known to

do this with some of the bats know about

this particular experience so they come

out and then dialing in your settings

from there now this was shot with the

Sony A1 7200 F 2.8 G Master because we

weren't that far away but it's super

dark so what happens is that we light up

the the plant to begin with manual focus

for the front of the plant

shoot at a higher aperture than we might

necessarily normally do so F22 you are

going to get some diffraction issues

which essentially means that it's going

to be a little bit soft in the overall

results diffraction we can have a whole

conversation about what that actually

means essentially when you shoot up too

high of an aperture light is hitting

your sensor at different depths because

of how the square or the the rectangle

sensor Works in relation to a round lens

opening so that as light hits the

different elements of the sensor

different portions it has to travel

distance difference or different

distances in order to actually reach the

sensor and so this is most common when

you shoot at higher apertures in this

case I'm willing to sacrifice and get

some diffraction we'll have to correct

for that with sharpening and post

production so that I had a higher chance

because I was manual focusing at dark

with off-camera flash in order to still

get everything in Focus have tack sharp

results for these particular shots and

then the interesting thing about using

flash specifically with moving subjects

like cats or hummingbirds is that you

don't need to use high shutter speeds

first you can't because most cameras

can't go over 1 200th of a second except

for the Sony A1 which is the only

mirrorless camera only camera in the

world I think that actually can shoot at

1 400th of a second for a flash sync

speed but even 1 400th of a second

during daylight would be not even

remotely fast enough for these

situations but when you're using flash

because you're overpowering all the

natural light is there or the lack of

light you can shoot at very low shutter

speeds and actually still get tack shark

results in a lot of situations it's

pretty amazing so these bats are moving

high speeds almost like hummingbirds but

shooting at 125th of a second you can

still get that tack sharp results using

Flash in these situations

so perch burden and take off this is

something I just like to talk

specifically about with some of the

larger species of birds this is again

bald eagles in Alaska

this again comes down to knowing the

types of species that you're trying to

photograph so knowing the type of

species that you're trying to photograph

makes a big difference because then you

can know the Tells for when certain

species are going to do very specific

things so for me when I'm looking at

Birds perched I'm looking at I'm looking

at their eyes I'm looking at their head

movement I'm looking if they're moving

around their feet and their talons if

they've gone especially with Bald Eagles

or the larger Raptors if they just gone

the bathroom oftentimes that means

they're lightening their load they're

getting ready to take off and so the

whole point of that is to know when you

can expect them to get those shots where

they've just taken off this it's a

little bit busy in the background for

this particular shot but that's where

you get the shots where the

photographers are literally sitting in

dialing into that one bird waiting for

that takeoff moment and then you're

dialing your settings accordingly

because again most people when you're

shooting or photographing birds that are

perched you're shooting at lower shutter

speeds because their Birds aren't moving

very much so that you can keep your isos

down but if that bird suddenly takes off

and you're shooting at a lower shutter

speed what happens with your results

you get a blurry bird that just took off

from a perch so I like to mention this

in terms of our case study because it

determines the type of intent that you

have when you're trying to capture these

types of images if you want to get that

shot of the bird reaching off the perch

and going be prepared have your settings

dialed in for that shoot at a higher

shutter speed make sure your ISO zone or

your

autofocus zone is correctly set or

you're sitting on tracking mode like

whatever it is dial in the settings for

the shot you want to get rather than the

spaghetti test and just hope you're

going to get all of it I find if I'm

very specific in what I'm trying to get

I have a much higher success rate than

if I'm just trying to get everything all

at once

uh okay we have a few more quickly and

we only have a few more minutes so the

vertical shot again this is something I

like to mention because the vast

majority of wildlife photographers shoot

everything horizontally

and I understand the reason for that and

there's actually some technical reason

for that is because most of our gyro or

IBS systems are actually built more so

for horizontal movement not once you go

vertical on track subjects so if you're

tracking subjects that are are moving

shoot horizontal otherwise you're going

to get horrible results no matter what

kind of manufacturer just doesn't work

the same and then you can just re-crop

afterwards if you want to create a

vertical shot but for situations like

this where there's either static or

there you know there's not going to be

too much leeway movement get a couple of

your horizontal shot you know you're

going to get and then quickly rotate

your camera get a couple of verticals as

well some great shots you can get this

is how you all the people are getting

the shots that you get covers of

magazines all sorts of other fun stuff

vertical shots are super important and

it's something that I actively have to

remind my clients of when they're out

there in the field because like I said

you get done with a shooting session and

95 of images will all be horizontal so

mix it up a little bit depending on the

situation

and then I think the last one we have

here is the the water level shot

this is mostly about perspective

so photographing things at eye level to

me is always the ideal sometimes I like

bird photos where the birds flying

overhead and that's quite nice but more

times than not I like to meet my

subjects at their level and it's not

always easy in this particular situation

this was a Cayman that was taken again

down in I think it was in Ecuador Brazil

but either way this is a shallow Pond it

was a mid-sized Cayman I was

photographing with a 100 to 400

millimeter lens at the time I was

shooting with the a7r III and the

beautiful thing is that on the

mirrorless cameras you have this

articulating screen that comes out

so usually I shoot with a battery gear

but I had it off particular in this case

because I wanted to get as low to the

ground as possible and so what happened

is that I lowered the camera I put the

the lens in my hand

um underneath the lens sitting on top of

my palm and then I'm lowering myself to

the water so that my hand

is getting wet

so the camera stays above I articulate

the screen out find my composition and

that's how you get those kind of perfect

level shots now you can't do this

obviously from a boat or other things

but because we were on land because we

were close Caymans are pretty docile

they're not like saltwater crocs it gave

me that opportunity to Come Away with a

unique shot that is much different than

if I was a foot or two higher or

certainly if I was standing at six foot

three like you know how tall I actually

am so thinking about perspective and

trying to meet as many of your subjects

as you can at eye level can make a big

difference in the quality of images that

you're trying to create

so

that's a wrap that's everything we have

for today

um I will be at the Sony Booth somewhere

uh to field questions for you guys for

anything you guys want to talk about in

particular again if you guys don't get a

chance to ask questions you can reach

out to me through social media through

my website happy to talk yeah talk you

through anything but thank you guys for

watching thank you guys for watching

live and I'll see you guys at two

o'clock for my next talk

so we're doubling up on Colby two

o'clock he'll be on the main stage and

he'll be doing a meet and greet after

that preparation the Sony Booth that's

going to be at three o'clock so write

down your questions hold on to them

catch them walking around

thanks thanks well done yes

come on back

oh yeah sure

yeah I'm gonna I think I

think we'll go by there now anyway and

we'll do that I'll be right there

choices

foreign

is my Detective

question about stabilizations

go ahead and switch it

sorry sorry

okay

here we go oh yeah

one two three four yeah give me a couple

later but give me a couple times

are you ready it sounds like I'm on

okay I have no idea whose water this is

don't put it over here someplace

yeah thank you

sure walk past my class

the Pirates guide to z9

hello

z9 yeah absolutely

Nikon z9

it is a camera yes I don't know it

I am next perfect

I'm not sure about perfect but I'll try

to be entertaining okay we are queuing

up the next presentation here on the

Explorer stage we have Paul Van Allen

who's going to be talking about the z9

and he's got a nice headline for it the

Pirates Guide to the z9 can't wait to

see it really looking forward to it

thank you guys for joining us and hello

to everyone on the digital streams

um we're so happy you're here to join us

as well so without further Ado Paul Van

Allen take the stage

am I up I'm up

thank you sir

[Music]

am I being recorded am I being recorded

am I being recorded you're being

recorded

so please

hit play now

are you guys ready

you guys good

you good

all right

Ye Old Pirate's guide to

Z of nine

okay I build PowerPoint for fun

it seemed like a good idea about

midnight when I came with it a couple

months ago

yeah it's a good idea

my name is Paul for those who don't know

me already I work for NPS which

naturally means you probably think it

means Nikon Professional Services you're

wrong

in this case it happens to me Nikon

photo Sea Dog

I probably I'll try to eliminate the

args but I can't help it so anyway I got

my start read out of school as a sports

photographer

and it they kind of make me take

pictures of Nikon and the coolest job

the entire planet they they actually

give me all the new gear

and make me shoot pictures with it if

you haven't been to my table already if

you're here in Monterey with us

um this is from the new 600 millimeter

F4

built in TC and I have a sample of it at

our booth so it's one of two in the

country come over and Drool on it so I

just I get to play with it a little bit

I just I mean I like taking making

pictures uh I tried to do a little bit

of everything

the different programs we built over the

past couple years during the pandemic is

ranges from Sports and sports to

landscape to Studio to

just about everything and it's just not

stills

it's actually a

movie stuff too

so I tried to get my hand in a little

bit of everything in fact a couple

nights ago I introduced the brand new

class the new tele time lapse class

so Studio stuff playing around

a little bit of this a little bit of

that I try to make pictures of

everything to answer as many questions

as possible for you guys

during the pandemic like most to you I

try to keep from going bored and totally

stupid so I took up bird photography

because there's no Moder releases

required for birds

go to the zoo a lot of zoos say hey

that's my my snow leopard you gotta have

a model race for it so Birds No Bottle

release at all and I'm the laziest bird

of Photography ever meet this is shot

remotely through my iPad

using my snapbridge app

to my camera that's on the front porch

with a telephoto lens aimed at a pile of

bird seed I am watching The Avengers

in-game movie for the fourth time while

making this picture

so truly lazy uh my wife and I finally

found something we can do together

during the pandemic photographically

she's a non-photographer she believes

the cell phones are God's Gift of

Imaging

um I disagree with her

but she's into food and into creating in

the kitchen and so we actually come

together she bakes stuff and I try to

photograph it

so her baking is better than my

photographing of her baking by the way

just so your Market down your calendar

January 29

his National chocolate cake day

okay obviously I know exactly what that

day is so

um yeah it's all sorts of fun stuff she

makes it and I kind of photograph it all

new techniques to learn is always

something new to learn uh we were

talking this morning at the booth about

uh Focus Shift shooting or focused

stacking in fact at three o'clock come

back and Vincent Versace will talk about

some focused stacking stuff that he's

gonna he's doing

hi Ambassador Odom how are you

so all sorts of fun stuff

simple pictures like this aren't so

simple you start thinking about it how

do you get the depth of field so that it

doesn't fall off from the wing tips to

the body and the body because this is

equally Sharp

wherever you are that's because we're

using HDR

but for focusing

called focus stacking it's 45 different

planes of focus stacked together

to create an unlimited plane of focus

so anyway uh you're bound to have

questions if you're here locally please

come by and see me at the booth after

the class if you're online

that's my Instagram drop me an email

we'll figure it out together okay

all right it'll come back up again at

the end so let's start with this hooked

a lot of you know that you can access

your menus with the menu button you can

use the navigation pad on the back of

the camera the multi-selector and you

can just scroll around it up or down

left to right you can move this around

which you might not know is that there

are times when you're you've got your

your eye up to the viewfinder you'll

access the menu you know how hard it is

get your thumb in there and use a

multi-selector

well it's almost impossible right

did you know

that you know what to it

maybe maybe it's not your eye maybe

you're just out there maybe you're in

the cold you had your gloves on

wait for it

you got your gloves on

or maybe just maybe it's your first day

with your hook

it could happen

it's a pirate's guide for gosh sake okay

if you can't access the multi-selector

for any reason which you can do is you

can navigate the menus with your command

and subcommand input dial the command

dial the one the back of the camera if

you're in the menu scroll it left to

right and you go up or down your menu

selection

slide your index finger forward onto the

so you go through this do this sorry

slow animation

the sub selector up front

goes left or right

so up or down left to right

okay apply this way so yeah it's just

really that easy so you can use either

the multi-selector or the navigation

dials to navigate your menu systems in

your z9

anyway

now as long as we're talking about that

or talk about how to make things not

move

one of the biggest questions we had on

this one as we moved into mirrorless

systems was how do I lock my focus point

on the z9 it's pretty easy

where access our menu systems we go into

the custom menu at f2

go right into that one

and we're going to actually select

he was like

almost any of the function buttons will

do this I'm going to pick on the one

that I use the least I know that a lot

of you have that muscle memory of

hitting the upper right left hand corner

of the back your camera as playback

as soon as I turn my camera vertical it

was like I figured I could use the

playback button without moving my cam my

hand

I immediately forgot that muscle memory

so I like the playback where it is now

so I have the the lock button it's kind

of a useless dead key right now so I

reprogrammed that one to for my lock

function so I'm going to come in here

hit okay and the default setting on the

z9 the way it comes out of the box is

actually the picture control mode

so we'll slide down and there's like 40s

done right now with version three I

think we passed 50 different options for

this button one of the options is lock

so you simply go down access lock

hit OK

now the way it works after you have it

set

is using the camera

and you want to lock your auto focus

point maybe in a studio or you're

mousing around you don't want the focus

point to move at all

you're going to hold your assigned

button down

then

go to move your focus point in any

direction

use navigation pad and just lock it

okay and now when you go try to try to

move that it tells you the focus points

locked and it can't be moved

to unlock it it's the exact same process

backwards

hold the button down again

navigation pad and you're all set to go

now it's unlocked

but

as long as we're here

that exact same setting does other

things

I find this especially handy in a studio

environment

where I'm able to lock my shutter speed

and aperture hold the button down rotate

the shutter dial one click either

direction

it locks the shutter speed

hold the button down and rotate the sub

command input dial

it locks the aperture to unlock it you

hold the button down and rotate the dial

Again One Click either direction

it's now locked or unlocked that's how

the lock function works so if you're

looking for a way to lock the focus

point or lock your shutter speed or lock

your aperture simply assign one of your

custom buttons

to the lock function from the F2 menu

easy

thank you you're very responsive I

really appreciate that

thank you thanks Kevin

all right auto focus

because it wasn't hard enough

that's it that's the auto focus options

in the z9 just the area modes

okay

we want to go through every single one

of these things today and examine

exactly a different no we're not going

to do that

we'll show you the couple that I use

when I'm out doing sports especially

people Sports

not horse sports but people Sports where

I can actually get a solid shot of a

face

I will traditionally go

with a wide area

with an human face or eye tracking

so basically set up like that so wide

area small is my is my go-to under most

situations

let me back up and say there is no

perfect setting for everything

if you want one thing to do everything

for you all the time you have that it's

in your back pocket it's one of these

things

okay

if you want I want to make it then used

if you want to take a picture use one of

these if you want to make a photograph

you'll have a lot more options and tools

to work with

now there are times where this doesn't

work that well team sports

this mode is all color based tracking

it tracks in part based on the color

pattern the camera can see and follow

around the screen

and that works really really well until

you have a lot of people in the same

color producing the same color pattern

and the camera goes which one of these

people do you want

this one's pretty easy I'm on the on the

guy in the white

but it becomes more problematic for

things like this

it's the wrong tool for the job

so I need to fix it quickly

well obviously you simply take the

camera you pull away from your eye you

hit the menu button you scroll through

the different options and then you go

back get the find the right option hit

okay put it back up to your eye and

start

okay

for these kind of situations where the

color is

not doing what I want it to do it's

actually working against me

I'll fall back to Dynamic area autofocus

which is a pure math based tracking

doesn't look at the color doesn't look

at faces it doesn't look at scenes it

looks at the math how fast is that

subject going from here to there as we

move from here to there faster is it

decelerating accelerating how's it

moving it's predictive that way

okay so it's all math based there's no

color input on top of the math

so the challenge becomes how do you

switch between one or the other quickly

your cameras can be customized to do

this very very simply

these are the buttons on your camera

that can activate auto focus

there are nine of them

I count that right yeah nine of them

okay

you can assign everyone well

seven of these nine

two different autofocus areas at your

discretion

so

I don't do that I do too my brain is way

too feeble to try to get

all the different two

this many too so what I did is in the

custom control menu again so our custom

we're in the F group go to F2 again or

customize where the buttons work in the

camera

if you're following along at home make

sure that you know how to undo this I

don't do this on stage okay

to come in here

I'm going to sign in this particular

case I'm going to sign function one

which is the front of the camera as you

can see here on the graphic front of the

camera top button

I'm gonna make that one an auto focus

activation button

now go in the menu

I'm going to scroll through the I think

now 60 plus options on this one

oh

AF area

plus autofocus on

not to be confused with the autofocus

area mode above that or the AF on below

it this is the one where you push your

actually program a button we push the

button in it's going to turn on auto

focus in a pre-selected auto focus area

mode

okay in my case it'll be dynamic area

autofocus my fallback

okay come in here you have all the

different options to choose from so you

come down to Dynamic for me you've done

a medium because Dynamic medium and wide

area small have a similar size box so

visually it doesn't

startle me when I go between the two of

them the box I'm looking at is roughly

the same size just doing different kinds

of focusing now

okay

hit okay

the graphic shows we've actually

pre-selected and confirmed we've

actually done that one so the way this

now works

I've selected as my primary focus Point

I've got wide area small on my shutter

button because my shutter button shooter

I know some of you aren't I am

it's okay if you're not I feel your pain

we feel like we're left out we're not

back button auto focus we feel like

we're left out but right now I'm going

to shoot my shutter button

when I hold the shutter button down by

itself I get wide area small

if during the middle of composing

getting focused getting ready to go

I decide that's not focusing the way I

want it to

I hold my finger on the shutter button

still getting ready to go now take my

middle finger and move it towards F1 and

press down F1 and now I am in Dynamic

area autofocus

when I'm done with that it's like okay I

think I'm done let's the surfer early in

the morning I like photographing surfing

out at Huntington Beach

as the surfer paddles out towards the

wave they are laying down face down on a

surfboard in the ocean

it's early in the morning they have a

black wetsuit

on a black ocean

in the dark

my camera doesn't recognize as a person

so the wide area with face finder can't

see the face it doesn't know what it's

looking at so it gets confused it starts

jumping all over the place trying to

find that face

I press in my middle finger onto the F1

button and all of a sudden it's now

locked onto the surfer as it's face down

as she hits the top of the wave and

starts to stand up I can start seeing

her face in her human form again I let

go of the F1 button and stay on the

shutter button and now it jumps from

Dynamic back into wide area autofocus

and face tracks

so it really is just that easy now if

you're not a shutter button shooter

that's quite all right

because we can actually assign all these

room buttons so maybe you are a the one

I just talked about see the front of the

camera you have the green as a secondary

and the shutter button is the primary

autofocus but if you're a back button

shooter you could totally do this

backwards and do it on the back so you

can do your primary and autofocus on

your secondary could be the joystick

button you can press it on the joystick

and activate autofocus on the joystick

so you simply autofocus on that's not

working slide down joystick that's

working and back and forth

right now I'm going to I'm a hybrid

shooter my secondary AF mode is

currently not on F1 anymore but I've

actually moved it so I have shutter

button for the primary and AF on for the

secondary

you can do all of this

just however your brain happens to work

okay

and you do it for anything you want

so

make sense

look at us we're almost on time

all right deja vu

no that's spelled properly

talk about playback

one thing you can do in playback as you

know you probably look as you probably

know on a mirrorless camera you can see

the image through the viewfinder a lot

of you have pre-assigned a button to

play back real quickly what I did though

is again an F2 I went and assigned a

button in this case I'll do the same F1

example

I'm going to actually change it from

nothing now remember this is

sorry

this is not F2 anymore this is F3 my

apologies F3 is a playback customization

so your camera can be set up to

different things

depending on what mode you're in

so now we're talking about the buttons

just for playback because

it's still programmed to do the auto

focus thing over here

but the same button now in playback will

be something totally different so in F3

they're coming in here it does nothing

during playback currently

I can make it access the playback make

it play the image back I'm gonna go up

here instead to zoom

100 magnification with one press the

button

it works on the back of the OK button

has it also I like it better up front I

can also program when doing my

Landscapes and checking for fine

critical focus and Landscapes and Studio

I'll assign number the function two

button

for 200 modification to double check the

fine focus

but here we're doing 100 percent

and so now I'm in playback I want to

check make sure the face is tacked sharp

I hit the function one button because

assigned to 100 playback and I get a

zoom up on the subject

that's really that fast and simple just

by touching the button in front of the

camera

okay

our friend Jerry

didn't know this we were at wppi and so

I built this one just for Jerry

Deja review

there's been a function

in the Nikon cameras for a very very

long time

it's one of those things we've talked

about it

17 18 years ago

for one whole generation camera this is

really cool you can do this it was a

Coolpix camera but you can do this

we start putting every single camera we

totally stopped talking about it to a

point where famous wedding photographers

maybe the best wedding photographer on

the planet

actually there was three of them on

stage that night so none of them knew

this

when you're actually looking at a

picture reviewing an image you made on

your camera

one thing you might want to do is double

check faces

and eyeballs

okay so you're naturally going to zoom

up on the image you're going to zoom

zoom zoom zoom

okay

but I see one set of eyeballs I want to

check all the eyeballs in the picture

as you zoom up

once you get to the fill the face with

the face of the frame that you want

then take your index finger slide it

forward to the sub command input dial

and rotate it and it will jump between

the faces

in the frame

just like that

doesn't work for Animals it's human Face

Finders

okay

no no that's just right out of the box

that I know I was stunned like like I

showed Jerry I said somebody don't check

the faces he goes let me check the faces

like I got them we're all good because

how'd you do that so fast I showed him

he went

was that z9 only I said no

all of them do it all what all the

cameras for the past 20 years or so

so it's one of those weird things we

keep doing and we keep forgetting we did

them so we don't talk about them yeah

there you go you zoom back and yeah and

notice there's a small little bird's eye

view in the bottom right hand corner of

the frame it shows you it faces to

detect sometimes it misses sometimes

your face is turned halfway around it

doesn't see it as a face sometimes you

have a helmet on or glasses on doesn't

the face but yeah if you want a quick

easy way to find all the faces in your

frame quickly this is a really good

place to start

okay

yeah so have for those of you at home

half front roads picked up their cameras

are taking pictures of people around

here sticking all the faces

all right

um

landscape guys

who here shoots landscapes

oh good I have a cool thing for you then

just for you

I can make it so you can bracket with

one press of one button

not holding it down touch it

it'll break your entire bracketing

series

we're still going to engage bracketing

and self-timer simultaneously

okay so you can actually do this you set

your bracketing up so you can set your

frames

you set the

interval between them

then you go to yourself timer

yourself timer I usually use two seconds

not 10 seconds but do whatever you want

so two seconds and then you simply

you got the two seconds ready to go you

got a five stop bracket you're gonna

touch the shutter button down to go

okay button down

and you wait there's the light in the

front's flashing

it took me about an hour and a half to

build the flashing light in PowerPoint

by the way

takes the first picture that

automatically takes a second

third fourth fifth picture ends resets

itself

your cable release Works your remote

control works any way you activate

yourself timer it works

okay super easy super fast

this one is

different

few z9 owners we just announced our

sixth seventh

sixth firmware for the z9 in less than

12 months

we're now firmware 3.0 we've added over

four dozen

new features to your camera

on 2-0 one of the new features was

something called pre-release capture

pre-release capture is kind of a

mouthful to understand but very very

cool once you get it

it lets you time travel

you go back in time and make a picture

before you squeeze the button down

seriously

so getting a piece of a bat breaking off

wood off the bat broken bat it's really

kind of cool you get the right moment

you get the whole separation of the bad

really hard to do because most of us are

going for Bat on Ball it's not the bat

breaking after the balls hit the bat the

wrong way

well how do you get both the Bat on Ball

and the breaking bat if you can't go

back in time and get both of them

you can

so

uh but birds yeah I'm sorry it's a z9

program I'm required by law to show you

a bird

there's now a bird

for those of you at home the reason we

do this is because when the z9 was

launched we're all on pandemic lockdown

and the birds

don't require Moder releases

or mask

so

to set this up

go into our into our camera menu again

this time we're in our custom menu we're

going to be in the D

group for shooting

pre-release capture options is a new

heading you say C 30 c120 options that's

this pre-release because then we have

more than just those two

but

things are pretty simple

how many

how much time do you want to go back in

time

for the shot

your options are none which turns it off

a third of a second a half second or

full second

as you play with this my suggestion

would be to start with a full second

you'll have way more pictures than you

want but after a while you go you know

what it seems like a half second

would've worked for me so you back it

off to half second

okay so you set this up

full second

then you're going to go over to

host release burst how many pictures how

long do you want to take pictures

as you squeeze a button down

again to start out go to Max

I leave mine set to Max all the time

even I've used it quite a bit on the

pre-release version about a half a

second not a full second but right now

this is my starting point so what

happens here is is you squeeze a button

down you hold it and after one second

two seconds three seconds or about four

seconds it'll stop taking pictures

because it kind of buffers out

okay he needs to catch up doesn't slow

down just as a hard stop

it's not truly a buffer issue but it

feels like it okay

now this only works

only works if you are in the

super high capture rate so 30 frames a

second

60 frames a second

or 120 frames a second

now because the technology we're using

these are jpeg only captures and I'm

okay with that because a I don't have to

set my jpegs up properly

and B I'd rather have jpegs that Focus

as opposed to a raw file that is locked

Focus

195 frames a second of a preset Focus

only works on a bowl of fruit so

I'm not gonna do that I want this I'm

okay with this

so you have to be in one of those three

modes

30 60 or 120. if you're not

what you said in the menu a second ago

will not apply at all

if you're happy in one of these three

modes

okay

now the way all this stuff works

up in the upper right hand corner you

have this little icon

pre

when your finger rests on the shutter

button your autofocus activation button

whether it's the front button back

button or where the other buttons in

your camera you'll get a small little

Green Dot

saying that you are actually buffering

this is a rolling buffer

so on my one second my one second of

pre-release everyone seconds is rolling

so I can be there for an hour it'll just

keep recycling for one second

okay so I got my I got my my limbs up on

a Dodger game

and I got my limbs up and I'm waiting

for the pitcher and the batter to be in

sync and actually start doing something

so I'm waiting for it I got the batter

ready the battery as the better starts

to go

I see through the viewfinder

he's starting to swing I said okay here

it comes

my neurons are starting to move my

finger towards pressuring it because I

know that I won't get the bat on the

ball and I squeeze the button down and I

just miss about on ball

and I hold the button down I get some

more pictures

and

typically I would say

darn

I'll wait for the next one

or or something like that

wait for bird to take off I'm waiting

for the Kentucky Derby gates to open the

horses to rush out all these different

little pieces so what happens

is

I shot that picture that's the picture I

captured

but because I'm pre-release bursting I'm

actually let's squeeze the button down

it goes back in time that full second

takes all of those jpegs and writes into

the memory card

and then it has

the pictures I actually shot with my

finger on the button

so instead of ending up with with a ball

that's just missed the bat

I go back in time and get the one that's

actually touching the back

as a bird is just taking off

as the horse is just breaking forward as

this the what all this is this is just

one of these more tools you get to use

to make the to grab the picture that you

want to grab

so

do you have to go back and select that

picture

we have all the pictures you've got 100

120 frames a second you have 120 frames

plus the one that I captured Plus that

one

plus another 120 because I stayed on for

a full second in case the bat broke

okay and so I had all that stuff

okay then yes you get to go back and

sort through them

when you get home yeah absolutely when

you get home you got all these pictures

sort through I recommend extra hard

drives

yeah it's kind of it's kind of cool you

start playing with it and you're like

wow this is really kind of cool I

stopped missing the shot I wanted to get

because I was a fraction of a second

a nanosecond too late with it I found it

no you always get they're all jpegs you

raw is not allowed in this one

raw is not allowed in this one the

question was what about raw and jpeg

doesn't mean capture it's all jpeg

read my lips jpeg

now jpeg is a good thing

you print a jpeg

you post a jpeg

if you understand use your camera

properly you don't have to have a raw

file to make a jpeg

the camera will do it for you

my camera has the viewfinder and LC

panel

more or less color matched visually

color matched to my monitor at home so I

can preview my exposure and my

saturation is based on my exposure

before I squeeze the button down

I'm making fewer mistakes

so I don't need the backup of a raw file

listen I get it for you guys at home I

totally get this

the whole industry has kind of turned

our our thinking and if you don't use

back button autofocus you don't use Mana

exposure mode don't shoot raw file

there's a software you don't use that

plug-in you're not a real photographer

no

use what works well for you

Nikon and Canon and Sony and Panasonic

Olympus we've all spent collectively

hundreds of millions of dollars make all

this technology work we want it to

ask yourself am I really smarter than

all those people combined

if your answer is yes I want to be your

friend

okay

so drive to release just have some fun

with it see it works for you it doesn't

work for everything

I don't use it for surfing because

surfing really has no no decisive moment

it can be a huge number of moments

within the same wave within the same

kick on the top of the wave

a bat on a ball is a very decisive

moment

a punch in a boxing ring is a very

decisive moment

all right

I get asked this all the time so I'm

going to share this with you I'm going

to preface this by saying you do not

have to follow this but shooting Banks

some pretty cool stuff in the shooting

banks by now most of you already know

the shooting banks are four copies of

that menu

you can create basically small four

cameras inside that menu so inside one

body

you have four copies of shooting menu

because I'm lousy keeping things

straight in my head I'm going to rename

it in this case I'll name it Sports

hit okay and I got a sports menu bank so

I've got a copy of the shooting menu

just for sports

no landscape no focus stacking no Studio

Sports

okay

then I got one for Studio I've got one

for landscape I go in for night sky so

I've got four copies of the menu for

just that one thing that I want to do

okay

four cameras one body

same thing happens so I'm shooting

I'm doing my sports that's what I do

most often

and I'm in the sports mode

and then I keep hearing from everybody

Instagram my boss

my boss's boss

my boss's boss's boss

we need to shoot more video

and all photographers here just cringed

except for Christie Odom who likes it

Christian is the back of the room going

oh my gosh video

okay

well Christian will tell you that yes we

have short more video and shooting video

with a Nikon is amazingly simple

I'm going to make it even easier for you

you take the selector on the back of the

camera go from still

to video

you touch the shutter button down

because I've customized the shutter

button to start video it takes a video

so you go from this

slow motion video the gateway drug to

video capture

now we all do that because what you just

saw there took less than three seconds

to take to capture

one two three done that's all it was

if I can make it that easy for you

wouldn't you do more of it

okay don't surprise she's like no I

don't want to process it

some of your cameras have built in slow

motion video no process required

darn it

all right what I noticed was as I

switched from the still shooting menu

down the video shooting menu to me

switch one of the banks over

I went when I came out of the video went

down the video and I came back into the

menu banks for the video shooting

I noticed on the z9 they're exactly the

same menu Banks

because they're two different menus that

are kind of interconnected because the

shooting portion of them I can have it

do double duty so I did I set up all the

stuff for 4K slow motion video and then

went in and renamed it

Sports slash 4K 120 and so now that's

menu Bank

switches both the still and the video

shooting menu simultaneously

whether you use the other one or not

you'd be Video Only video Christy's only

in video right now

so she her still shooting stuff gets

dust on it doesn't get used very much

for SCU dust off the video portion of it

it's ready to go so I actually went

through and actually what I did is I

actually

ranked them in the order that I use the

most often now your order will be very

very different

if you're not new knowledge video you

probably only have the one

this is a good way to get started but I

put the rest of them up there

so ak-24 is my second done I do a lot of

stuff I want to do just 1080 for a

smaller size for the slow motion and

then I don't use it often because of the

processing power required but I do have

the N raw video

okay

somebody will switch back and forth on

these things I can do the same thing and

it's really quite seriously is

it's I'm in a shooting menu bank I flip

the switch over and I touch the shutter

button down it's done

I'm shooting video I'm back and forth on

it

the way I have my cameras set up to do

my shooting

if I'm Shooting Sports

the custom menu Bank also has a

customization menu Bank on it for sports

the primary auto focus point is the

horizontal and vertical buttons recall

Focus position so I can actually pull

the focusation back to a preset not very

good for surfing but amazing for

baseball

I can actually pre pre-focus on second

base put that in my memory and then as

I'm shooting the batter if I swing the

camera around I touch the button down

and the lens is already pre-focused the

second base before I get the lens over

there so I can get the play at second

base in Focus before the runner even

gets close before I get close to it

okay

my menu which actually lets me access

the top items my menu

the bottom one

function three that's where I save the

focus point I know my session

for the exact same camera over on video

side it does something completely

different now

when I switch it from the sports into

the B Bank my studio Bank this is how my

studio is set up

this is how I would do 8K capture which

is my video stuff I'm very very early in

the video so it's basically the same

settings over and over and over again

for all the video stuff except for the

frame rate and capture rate frame size

and capture rate

okay landscape there's my settings

and again if you don't

I want my camera button to do something

different than ignore this this is how

my treasure map is set up

and that's the 120 which looks exact

same as a 4K except for the resolution

in the frame rate excuse me resolution

in this case

night sky

so Milky Way shooting a completely

different setup for milkwea that I do

for landscape and it requires different

white balance to different picture

control a different noise setting

than anyone landscapes

and of course in raw so

so they asked me to be at 40 minutes and

I'm exactly at

40 minutes

so any questions please feel free to

drop me a line to Instagram or come see

me at the booth here

um

what are some questions

yeah we have some time for some q a but

wait sorry

we'll be doing a meet and greet over at

the Nikon Booth right on the hour in

about 20 minutes so raise your hand if

you have a question I'll uh try to

spread the love here

can you tell me how I can cancel a

bracket in the middle of the series

can you cancel bracket middle series

turn off the camera yeah I don't want to

do that

if I use shooting Banks and I make some

change to the bank and then I turn it

off and I go back to default in the

shooting bank and lose my change

I'm sorry you want to change a

bracketing series yep no I don't want to

change it I'm halfway through and I

messed up and I want to restart it or

cancel it okay by trying it off you

simply stopped at the series and then

you can turn off the series or restart

it at that point

so if I power cycle the camera don't I

lose the updates to the parameters of my

shooting bank that will be get reset

when I reload this no sir turn the

camera on but if you're shooting menu

Banks you're shooting your menu your

mirror selections will not change you

turn the camera on and off okay

that was

cool

if you select a specific shooting bank

will the custom bank for that same

letter or same name follow with the

shooting Bank when you switch over to it

only in my dreams

so the question was if I change the the

shooting bank or the video shooting bank

will the the custom Bank follow suit

I have asked for it I've begged for it

I've pleaded for it I'm about to start

bribing people to offer that option to

do it I think it's important option to

have it done right now some separately

so I've said that the shooting Banks and

the custom Banks separately from each

other

um they don't have to match I'm anal

enough mine all match

but

so it's actually I select if it's like

the shooting Bank

I've shipped my custom Bank separately

so I'm asking and really I'm talking to

Japan right now uh one of my friends Ken

is the technical liaison for for Japan

here in the United States and he and

every time we get together I let him go

connect my menu Banks yet he goes no not

yet

so we're working on it hopefully it'll

come

wait wait wait just like

microphone

so now I'm confused about the custom

Banks and the menu Bank

so when don't be confused you ready

we're gonna call an audible and freak b

h out completely okay

we're gonna unplug my computer

I'm going to plug in my Nikon z9

hit the menu screen

all right so I've got my shooting menu

Banks so this oops

there's my there's my still shooting

bank if I come out and go down to my

video shooting it's the same Banks

that's my shooting Banks there's two of

them still in video however

the custom menu is independent of that

currently I have them labeled the same

but I can be down here and I can select

C

and these are still set to a

I want them linked right now right now

they're unlinked and there's no way in

the camera to currently link them so if

I want them to change as a group

so that's what the question was

okay hopefully that clears that up

awesome

Christy Odom

ambassador

how to phrase this

I want to thank you so much for all the

help you are brilliant

advice had to do with a lot of people

play with my camera they borrow my

camera my camera goes in for cleanings

and I've got all these custom settings

and you gave me amazing advice that I

think you should pass on about what you

do so that when you get your camera back

how you get all these custom settings

back

five bucks

my mailing address you can send me five

dollars off YouTube

when you get all this stuff set

and I'm currently I've started a library

because I started at version 1.11 and

and said I want all these menu settings

then as as they as they as I go as a

photographer as I understand the camera

better as they introduce new features I

keep adding to it and actually updating

them so I actually create a new series

of of

menu options

now right now I'm in the setup menu

I can scroll through the three-pager set

menu or I can go up so I start the back

to load save settings

so I can come in here

and I can save a menu setting hit OK

then

if I were

unfortunate enough or maybe it's really

kind and Ambassador Odom

came along and decided that that my

sports Bank should be completely renamed

and that's a dumb name for it so we did

all of this and she hit OK and now I've

got

an empty in menu bank and she actually

weaving Warriors went in here and

decided to change this to that and that

and sorry this to that and just made the

camera hers

okay

I may not figure out what she did to my

camera in totality for months

however

if I go back into my memory card now

I've taken that small little file I

saved the file the file is about 100

kilobytes

so I have a file folder my hard drive

that says camera saves z9 camera saves

and each one is is saved in a folder you

can't change the name on it say it in a

folder by date

and when I make his firmware version too

so it's it's

2022.11.04

firmware 3-0

okay

inside that

I have

my little itty bitty file that I put

back on my memory card

came in here

and I can reload all the settings that

were just overwritten by some new

borrowed my camera or because I was

playing with something new and I didn't

know any better and go back and want to

reset hit the load menu settings now if

I go back in here and check it look

they're all

exactly where they were

and all of the

settings we just screwed up are

unscrewed up

so it's a really really cool way to have

a customized user reset of your entire

camera so once you get away you think

you like it

save it

if you format the card you will lose it

which is why I copy it end of the hard

drive on my computer in that file folder

with the time and date on it so I know

which version it is so I can go back and

actually say you know what

I could go back a year and say I

wouldn't go back and I really enjoyed

shooting last year when I do this year

maybe it's the menu settings I go back

and then reload it as long as the

firmware

is the same version

in the same camera

you can load and unload those things

back and forth it's one of the

diagnostic tools I use to help you if

you're an NPS customer and you call me

up and say listen I've got an issue I

need to know how my camera's not doing

what I want to do it stopped doing this

I will tell you to save the file send it

to me I'll put your camera into my body

and figure out which menu setting you

have wrong and say okay try fixing this

you go you're brilliant that that's why

I trick Christie Odom thinking I'm brave

because of that okay

so totally tricked her it's a pirate

thing okay

last question because we have to get off

the stage for somebody else where's a

good place to figure out all the

different focusing settings and how

they're best used

that is a great question

and like anything as photographers

we don't retain things we read very well

we're visual learners

okay so unfortunately the easy answer is

also the hardest one

go

practice

that just there's no other way around it

you got to go practice so go out there

and try it try different things so it's

going to work for you guys because the

way I use this Focus setting will be

different the way Chris uses the same

exact Focus setting or any of you so go

there have fun if you're here come see

the booth I'll see you guys later online

thanks a lot hi Mom

[Applause]

foreign

so if there are any more questions

you can catch Paul over at the Nikon

Booth as well as the friendly people

from Nikon and that will be right at one

o'clock so just a few minutes next year

on stage we're gonna have Aaron Sullivan

she's going to be giving us a deep dive

into the Great Outdoors the little bit

grayed out great indoors

a trick and that will be happening right

at one o'clock and just so you all know

there is a live demo happening with

Aaron at two o'clock over at the corner

macro station with the fun little canoe

scene if you've seen it so stick around

can you help me to

um I don't think so but we could plug it

in just in case

you do

yeah

yeah let me plug it in

blows everything

I have one it's here

okay I don't

Honestly

though it's like a 10 second clip it

doesn't require it

all right

it is

oh yeah it is

so is that a charger then oh great okay

I have oh this type I don't know

okay

okay

yeah what will happen is it may black

out the screen it may take you out of

your presentation okay

okay

first quit please

sounds good

okay

is there

hello hello so we are gonna get started

we're jumping right in I know the main

stage is on a lunch break but I know you

guys are eager to keep learning and this

is a special one and just so you know

before Aaron comes on stage we're doing

that live demo over at the macro table

in the back that's going to be a lot of

fun to crowd around and get into her

mindset and see how she built that scene

um and I know you guys are gonna love it

so let's get ready for the next talk and

without further ado

Aaron Sullivan come on stage

and for those of you who don't know me

nice to see some familiar faces and some

new faces as well so we'll get into it

so uh first I just wanted to introduce

myself my name is Aaron Sullivan I am an

outdoor travel and miniature

photographer and over the next 40

minutes or so we'll get into what that

exactly means and I also think it's

important to tell you a little bit about

what I'm about so for me meaningful

images and experiences are what makes

photography so important and so powerful

and I also love the outdoors I celebrate

creativity whenever and however I can

and I think it's vital to humanity and I

think it should be nurtured

um and before pursuing photography I was

a guide I was it can't hear

can you guys Turn Me Up

oh really

now it is

well let's start better

I'm okay okay

I'll put it like that all right anyway

I'm Erin that's what you missed okay I'm

a photographer outdoor travel miniature

you're going to learn more about what

that means in a bit and before I was a

photographer I was an adventure travel

guide for teenagers so I used to lead

Adventure trips for kids all over the

world canoeing backpacking rock climbing

all that kind of stuff so I eventually

started a Blog called Aaron Outdoors to

share my travels and then that kind of

led me back to photography which I loved

for my whole life

um and these are just some of my clients

that I wanted to share with you I'm so I

do photography for them as I said I do

social media work I also create

educational resources for my community

for photographers and creatives and I

lead a couple of Adventure trips every

year based on photography and some

element of mindfulness and personal

development

and we're going to talk about this today

so these are my Miniatures we're not

going to talk about ice cream

necessarily but these are the ice cream

mountains would anybody like to go

yeah I would too okay I'll go with you

um so I'm gonna start just today by

showing you some of my miniature images

and then we'll get into a bunch of other

important facts and the story behind

them and everything like that so these

are the ice cream mountains I made them

for a client

here we have a mushroom Grove so I made

this with a few different kinds of

mushrooms and I wanted to create

something imaginative inspiring that

gives you that sense of wonder that I

certainly feel when I'm outdoors and in

nature

this is another client piece this was

for a company that makes technical

fleece so the whole landscape here is

created with their Fabric and then we

have a little friendly family of

penguins there

and this one is cucumber Terraces so

this one we used to advertise the my

talk today and it's inspired by my time

in Asia specifically in China and I

thought that the Cucumbers were really

nice as you know to illustrate these

Terraces

and this one is a map world so it's

created with maps and with push pins and

this was for a print article and that

was for one of my clients as well and

then of course you have my models which

are these tiny little figurines

okay so a little bit more about what

we're going to go over today first I'm

going to tell you the story of how I

started creating all of these miniature

worlds and why and then since I am a

guide I'll take you on a guided tour of

my miniature worlds that I've made and

all the scenes you'll also get a look at

the behind the scenes which could might

surprise you a little bit

um and lastly we'll get to the lessons

that working in miniature taught me and

how I applied them to my work in the

human-sized world and then how you can

apply these lessons to your own creative

Journey whether you're a photographer or

not and whether you do it professionally

or just for fun

all right so first I wanted to go and

show you some of my other work so this

is work that I've shot before the

Miniatures and after the Miniatures I I

love it I love this world I think we

live on such an amazing planet and I

want to I want to share it through my

photography and through my art so on the

left we have Balo speech on Crete you

can already kind of see how the

Miniatures started in my mind these are

actual human human-sized people and then

in the middle is a macro photograph of a

glow worm in New Zealand

so you can see the light in its body

Illuminating it's kind of

um it's like a spider web that's how it

catches its prey and then on the right

we have layers of hills in Tuscany at

Sunset so I love these colors I love the

tools of repetition and layers and I'm

really interested in how this comes

together to create a really compelling

image

does anybody know what a group of

stingrays is called

a fever

a fever of raise so this is a fever of

several hundred modular rays in Mexico

and I mean this is the feeling of wonder

that if I've ever felt it in my life it

was this and and this is the kind of

feeling that I want to communicate in

all of my work

here's the Milky Way Over Texas uh this

was for the Texas tourism board this

past year and I got really lucky with

this water this still calm water so I

could get the reflection of the Milky

Way

this is namibia's dead Flay from the air

I shot this next to Colby Brown who's

standing right there

and I love the abstraction here and how

it looks like a tree or it looks like

veins like things looking like other

things aren't imitating nature those

kinds of themes I think are really

amazing in art I think that's what what

makes what we can create really special

as humans

here we have an antelope at sunrise in

the Masai Mara in Kenya

these are some olives on an Olive Grove

in Tuscany I just wanted to show you a

bit of the macro on the right and then

the texture overall texture color

exploration of depth on the left

and here's a chunk of ice on Iceland's

famous Diamond Beach and what I loved

here was the contrast between the sharp

and the clear texture of the ice against

the soft movement of the water

so how do all of these go to something

like this this is my Rosemary Forest

and this and all the other Miniatures

that I've showed you so far are from a

project that I am still on ongoing

creating in an ongoing fashion called

our Great Indoors

and this is a project a series that I

started at the start of the pandemic in

March of 2020. and I've continued it

ever since and this project has taught

me so much way more than I ever thought

it would have

and I want to let you in on something

that I was thinking about a lot

at the start of this project which was

art school I was thinking like why did I

go to Art School what did I learn from

it why did I want to go did it benefit

me in any way

um so this is me at my senior thesis

exhibition in college and now I'm a

photographer now I didn't actually study

Photography in school I didn't have any

formal photography training since about

age 17 since since a couple courses that

I took in high school

so I'm thinking about the experience of

school particularly art related

assignments and the process around them

and here are my observations about this

and I promise you it does connect to

miniature so stay with me

so first Art School gives you

assignments

assignments being usually a set of

constraints of parameters that you need

to follow

some examples create a sculpture with

some wire and some wood a tabletop

sculpture or create a logo in Black and

White using your favorite animal

or paint the glass bottles in the middle

of the room but you can only use three

colors so these are actual assignments

that I had in school personally

the next thing that you have you have

teachers that will give you these

assignments and it'll tell you when

they're due and how to do them

and then Art School of course usually

comes with schedules and deadlines when

you need to be in class when you need to

study when you need to practice your

craft there's some kind of schedule that

you follow

and these things usually come with any

type of schooling or coursework which in

theory then prepares you to go and do

that thing out in the world so our

school prepares you to go out and be a

working artist and to uh to be

successful in theory

personally I'm really glad that I went

gave me a lot

um so here I am March of 2020. looking

at all my screens and watching my

schedule just absolutely evaporate

um everything's being canceled it's the

start of the pandemic as a Travel

Photographer you know my entire calendar

is just going away I was also hosting a

micro series at the time I was on camera

hosting and just all my jobs are getting

canceled so I'm thinking

how am I going to stay creative how am I

going to stay creating and what am I

going to do for work as well so I

suddenly have like all of this free time

and I started to consider the really

unique experience that we were in

suddenly I had a lot of constraints

really felt like an assignment right and

this is how I began to look at it

I had constraints and parameters in

which I could work so I can't travel

right and that's a place where I get a

lot of inspiration I can't spend a lot

of money on whatever it is that I'm

going to create

I have to spend much more time at home

than I'm used to doing much more time

indoors if you follow me on social media

my handle is Aaron Outdoors so I

suddenly became Aaron indoors

um

I had to use materials that were easy to

find or that I already had

and then as far as teachers or authority

figures really just limited to myself

there

but you know I knew that potential

clients could be looking at my work and

like knew what I was going to be coming

out with so I wanted to be sharing my

work and then as far as the due date

well there wasn't really a due date but

I know now that I need to create in

order to stay like mentally healthy and

then of course I'm also thinking

eventually I have to generate some more

income so that's also in the back of my

mind

um so where can I turn challenge into

opportunity this is a big question that

I'm asking myself at this point in time

I went to art school I paid money to be

given assignments and here I'm being

given one for free so maybe if I can

reframe it in this way then it will

allow me to um you know create something

in a creative career a creative Journey

you are always going to have challenges

everyone will run into challenges

they'll be different for every single

person but it's really going to benefit

you if you can reframe your challenge

into an opportunity or see the

opportunities within a challenge I don't

mean to invalidate the challenges are

hard they can be hard they can be

difficult

and as an as an aside the so much of

what's made me successful in my career

has not been the technical stuff about

how to do lights or what settings to use

it's these kinds of principles

so I'm a person that feels overwhelmed

and anxiety pretty easily so I needed to

focus my attention onto what I could

control rather than focusing on oh this

is really challenging I'm really limited

by this

so here we are I had my assignment and I

started to brainstorm

when I was a kid or when I couldn't when

I was bored or when I couldn't sleep at

night I used to imagine these tiny

little scenes in my house so if I

couldn't sleep I'm like under my covers

and I've noticed I'm I'm acting like

okay there's there's a the ski hill here

and I can ski down this I would imagine

that or if I was outside I'd imagine

walking along tiny Blades of grass

and so that's where this project really

came from is from childhood

and I thought to myself how cool would

it be to create these worlds in real

life how cool would it be to create them

in images so I Googled miniature

figurines and I didn't know anything

about the model train world at that time

I know a lot about it now

uh so I ordered my first miniature

figurines which was these canoes here

and I also got a few hikers and I got to

work

and I brainstormed for a few days I had

a few scenes that I wanted to create and

this was the first one so this is the

pillow Ice Caves these are made out of

pillows and sheets

and here's what it looked like and this

is a little video that I'm gonna play

so there I am exploring the pillow Ice

Caves

and as you can tell as you can see it

doesn't really look like a very well put

together Studio it's very much an

experimental process and isn't that the

creative process in general yeah so a

lot of how these go is I set something

up I make the photo I put something else

I make the photo I put something else I

take something away and I'm always

looking at what's in the back of my

camera what can I see

so that's how these first this first

scene came about

next I went to paper bag Canyon

so what I like about this one is that it

really does look like it's in the

southwest it looks like Antelope Canyon

or like one of the one of the Canyons in

the American southwest here and people

when I shared this on social media

people thought that it was real

they made them do like a double take

um and then they swiped and they saw

this

uh yeah so this is uh literally a paper

bag taped to a cutting board

and obviously I increased the saturation

and I edited a little bit um but really

I do try to achieve the kind of optical

illusion factor in camera

so people were very I'll say delighted

and surprised by how simple these were

and as I said with this with the

assignment that I had right I'm limited

to what's in my house so I'm kind of

scouring my house like what can I use so

paper bag Canyon

the broccoli Forest

so every little kid looks at broccoli

and sees trees right I did and I still

do and also most photographers working

in miniature which there are actually

quite a few I didn't invent this genre

there's miniature photographers there's

toy photographers

everybody kind of has a version of a

broccoli Forest which I think is

delightful so anyway this is mine

and here's the behind the scenes of the

broccoli Forest so I realized that my

bed was a really good kind of platform

it was as close to a studio as I was

gonna get at that time

um and also keep in mind I'm a Travel

Photographer I'm an outdoor photographer

I'm used to shooting in natural light so

I'm still using natural light here and

I'm also applying everything that I've

learned in the outdoors to the

Miniatures now so I'm thinking how can I

create those same feelings of like what

the outdoors makes me feel which is man

I feel amazing outside I feel this sense

of wonder I feel a sense of humility and

I wanted to communicate that in the

Miniatures as well

so there's a lot of layering that

happens here you can

um I think in this behind the scenes

photo I had changed that backdrop which

is a jacket I had changed it to a

pillowcase so it's blue instead you can

see the green sweater right there so

there's a lot of optical illusion that

comes into play it can look like a Miss

from the top and from above but then

when you get into the right angle you

see this really special and expansive

scene

nightstand astrophotography did you know

that you can see the stars from your

nightstand

I did uh so I thought about the idea of

making a nighttime scene and I was

considering kind of how to do this

and so my idea was well

if I take a piece of paper and I poke

some holes in it and then I put up a

light behind it then maybe I could make

some Stars so that's what I did I took a

little sheet from my journal and I poked

holes in it with a needle and then I put

the light behind it

the light it that I had at the Times

Like a smart light bulb that changed

color so I put it on Blue then I staged

my adventure and I did a long exposure

with the lights off

um I don't think you're ready for this

one

um

so this is a very technical setup the

stars are being held up by a dry shampoo

bottle

um

so you have my journal that's uh instant

coffee for the dirt

then you've got the the van you got the

little figurine on top and I would just

turn off the lights and leave that blue

light on when I was actually shooting it

and it's like a long exposure just like

being outside under the Milky Way

and this image I created after an image

that I had actually created with a

friend on a trip so she's actually

standing on a van the Milky Way is

behind her it's a beautiful image and so

sometimes when I was creating these

miniature scenes and like I said I still

make them

I'm using I'm using a memory that I have

or I'm using an image that I've made

previously in the real world and I want

to translate that into miniature other

times I'm looking to communicate a

feeling other times I get really

inspired by an object and I'm like oh

this needs to be something I'm I don't

know what yet but it needs to be

something

pancake Canyon

was a favorite

so I realized you know I should this is

becoming a real thing for me a hobby so

I should really get some more figurines

some more models

so I ordered some more hikers and a

bunch of I became awakened to the model

train world of how many figurines you

can get you can get tennis players you

can get scuba divers you know there's a

lot of options so anyway

they're HO scale or N scale and I should

also tell you guys we are going to do a

q a after so if you do have a question

hold on to it and we'll we'll get to it

these are N scale they're the smallest

ones that I use but I do also use ho

skill if you are a model trained person

so pancake Canyon we visited on a

weekend we were making pancakes and I

thought why not and as you can see it's

pretty simple

so again with that optical illusion

Factor you can see how I'm placing each

of the stacks in a very specific place

for the foreground the background

um and and this behind the scenes is

from a slightly different angle than

this but that's also how the process

goes

you know you're you're photographing

this and then you go oh what would

happen if I move this here and then you

move the camera slightly and then you

think oh what would happen if I moved

this pancake over here okay you're

creating it it's it's a really

interesting experience because when

you're a landscape photographer you

can't exactly be like you know I'd

really prefer that mountain over there

so this this gives you kind of a new

sense of control in a way

okay so one of my most favorite things

I've ever seen is the glowworm caves in

New Zealand and I already showed you the

macro photo that I have of the glowworms

but this is my glow worm cave that I

made in my bedroom

so I'm going to tell you what it's made

of and I want you to think in your mind

what you think this setup would have

been okay so it's rain jackets

it's the paper with holes poked in it

and a light behind it

it's tin foil for the river

and then the rock is a hunk of rose

quartz

because I have crystals at my house and

then I have little figurines these are

N-Scale figurines as well

okay and there's no lights on it's a

long exposure

Tada looks like I just did laundry

foreign

so you can see I've got the two rain

jackets as this kind of like Canyon

and then I have

the rose quartz in the middle the tin

foil which I realize by now makes really

good water and then I have the light and

so much of it is you know this is the

way it works so this is how I'm gonna

shoot it I think sometimes we get really

boxed in in photography of needing to

shoot something a certain way or needing

to create something a certain way but

hey

this creates this

why not

fishing on tinfoil Lake

this one is quite a Sentimental one for

me actually so growing up I used to go

fishing with my grandfather and that was

a really

wonderful time for me and so I wanted to

create something that really evoked that

feeling and that I had being as a kid so

the tinfoil here is is really effective

water

and then in the back you have a

lampshade turned to the side and kind of

pressed against a sheet so it creates

that big sun

here's the setup

so we have a cutting board with tin foil

on it which is the The Cutting Board

gets a lot of a lot of play a lot of use

in the Miniatures and then the pier is a

toothbrush

and then we have

the lampshade that you can see you have

the very technical chair and the sheet

draped over it to give us this

all right a crowd favorite the Rosemary

Forest this is also the cover of

westway's AAA magazine if any of you get

that

um

the Rosemary Forest I was pruning a

rosemary bush and I was looking at the

cuttings and I thought oh trees this is

a forest this has to be a forest so I

took the bag inside and I created this

Forest I glued the little sprigs to uh

to a paper plate I poured some baking

soda for snow

here's the behind the scenes

so as you can see I also taped some of

the sprigs to this stool to give it some

depth of field right because that's what

makes it successful is on the right here

you can see those

you can see that nice bokeh I always

call it bokeh bouquet in the front and

in the back

the snow was added in post everything

else is in camera

and the sheet yeah

oh and I wanted to tell you um I used a

Sony 90 millimeter F 2.8 macro that's

the lens that I use for these and I use

it for all of them I've always used it I

love that lens and I shoot Sony

okay here's one of my personal favorites

this is my Christmas card to my

community in 2020.

I bought these figures which are sheep

and a shepherd and over the summer that

year I was like I don't know how when

I'm going to use these but I will use

them

so I ended up making this and then on

the right obviously you have the behind

the scenes

set up here you have my stars that's a

poster board with holes in it you have

some candles holding that together and

then there's this sweat sweater that is

a nice texture for these

kind of Rolling Hills in the desert

and then the big star on the upper left

that is the only thing that I added in

post on that on this image

a hot spring scene

so I I also love this one I created this

with blue oyster mushrooms that I found

at the farmer's market I'm just gonna

flip to the behind the scenes so you can

see them

I saw these at the farmers market I was

like hot springs we're going

you know so I got them I went home and I

started so what inspired these is

saturnia Hot Springs in Italy and

Tuscany they're kind of these layered

Hot Springs with very blue water

and so when I saw the mushrooms I

thought that's that's what this has to

be so I filled a spray bottle or a

squirt bottle with water and blue food

coloring and then I added it into the

mushrooms I placed my figurines and kind

of held everything together created a

background

with a towel and that is also incense

for the steam so you can see the incense

kind of on the lower left hand corner

here you can see that Steam

as well

the dragon fruit Lakes

so I have a swimmer on the left and I

have a kayaker on the right and a tool

that I really like to use for these is

repetition so when I'm purchasing my

items or gathering my items I'll look

for a lot of them so that I can place

something in the front something in the

back and then you kind of creates a nice

container for whatever the subject is

in the middle I also sometimes change

the colors of things in Photoshop

particularly

this kayak is actually yellow but I

thought it would look better blue I

changed skin tones I change hair I

change body positioning I change

clothing items if I think it's going to

make a stronger image than I do it

here's the behind the scenes of the

dragon fruit lakes and I had also moved

to a bigger space so obviously this

isn't on my bed anymore this is in my

office now

and I just have this plywood set up it's

very very simple where it's dedicated

for for my miniatures

all right we have a couple more stops on

our tour and then we'll get to the

lessons so these are the Cucumber

Terraces as I showed you before but I

thought this was a really good example

of showing you kind of how on the right

kind of looks like a mess from the top

like your kid didn't clean up after an

art project which is kind of true

um but then when when you position the

camera you can see this very expansive

world and expansive scene

here's fishing on a kale leaf

on a kale Lake I was washing some kale

leaves in my kitchen and I saw the way

that the water beaded and I thought oh

that's so interesting I wonder I want to

first of all I want to photograph that

in macro but second of all let me see if

I can put a miniature figurine on it so

I had this efficient fisherman and I

thought he just looked so comfortable

there it looks like he was having a

great time so this is fishing on Kale

Lake

and a lot of my clients came on this

ride with me which I'm really

appreciative of and this project also

allowed me to

generate some new clients I was able to

attract new clients that I otherwise

wouldn't have shopped for you know my

clients prior to this were so were based

in the outdoors in travel if it wasn't

outdoors and travel then where did it

really fit in but this kind of exposed

me to entirely new markets

so on the left this is for aspiration

they're an environmentally conscious

banking alternative and this is for

their credit card and the credit card

plants a tree with every purchase so

this is like a literal focus of that

literal interpretation the middle is for

salt and straw does anybody have salt

and straw where you're from yeah okay

salt and straw is an ice cream company

they're known for making like kooky ice

cream flavors and

this was a series that they did that

were camping inspired flavors so it was

Huckleberry cornbread flavor which was

delicious and I did get to eat it and I

had a lot of it which was awesome and

there were like three different flavors

uh and then on the right this is for

Chevrolet

they needed some artwork for a print

article that they were doing and they

didn't have a way to actually photograph

these cars in person so they needed to

get creative so that's where I came in

so I printed this photo of the cars and

then put it on a billboard and then of

course we have the Brussels sprout trees

and then their text then went on the

bottom

so we're going to shift gears a little

bit hope you enjoyed the tour

what makes a good photograph

the word good is obviously a subjective

word I consider good in the context of

Photography to mean compelling or

effective meaning that it effectively

communicates whatever its intended

feeling is

so here are two images with a similar

feeling

I created one in Myanmar

and one in my apartment

but they both have this peaceful

thoughtful reflective calm warm feeling

to them

and the same things that make a

compelling photograph on the left also

make a compelling photograph on the

right

and these are some of those things for

me

subject composition light color depth

and I'm not saying those are the only

things that matter but there's some

things that matter

there's some things that really matter

because if you do all those things with

intention you get feeling out of it and

feeling is something that we have a lot

of power to convey as photographers

and this applies to all kinds of

photography

whether you're making Miniatures on your

bed like me or you're out photographing

wildlife

and also if you're a Storyteller if you

want to tell a story this is super

important

okay let's get into the learning so what

are the lessons that I got from this

project and here I'm also going to offer

some questions for you to take home so

in this font on the bottom the

handwritten stuff that's for you okay so

I encourage you to write those down take

a photo of the slides write them down in

your notes or just sit in a moment of

reflection for yourself

um

my creativity personally and my

photography career I owe a lot of that

to my mindfulness practices so

meditation and journaling journaling has

had a huge benefit on my creativity

so I encourage you to write these down

to reflect on later you can do that in

your Journal you can do that like I said

in the notes section of your phone or

you could do it in a conversation with a

friend maybe who you came here with or

maybe somebody you meet here it's a

great conversation starter

okay number one

you can create assignments for yourself

at any time who knew

constraints and structure make room for

creative freedom

creativity is like this wild energy it

doesn't want a color inside the lines

but it really benefits from lines

okay it's really good to have a Sandbox

to play in

a dedicated sandbox

and and what often makes Keeps Us stuck

is a feeling of overwhelm so if you give

yourself some constraints that can be a

remedy for this

so the question that I'm offering to you

is what's an assignment that you can

give to yourself now

don't wait for it to be perfect doesn't

have to be something big something small

you could limit time material working

location subject matter the gear that

you're using

so some examples

you got to make a still life with only

stuff in your kitchen or only things

that are blue

or are you gonna go on a walk and make a

series of three to five images in 20

minutes

something like that

uh and my advice would be brainstorm a

bunch Circle some that are exciting and

then pick one and go for it

number two

the creative process requires both

structure and freedom

and you're probably lean towards one or

the other I personally lean toward that

wild Creative Energy I'm like I don't

want structure I don't want discipline

but I really really benefit from it and

how do I know that because I've thrived

within constraints within assignments

so

whichever question that you reflect on

here it depends on which one is more

applicable to you so which one do you

need do you find that you have a lot of

structure and discipline in your

practice already and that you need to

kind of give yourself more freedom

loosen up play

or do you feel like oh

I'm I'm that free energy I'm not that um

kind of more chaotic energy and I could

benefit from structure so the question

will either be where can you create more

structure in your process or where can

you allow more freedom and

experimentation in your process

third your imagination is free and

unlimited

think back to being a kid what your

imagination was like then we had so many

ideas

and we still do but it's just kind of

Trapped In This adult conditioning

um it's it's no wonder why we don't feel

like we have the imagination we used to

but all that playfulness is still there

so the question for your reflection two

questions for your reflection where have

you limited yourself

and it's okay if you have everyone has

and where can you invite more

imagination back into your life

so how could this look this could be

incorporating more creative activities

this could be watching a movie that you

liked as a kid or buying like a cereal

that you liked as a kid this could be

cooking something new baking something

new going to a museum going to an

exhibit going on a walk looking at the

flowers looking at animals anything that

nurtures the imagination

number four

and we got two more

pay attention to your ideas and treat

them all as valid so sometimes we judge

our ideas so hard and rule them out

before we even have a chance to bring

them to life and that would have been

really easy for me to do with our Great

Indoors like I had so many reasons not

to do that project

I still do

the first one why would I make

Miniatures I'm a travel and outdoor

photographer how is that supposed to fit

into my portfolio how is that going to

fit with my work you know

I could have rolled it out that way I

could have said oh there's so many

people doing Miniatures why would I do

them

or I could have thought oh it's not

gonna lead towards work so so why pursue

that

but I'm obviously I'm very very happy I

didn't let those doubts or judgments win

so what I'm asking us all here to

consider is what would happen if you

paused any critical judgment on your

ideas

what if you treated them all as worthy

of your consideration I thought that you

have to pursue all of them but just

treating them all as Worthy

has anybody read or heard of the

artist's way

some of you great the artist way is a

book and a course by Julia Cameron that

I really highly recommend and she has a

lot of really important ideas in there

but one of them that I really like is

that your creativity comes from

something way bigger than yourself and

you're just the conduit you're just like

the middle ground and it's just gonna

come through you so that can be a really

cool reframe of thinking oh I have this

idea it's coming from something else

it's my job to listen to it and send it

through right to put it into the world

all right and the last learning that

I'll share with you today

compelling images can be created

anywhere

personally I'm very grateful for the

fresh perspective that miniature gave me

I saw that wow I don't need to be

somewhere Outdoors or traveling in the

world that I just that I think is

beautiful in order to create a beautiful

image I can create a beautiful image in

a very mundane and routine place

and working in miniature really proves

this so the question is where can you

challenge yourself to get a fresh

perspective

because you just have to be open to see

things in a new way

so that is what I'll leave you with

today and we'll get into a q a thank you

very much it was really fun

[Applause]

and Michael will

be here with the microphone at some

point

yeah

which one

yes the question was just that he wanted

to see this side again

any other questions

raise your hand

here

can you guys pass the mic around

I just wondered if uh since you were uh

kind enough to share your covet

experience

if you saw the special by Bo Burnham

about inside I love boban room and I

loved his special yeah wasn't that great

yeah it was amazing I think yours is uh

thank you thanks

uh the special he was asking about Bo

Burnham special inside if I had seen it

it's on Netflix it's wonderful

the it was called Bo Burnham's inside

yeah yeah any other questions

oh hold on she's got it

how you got from

playing around this in your apartment to

turning it into obviously you've become

a name in the field and you have a good

reputation

that didn't happen in your bedroom

well it's interesting because some of it

did it started there and it started with

my clients saying oh this is a creative

way to do it and it was super engaging

as well like sharing that work people

were very interested to see the behind

the scenes

because it's like such a surprise you

don't know what what it's going to look

like so I think it started by a few of

my clients saying oh yeah we we want to

get in on this and then it kind of like

proved the concept

um and now yes I do them in a studio or

I do them in my office which is a bit

more like legitimized but but yeah it

did it did start in my bedroom and then

I should also say I am going to do a

demo I have a table back there for the

people that are here in person uh that I

built this morning it's a winter Forest

of rock candy

with a tinfoil River so uh we'll do a

look at that over there in a little bit

at two o'clock

and any other questions

okay

well thank you guys so much you had a

lot of fun

okay

one two three four

five

six

yourself

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good afternoon and we're rolling again

right into the next ones everyone having

some fun

come on I need more energies everyone

having some fun

yeah great thanks for joining us so next

up we have Peter Lee who's going to be

on stage talking about Canon and if you

have any questions we'll do a quick q a

at the end but we'll be doing a meet and

greet over at the cannon Booth with

Peter bring all those questions try to

stump them right I think veteran

probably knows a lot about these cameras

um but bring those questions I know

they're ready for it not only Peter but

the whole team over at the cannon Booth

so without further Ado Peter come take

the stage

hello everyone can you hear me okay

[Applause]

it's a big room but today we'll be

talking about

oh I don't want that okay

we'll be talking about landscape so this

one is not necessarily I talk about a

few Canon things and I have a list of a

few Canon cameras that do something

fancy that I mentioned at the front row

of the gentleman and the lady but

overall it's more about concept and how

we approach it in the 21st century so

I'm a Canada product educator I'm one of

the attacks so just like uh Paul Van

Allen my co-worker my competitor from

Nikon we do a lot of Education we teach

a lot of Concepts to customers across

the country so just a quick one just to

recap something simple so ISO so this is

something that is least important

realistically I put it up front because

I want to get by it right away and never

talk about it again so hopefully if

you're doing landscape photography how

many of you use a tripod I want to kind

of want to know this out right away so

the almost everyone

so realistically for most landsafe

photography you should set your ISO at

100 and leave it there

and from the knots in the audience I

would say yes you already know how to do

this I skipped this really quick because

you already know this the higher we set

our eyes so the noisier it'll be and

these are just test shots that are

appropriate okay

shutter speed we use for one of two

reasons we either freeze motion and

sometimes that can be challenging and

things are moving around

and sometimes we want to have fun with

showing some motion and so Seascape is a

good example of showing Motion in

landscape photography

there and there we all know what it

looks like so I skipped through the easy

part first

f-stop is a critical selection

because this controls your depth of

field let's be realistic about what it

is

we know what it looks like this

completely makes sense yes very obvious

without me walking you through like a

baby through what this is supposed to

mean

what we want to really think about is

when we typically how many of you use

maybe some longer lenses in landscape

photography something maybe more than 50

millimeter sometimes

an advanced audience I can clearly see

because often when you're out there

doing landscape photography I see it a

lot and I'm sure you see it a lot you

see a lot of people only using wide

lenses

and that's not necessarily always the

right approach for the subject matter

so depth of field is focal length

dependent that is one of the three big

variables that affects how much depth of

field we have so if we approach it

shorter and shorter lenses we have more

and more depth of field

the f-stop doesn't change the distance

of the subject doesn't change you just

naturally have more depth of field

whenever you substitute a shorter focal

length lens or some of you may use zoom

lenses I use zoom lenses a lot in

landscape photography you have Choice

less or more depth of field based purely

off I'm here and this is the focal

length I choose to use to compose for

this particular scene

there is also another thing is subject

distance is the most one of the biggest

things for depth of field this has the

single biggest impact

so if I focus on something much farther

away I have substantially more

depth of field this is just how all the

math of the Optics work this comes into

play because some of you might do this

hyper focal who does a little bit with

hyperfogle a lot less hands go up

normally and that's okay I don't expect

a ton of hands to go up all that means

is there's a certain distance that's

relatively close

you use that as the point you're

focusing and then half the distance

between you and that point is in Focus

all the way to Infinity

so this gives you a lot of stuff that's

going to be within depth of field okay

pretty straightforward and you get apps

for it this is photo pills just to pull

from their website you can get it as

mobile makes your life very easy in the

21st century when you can have an app on

a phone that can do it in the Box you

don't even need a data connection for

that

on a Canon camera so this is very brand

specific because it does not work this

way necessarily for all cameras of all

brands

for Canon cameras when you're looking

through a viewfinder or you turn on the

live view look at the back of the screen

or it's a mirrorless camera it does not

matter if it's an SLR or it's mirrorless

you are always viewing the scene at the

maximum possible aperture of that lens

period that's always how it works it's a

techie thing the engineers decided to

program it this way therefore you need

to press a depth of field preview button

to see the stop down aperture for the

actual exposure itself which is

important because in landscape

photography it would be very rare to

shoot wide open with a lens period it is

really uncommon in fact I can't think of

a single landscape photograph that I

have is f 2.8 and I use f22a lenses for

landscape photography pretty much

so that's what it looks like just a

quick recap if you're using tripod which

you should be using 100 ISO and then

manage your shutter speed and then

f-stop your depth of field easy stop so

I want to skip by all the easy peasy

type stuff

focus is always a big question I get

asked about we just talked about

hyperfocal that's why I want to end with

f-stop because

it's very important because composition

is about where we look

to help keep things sharp hopefully

you're using some of these tools how

many of you use use a just a wire remote

I'm used to using a wire remote so I

don't normally use a smartphone to do

the triggering which you can now if you

want because you can trick with the app

the smartphone to be a Bluetooth trigger

for all these modern cameras I don't

like to drain my smartphone battery this

is my choice your choice how depending

on how you want to use it I am kind of

classic old school that way how you like

wired remote simple the remote itself

has power from the camera's battery

there is nothing special about it it

never runs out of battery power

live view is how I would recommend

anyone to approach modern landscape

photography even if you own a DSLR so

this is not exclusive to mirrorless it

makes your life much easier to determine

critical focus and to see what's going

on in your scene and it gives you access

to histograms which are kind of cool and

because we're going to talk about that

for a moment

this is the thing I promise a gentleman

in the front and that is focus peaking

so focus peaking is something that very

new cameras have that older if you have

an SLR that is six seven years old you

will not have this feature this comes

from video digital video but we've

adopted it now for still photography

what it does is it literally shows you

on the screen if it's an SLR live view

screen what is in focus and what is not

in focus by highlighting it in Red by

default you can change the color but the

normal default color for all cameras

industry-wide for this function is red

you can change the blue or yellow if you

want it's a very easy way to see in

landscape photography or any other type

of Photography very quickly on a Canon

system you press that the field preview

what's red and what's not red red is a

good choice for landscape because it

stands out against the Green and blues

you see okay

this is what's got it so it's basically

a few very late generation slrs and then

all the new mirrorless stuff and I

didn't put the new camera on here but

yes R6 Mark II of course has this

function as well all the new stuff is

got it

so in terms of focus the big things to

think about will be managing depth of

field because it'd be very challenging

sometimes to get lots of things in Focus

especially if you need something very

close to you in the foreground and focus

it can be very challenging now to get

sufficient of the field so just manage

it on a Canon system always remember to

use your depth of field preview to check

it out

metering and exposure I would say it is

a deeply misunderstood subject so Canon

offers you four automatic ways of doing

it so evaluative spot realistically are

the two Atlantic photography I would

suggest you using evaluative works very

well for landscape photography more

generally unless you've got one thing in

the image which I will show you in a

moment but realistically how many since

you're out there I gotta ask and that's

why I included this type of picture

while you're out there doing landscape

do any of you also take pictures of

Wildlife

about half the hands that go up I'm not

surprised and that's why I have little

tidbits in there for you because with

evaluated metering you just have to

understand on a Canon system it's a tech

thing again so this is a brand thing

that Canon cares about where you focus

when you are in the default Factory

evaluative metering that's always the

easiest way to remember it

spot metering is the other one that I

would consider for landscape photography

in general

why might you want to do that and I have

an image that explains why you might

want to do that so waterfalls tend to

give you

a very bright exposure on the thing

that's most important right

because if you have a picture of a

waterfall it's big it's filling the

frame that's probably kind of important

so we want to make sure our exposure for

the most important thing is correct

spot metering will be the way to

approach that more generally it's not a

bad way to approach it generally for all

waterfall take pictures where waterfall

is very dominant

who knows histogram who thinks they know

histogram already and that's okay don't

be shy

okay because it's good for me to know

that so this is the camera's computer

telling you in a graph about how how

many dark pixels and how many not so

dark pixels may be in your image and

this is applied both in live view before

you take a picture this is saved as part

of metadata so you can review it on any

image you've taken already on your

camera and this is the same across all

brands so this is clearly not canon

specific all of our competitors have

this as well

in a digital environment what you need

to be concerned about is not having

highlights of things that are important

to be blown out

which means we lose detail so where can

you see it you see it everywhere so a

live view on a DSLR you can see

histogram and a mirrorless camera it's

always available as an option you can

review it as part of the metadata in any

save file again all brands accommodate

this that's not an issue why might it be

important I took this picture here years

ago this is garopata who is local to

this part of California so you know this

is a wild callalay okay I had trouble

finding it yesterday it was very sad

because I've not been here in a while I

couldn't find the right turnout to get

to the calla lilies it was disappointing

oh well my co-workers can blame me later

about that one so this is the histogram

for this picture

when you have a subject like a cow who

does flowers while they're out there in

nature doing landscape so it's the other

half of the people that don't do

Wildlife maybe are interested in flowers

okay I do both

so the subject itself has detail it has

texture if you make the exposure too

bright you will lose that completely

makes sense

this is completely unrecoverable

so this is an example of a Japanese

garden and the exposure is very

reasonable it's pretty straightforward

the visual of the graph should match the

visual of the image so lots of mid-tones

nothing super bright nothing super dark

and it kind of matches this

this is something I always like to show

so this one is an intentionally too

bright of an exposure that's part of a

bracket

so it's part of a bracket and this one

was supposed to be super bright and then

people who shoots raw almost everyone

yes for a landscape I would expect

almost everyone here to shoot raw okay

so can you recover it this is the

histogram for it

can you recover from that if you shoot

raw because a lot of people are lazy and

the lady is right in the front because

she's shaking her head absolutely you

cannot recover it because this is what

it looks like when you try to recover

with raw the file is already Overexposed

and the parts of the image that are pure

white remain Pure White and there's

nothing you can do about that you cannot

fix it in post

so always be aware of it because you may

run into this type of subject matter if

you like taking pictures of wildlife

when you're doing landscape and the most

important thing in this image is the

brightest thing and that brightest thing

has feathers that have details on them

and you don't want to lose that and I

barely made it so there you go

same thing here who does who has Mac who

brings a macro lens also when they do

landscape

I've talked to a few customers already

that are doing this

not the worst thing in the world you see

lots of interesting things out there

okay

we get the point so this is Yosemite

I would suspect more than half this

audience has been a summary yes

lots lots and lots and lots and lots

okay so this is a classic example of

longer lengths because this is from

tunnel view so from tunnel view the

normal classic I think the official name

is still exhibition Point yes so

Expedition point is the official name

that's the histogram

the reason I like to show this image is

it looks like I have some Headroom so I

had room meaning I can make the image

brighter by choosing a longer exposure

time and not blow out highlights so

that's the terminology I'm going to

choose to use

be very careful with that because

who is using RGB

histogram that is not the fault and a

lot of your hands normally go up when I

go there

be cognizant of this there might be some

subject matter out there that is primary

color and dominant red green blue

that fact may be obscured by the

brightness histogram which is always the

default

be mindful especially if those of you

interested in macro and flower

photography and doing nature and

landscape photography

blue so snow can be blue rather at times

be mindful that blue may be a little bit

too bright and here would be snow and

you'd lose detail in the snow and this

would be not so obvious on a computer

screen much more obvious if we make a

large print then you'll see some issues

where there should be taintail in the

snow it's not there because your

exposure is too bright because you left

your histogram on brightness alone

classic picture of a rose I thought it

was fine lovely but not fine

because the most important color is a

red primary

and there's texture in the detail of the

petals that you cannot see anymore and I

thought it was fine back in the day so

there you go so there are reasons to

think about if you're not already doing

it personally I always do it to every

camera I use it's one of the first

things I do is I change the histogram to

RGB because I want us to be able to see

this

Aurora Borealis green dominant and

I'm gonna get rid of my work nagger

thing

if you just only pay attention to

brightness you might have an issue so

this one is safe but you don't have much

Headroom

so this is something where it is motion

and you have to massage your shutter

speed who has done a little bit of this

Northern Lights

was it Alaska or Canada or Iceland or

Norway or somewhere like that I think

I've covered all the bases

probably not Russia I wouldn't recommend

Russia necessarily okay

just a quick recap the thing you always

have to appreciate about histograms is

it's a reflection of any setting that

would affect a jpeg

even if you set your camera up to only

record raw the histogram that you see is

a reflection of jpeg settings you are

seeing a JPEG thumbnail so anything in

the camera that you can change

especially on a mirrorless camera oh it

changes how the preview looks on my

screen inside the viewfinder or on the

back of the screen anything that changes

that will affect your histogram

it's something to be careful to manage

all right I'm done with all the techie

stuff and we can talk about the fun

things like composition

because

oftentimes especially because I'm a tech

I am quite bombarded by questions about

the tool and how to work the tool and

how to manage the tool the tool is the

camera

but the Tool's not the end of the game

hopefully not hopefully not for you it's

definitely not for me so this is a means

to an end and not an ends of its own and

of itself

the whole point is to do something

creative to communicate visually

and that is what photography is we're

just doing with still images so this is

everyone literally has heard of this yes

and I'm not going to say the words

because some people think they're

naughty words

I'm not going to say these words this

image actually works quite well for this

type of composition because we can kind

of use this one thing to kind of

approach it that way and that's fine

there's nothing wrong with that because

Reflections are something fun that we

can definitely play with

this is here

so this is Big Sir so just down the

South along the coast it's very craggy

there is no real beach to actually speak

of and the water is really cold so don't

get dunked in the water and watch for

rogue waves also so I would always never

recommend turning her back to the ocean

when you're this close so sometimes

you're actually really close like this

because it's super wide Lots because

it's an 11-24 at 11 millimeter on a full

frame camera which is super super wide

the classic the most single classic way

to approach landscape is to use layers

so I'm sure some of you have already

heard of this before and that is to have

interesting elements in the foreground

something in the mid ground here would

be Surf and the rocks that are farther

away and then background for landscape

usually involves sky

so that's why coup golden hour yes

that's why we always love golden hour

because you're more likely to get an

interesting Sky because otherwise a

Clear Blue Skies well there's another

way to put it it's kind of boring to

have a clearer Blue Sky for landscape

photography if you intend to have that

and you want a calm boring image I call

it boring but we can take that word away

then we have a clear blue sky there's no

way around that

so this is also Yosemite from what they

tell me I've not been back to this exact

location this tree is still up and about

classic tree portrait another classic

example of we've got detail in the

foreground the tree is the main subject

but we've got a lot of fun background

elements now that include sunbursts and

also Half Dome on the back plus it's

morning you can tell it's morning

morning is good if you want more mist

and fog I think you've experienced this

already you're more likely to see it

evening less likely to see such things

just weather just dealing with weather

now

quick recap this is Valley View that's

what I call it this is actually a

turnout along the Circle Road in

Yosemite Valley when you're about to

exit except you're not actually exiting

because you can Circle back the other

way I think it actually is the last

turnout it's been a while since I've

been to this exact location uh

there was some photographer being super

naughty this is my funny story about it

there was a photographer that was

already camped out

in front of the normal shooting spot

along the back of the river and Valley

because it's one of the most famous

views of Yosemite Valley it will be the

Merced River along right on its Edge

looking back towards El Capitan that

will be one of the most this is right

underneath tunnel View

and there was a photographer that had

traveled from another country I'm not

going to name the country that I camped

out there and then he was kind of he was

unwilling to move for any other

photographer so I had to Hopscotch over

rocks into the middle of the river to

avoid him because otherwise I'd be

photoshopping him out of the image

because he wasn't going to move period

for anyone very unpleasant guy but there

you go so in general this is one of the

fun things to do to emphasize foreground

will be

not squaring your image

with their camera with their subject

matter so squaring is something does

anyone this is kind of a weird thing to

ask does anyone do pictures of buildings

or architecture

or artwork

so I'm going to name all the things you

kind of want to square with squaring

means you want to have your camera

parallel to the subject you might

imagine that's somewhat important for a

building or if you're trying to take a

piece of a picture of a piece of artwork

like a painting it's also kind of

important or a copy work if anyone's

done copy work in the past at some point

these are kind of important things so

this is taking advantage of the fact

that we are not squaring with our

subject which means when you take a wide

lens you do not square with their

subject things that are physically

closer to you become disproportionately

large we can totally take advantage of

that with landscape photography so aim

the camera down a little bit your

foreground becomes disproportionately

engaged and large and it talks to you

more

this is a classic example of

horizon line are we thoughtful about

where we put our Horizon Lines in

landscape it's kind of important do you

think this is a good idea

I don't like it right because it's

there's a lot of boring

I mean clear sky there's a lot of clear

sky in this image

but all the interest is in the dunes

because that's where all the texture is

so how do we manage that one of the most

classic ways is you manage your horizon

line

you typically want to show more of

what's interesting and maybe a little

bit less of anything

that is more boring so the easiest way

to do it typically for a landscape would

be place the horizon line where you

think it feels best to convey things of

interest and to hide things that are

distracting or uninteresting

same thing here

the reason it's I would probably rather

I would rather have this have been a

pretty sky it was not a pretty sky

that's because it's weather

so one of the consequences of liking

this type of Photography is you have to

be a little bit patient sometimes

because you can only do what the weather

gives you if you want lots of sky in

your image it is its nature

same thing here this is a clear sky so

this is in Oregon if you've ever been

there along the beach

if you can arrange the Sun so this is

this is always a thing

the easiest way to get a sun star is to

get it on the edge of something solid it

could be a tree branch or in this case a

gigantic Rock in the structure and then

you have to stop down a lot so this one

I'm sure it was because that's how I

always do it this was F-16 so I'll

always go there as my default if I want

a Sunstar for example

who shoots outside of golden hour

outside of golden an hour okay

good for you because there are lots and

lots of interesting landscape images

that you can approach when you're not in

the most favorable life

so if you're shooting sunset and sunrise

that sometimes can be challenging if

you're staying up at night does anyone

also do night sky I'm really curious now

okay if you do Sunrise Sunset and nice

Sky you're probably sleeping in the

middle of the day let's be realistic

about this now okay I get that

but oftentimes a lot of people

especially when they're beginning in

landscape photography they're thinking

I've got to just do sunrises and sunsets

because it's eye candy it's a lot of

color if you have good ones lots and

lots of color and color is complete eye

candy now so it's an easy cheesy way to

get more interesting compositions

but what if your background is not sky

but it's rock

so anytime in landscape photography you

can get natural structure it usually

means Rock but it could be trees it

could be other elements you get that to

be the background and this is very

famous this is a crazy famous location

now in Yosemite

many millions of images have been taken

that are almost identical to this by the

way and mostly in black and white I

would say as well

yes

um no Sky it doesn't matter if the sky

is boring but also doesn't matter if

it's the middle of the day this is

actually middle of the day

you see where I'm going like this

this

is this is it depends on your point of

view

if a reflection is important to you then

this is not a good image

if you want to show debris

if debris is the star of this image then

this is actually very good because it

really gets you to look at the debris

it's always a matter of Storytelling so

in classic landscape photography this

would be not a good image solely because

we've got lots of debris in the

reflection in the very sharp reflection

of something very famous and that's

something very famous we would decide

would be the most important thing the

next most important thing would be the

reflection so always distractions or

things to think about in composition and

nature usually it means debris something

that would interrupt the natural flow of

a composition this would be the counter

example so I always like to show example

counter example Mount Rainier

if you want reflection and you want this

really Miralax reflection I would plan

on trying to do sunrise

because it tends to be less windy always

pay attention to weather forecasts but

if you plan on Golden hour reflection

you're better bet typically for most

locations will be sunrise

because weather patterns for most places

in the world will tend to be windier

golden hour at Sunset and the more

people to shoot around which is very

annoying these days

this is a good example of I was there to

take pictures of Mount Rainier but there

are other examples you can play with to

make things interesting because the

clouds are the interesting team here

so this is just a series and a big

bracket of images I took at this

location

this is a good example of rain you don't

see rain because I'm using a neutral

density filter

so neutral density filter is a good way

to make hard Reflections softer it's a

great way to get some kind of reflection

out of water that will not give you

anything at all

so this happens to be just a big big ND

a very long exposure on a tripod okay

and you don't see the rain anymore

this is tunnel view there you go so

classic I want to show the classic one

because

this is super wide

but this is 200 millimeter now

same exact location same day same

morning snow

just you can get much more interesting

compositions that are not normal the

thing that everyone else is doing is the

normal thing it's okay to do that but

it's also a great thing to think about

what are some other compositions I can

get with longer lenses that are not the

normal composition

so this one who has been here who knows

actually what this is this one is more

obscure you know what this is so there

are a handful of people so this is in

the middle of Oregon in the middle of

nowhere by the way

so the closest civilization is quite a

way so I remember right including rest

stops and including gas and there are

warnings saying that for the next 70

miles there's no gas station so you got

to be a little bit careful it's on the

middle of nowhere I brought lots and

lots of lenses the reason I always like

to show this one is that yes it's a 400

millimeter lens I'm using for a

landscape because if you've been here

you already know that it's very

challenging to have a good composition

at this location if you use a wide lens

because all of mine sucked maybe someone

can do it it's just not going to be me

because I try it and they all are not

good it was actually that I like the

class this day I got there on a nice day

with broken partly partly clouded cloudy

day and that was actually fun super

windy good example of long lens tripod

landscape with super windy and there's

some funny things that can happen with

stabilizers when it gets super windy so

with modern cameras I think the old rule

used to be and just why I used to always

tell people many years ago is that if

you put a lens and a camera on a tripod

and that lens had an image stabilizer to

turn it off that was always the old rule

with modern cameras I would say don't

necessarily always stay hard and fast to

that rule you should use the live view

of a modern camera to evaluate

which is better because sometimes it's

actually better with the stabilizer on

and active while your camera is not

sitting on a tripod doing exactly this

sort of thing because that's what I did

so my images with image stabilizer at

this scene it was crazy windy by the way

the ones with stabilizer on with the

whole camera on a tripod they were

sharper than the ones that were

with a stabilizer off on the tripod

because everything was vibrating

slightly because yes it was that windy

so just be mindful of that modern

cameras tend to work this way so r r

mirrorless cameras by default a lot of

our modern cameras use electronic first

curtain

some of you may remember the macro

people that are Canon people they will

know exactly what this means and why

it's beneficial but I'll explain to

everyone so by default on an R5 R6 this

is how Canon cameras work it just means

that instead of having two physical

focal plane shutters

opening and then following and closing

the first curtain is completely

synthetic it's electronic so you know

have no vibration from anything moving

just before the exposure

so this is pretty cool

so this is default on like an R5 R6 an

R6 Mark II the fault that's how it works

my general suggestion is to just leave

it that way in general for a landscape

nature macro photography

just keep it there there's no reason to

choose these other things for you if you

have other questions about that ask me

either afterwards I'm making time I'm

making Headway or afterwards at the

table for Canon

so waterfalls are especially tricky I

personally love them the two states with

the most waterfalls in the United States

shouldn't be fairly obvious it's Oregon

he already knows that she's been

everywhere in Oregon apparently and also

Washington State so these are the two

big states with humongous I think each

state has over 400 waterfalls crazy

crazy number

so waterfall I used to do this a lot

which is what's the earliest rule you

learn in composition is to fill the

frame with things that are interesting

so I always like to use this as the

counter example because I ended up

liking these a lot more it's the same

subject the same day but I like The

Greenery of framing the main subject

rather than having the whole main

subject to love the frame so just a

quick reminder that even though in

landscape photography oftentimes we

shoot landscape orientation

don't forget about also shooting

vertical and vice versa if you think

vertical is best don't forget to try

this because you may never know later

when you re-look at these images wait a

minute I like the other one a lot better

and it's like I've wasted my time doing

too much of the other one I don't have

many good images the other way because

sometimes it can be very difficult on

the scene to evaluate what's going on

and what might be preferred

with a digital camera it doesn't cost

you that's the thing storage is cheap

take extra images just in case you

prefer it the other way if you don't

like it you can always delete it off

your hard drive later it's no big deal

okay so oftentimes the default in the

waterfall is to show something smooth

this is smooth and chunky I like it it's

one of those smooth and chunky ones it's

very classic

this can be also useful same subject

same day the difference is instead of

wide lens long lens fast shutter speed

water that falls never looks the same

second to Second that's the interesting

thing so technically here I took a lot

of images

because each image looks slightly

different on its own

and this is where you can see the shapes

of water as it falls that vary from

moment to moment and that's something

fun and I was the only one doing it I'm

only I'm always the only one doing this

but someone else might be interested in

doing this once in a while

okay

this one polarizers who uses polarizers

who at least packs them sometimes I get

lazy but it's probably a good idea okay

so the whole point of this is I want to

show you the difference

okay this is not fakery

because

I think that's so cheesy when people say

it's a it's a simulated view those words

I don't like I like showing the real

things and the real things sometimes

mean the difference isn't big in this

case the real thing means that this

difference is rather substantial in this

instance and that is the whole point of

the polarizer and you see that on the

left is to suppress polarizing light and

you can see much more of the detail of

the rocks in the foreground it becomes

immediately obvious it's a different

type of image for some of you you may

prefer the image on the right for this

certain aesthetic but it's different

it's just different I prefer the left

and that's how I normally would do it I

have to go find this one it was stuck in

some hard drive from like eight years

ago I had to go find it I knew I did it

in the past this one also is fairly

close because it is notable for being

one of the few waterfalls that empties

into the Pacific Ocean

so this stuff the water you see is

Pacific ocean water this is about an

hour and a half south of here some of

you have been doing this exact location

by the way it's crazy touristy this is

the one other reason I bring long lenses

to places I believe might be tourist

ridden

it's because I can shoot around people

because there's like people hovering all

around me and I'm not there to take a

cell phone picture I'd actually try to

get a better one and there when I

visited there last this is the only time

a day could get there so it's the middle

of the day so it sucks to be me but

there you go because I was going

somewhere else for sunset

this one I like this one a lot because

this for this park in Oregon

this is the best waterfall in that Park

the thing I never liked about this

particular image was the the log in the

foreground that got stripped of its bark

because its color really stands out so

unless the story of this image is about

the log this is not a good image so one

of the easiest fixes is of course to go

monochromatic because we're neutralizing

color it's always a Cheesy thing I used

to do with the concert photography it

says cheat get rid of the obnoxious

color make it monochromatic instead so

it's an easy save about an otherwise

unusable image very we go

macro I know a number of you who owns a

macro lens

wow okay good

I have more stuff I can talk to you

about at the table because it can get a

little complicated but

you can do all sorts of fun things with

macro because natural subject matters

all around you when you're around for

landscape photography it's one of the

easiest things to do

because it sits everywhere around you

and I know a number of you do something

like this

okay so something like this you're

already out there

the key to this is always about finding

Skies that are darker the darker the sky

the more the Milky Way you will see

so in the northern hemisphere you have

to face South to see the Milky Way

so you have to think about what other

man-made subject matter might be off in

the distance that is bright

because if you have a city to the South

that will have a lot of artificial light

that'll make it more difficult to see

the Milky Way so just be aware of that I

do always like to mention it because a

lot of people who do landscape

they don't mind staying those are the

those are folks a lot of them don't mind

staying overnight to do some Milky Way

because this has gotten way more popular

over the last 10 years

this is Yosemite I only bring this up

because

many of you have an Yosemite this is one

of the few places where I have found the

use of tilt trip lenses to be quite

interesting because the valley itself is

quite narrow who has used a tilt shift

lens at some point in the past it's the

normal small number and I expected user

to use a till Chipmunks of course

all right so anytime you are in a space

where

you want to maintain the perspective of

a subject and not change it I'll keep my

language very simple like this the

shifting aspect of a tilt shift lens can

be rather handy in natural photography

I promise someone this and I think he

might be in the audience actually I

promise to show you ver vertical panel

so each image is from a one tilt shift

lens that has been shifted out of place

up and down

and then each individual one of these

three is actually a bracket an exposure

bracket so this is HDR panel so 21

images ended up making these three which

ends up making

one image that's like that

so this is good for a bit like a banner

if I want to make a really large Banner

because there's a ton of resolution in

here so anytime you're doing piano I

know a number of you do panel you only

own

like a

a slider for nodal point

do we know what nodal point is it is

very specific to panel so I'll explain

very quickly that's okay I have a few

minutes so I can explain this okay

visual aid so when you're doing piano

oftentimes we

mostly horizontal that's why I wanted to

show you a vertical example at least a

lot of horizontal

but if you rotate the view from the

camera from the tripod

there could be some issues in terms of

things that are a little bit straighter

and I mentioned being difficult to make

them look the way they should I will

leave it at that because I'm not going

to show you a bad example of this sort

of thing

a nodal Point slider is to

accommodate the fact that when you

rotate a camera for piano you should

rotate it around the optical center of

your Imaging system

the optical center of your Imaging

system is physically within the lens so

you actually rotate from underneath the

lens so there are tools that allow you

to reposition

the camera over a tripod such that when

you rotate you're rotating right the

optical center where you should be and

you avoid some Parallax issues that is

the technical term to avoid and so if

you're doing hardcore piano that's for

those of you doing hardcore you already

know this you probably have a tool like

this already and that's pretty normal to

use it that way

um but till Tiff is always the quick and

easy way of doing it because you don't

need to even accommodate for that I'm

just shifting a lens in order to produce

a panel in a circumstance

and then finally this

this is probably the most challenging

thing to explain so because I'm ahead of

time I will spend a minute to explain

this so have you attempted to take a

picture spring this will be spring

flowers windy day

what have you noticed when you try to

take a picture of a field of flowers

super windy on a spring day you notice

that you if you want flowers to be Sharp

may not always want that if you want

flowers to be sharp like this

you have to use a faster shutter speed

there is no way around that you have to

use a faster shutter speed if you want

sharp flowers on a windy day that

combination

given that you have all of that there's

a conflicting interest and you see it in

this image what if you also want flowers

in the foreground to be sharp and you

want the trees in the background to also

be sharp what do we normally do for that

we stop down a lot yes

so what happens when you use a fast

shutter speed and you stop down a lot

not much light gets to the camera and

then we use some crazy high ISO now so

this is a kind of a weird combination in

a natural world this is the only example

I can think of where we would encounter

it so this is where tilt shift can be

somewhat advantageous for those of you

who've never tried it

because it's the one lens where you can

flip around your focal point it is so

bizarre every other lens we make anyone

makes

your focus plane is always parallel to

the Imaging sensor Imaging area if it's

film it's film if it's a digital sensor

digital sensor it doesn't matter always

parallel

when you're using a chill chip lens it's

not necessarily always parallel really

super cool because we can tilt to change

what's in focus in the scene in front of

us

and we're just tilting so that the focus

plane actually lies along the ground in

front of us it is bizarre it is very

cool if you have more questions you ask

me at the table because that requires a

long explanation now but in the natural

world this would be a very practical

application it is incredibly specific so

this would only apply if you know you're

going to take a picture of flowers and

you want them to be sharp and you want

lots of depth to feel and you know it's

going to be windy there you go then you

use this one okay and that's me if you

have any questions I probably have five

minutes to take questions before I need

to vacate the podium you'll feel free to

ask them I will repeat them because

it'll be very hard for anyone else to

hear your questions does anyone have a

question right now

are we doing okay yes ma'am

oh yes so the question is for Canon

tiltif lenses they are EF Mount having

said that if some of you and I know some

of you do some of you own a modern Canon

mirrorless camera like an R5 R6 doesn't

matter R7

just use the adapter it's regular EF

Mount nothing tricky it works as it

should

um Canon currently does not make any RF

Mount tilt shift lenses

and that's all I can say about that

so the picture of the Calla Lily and get

up at a State Beach where where did you

what part of the flower did you decide

to focus on oh fancy one

okay yeah so I took a it was a sunset

with it you could actually see sun and

garapada which is weird because it's

mostly cloudy and Marine layer and

garapada so that one uh it's a little

tip on the end of the Callaway as a

profile because the rest of it is very

translucent and you can't see much

detail I was okay with the rest of being

soft so where did I focus on just a

little tip where you see that little

Edge coming out on the end of it

a reference to shooting birds in flight

I understand that people use a

mechanical shutter over electronic

because of the Rolling shutter effect

could you please

fancy questions I am a tech right so I

can answer I supposedly they pay me to

answer these questions too

so the rolling shutter I don't have good

examples

to show you because it was more of a

landscape oriented class so I will

describe it this way have you ever seen

a picture of a golf club where it was

bent the wrong way in a picture

that is rolling shutter

rolling shutter comes from the fact that

when you capture a still image

not all parts of the capturing area

capture

everything out there at the identical

Moment In Time

because of this fact and that's because

the shutter has to move out of the way

by the way there you go that's the

technical explanation of how this all

works all cameras have some degree of

rolling shutter except for one I'm not

going to mention it because still

cameras don't have that that feature

there are a few video cameras with it

we have some consequence so generally

electronic shutters have more rolling

shutter so for those of you interested

in flying birds because the wings are

moving around and you want to keep the

shape the way it's supposed to be

because you're very picky about such

things I would avoid electronic shutter

except for

the few very expensive cameras from

Canon and Nikon and Sony that have very

fast electronic shutters now so I would

generally avoid that for most cameras I

would use mechanical shutter

mechanical shutter or electronic first

curtain but I would definitely avoid a

fully electronic shutter for most

cameras

any additional questions before I vacate

okay so that's a wrap thank you Peter

if you do have more questions you can go

visit Peter for the next hour at the

Canon booth and chat with the rest of

the Canon professionals they'll answer

all your questions like I said before

let's stump them they're Tech refs they

should know everything so bring those

bring those hard questions write them

down bring them on over thanks

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their Tech reps they should know

everything so bring those bring those

hard questions write them down and bring

them on over thanks

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thank you

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please

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friends

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thank you

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thank you

frame around

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again

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thank you

starting looking like someone

take a little look from the outside

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do you remember

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my God

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with no divide to block with you

my concentration was in Jeopardy had to

head up north I went looking for you

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thank you

foreign

ER

the force is strong with you

all right

yeah I got it

okay so what I want to do is to show you

something that

all modern cameras do

and I believe the Sony now does it

I didn't quite mean it the way it came

out but

the I whatever the latest number is my

understanding is that what I'm about to

talk about it now does the previous ones

do not

which is called Focus Shift or um focus

stacking you can now do it in the

computer I created a technique called

image harvesting and I made a lot of

money teaching it and then camera

companies put me out of business and to

which I say yes

what you can get a camera to do and once

we get this to do this is you can get a

camera to take up to 300 different

slices of a picture

you can then in software assemble said

300 slices of the picture and if you

want you can literally defy physics and

have absolutely everything in focus

cool huh

why you would want everything in Focus I

don't know

but you can and as soon as I get this

back I can show you

and I can't move except for here

because right here is where I don't

cross the speakers

okay

I have to make it more complicated this

was my idea it worked at home

you kind of feel like the you know the

the

Great British baking show where they

always say you know but it works so well

the entire week

um if not can we I can I manually do

that like hop to the camera then hop to

the computer um I'm just trying to get a

signal from your laptop

Okay so

what I want to do is I'm going to show

you there's near Focus

photography macro Focus photography

extension tube photography and diopter

close-up photography and what those look

like

is

this is a set of EX

this is a set of extension tubes now I

bought two sets and the reason why I

I bought two sets is because I have

found

that what I have to do is sometimes

extend that far

there's macro photography which is where

I can zoom right in and then there's

near Focus photography and what near

Focus photography is for close-up is

where you find the point at which the

camera focused closest

for example I want to use an 85 1.8

because I want the 1.8 bokeh

that word's pronounced

bokeh

Boca is a city in Florida

bouquet rhymes with okay

so bokeh is a quality of blur now a

thing that we do

is we're taught to pay attention to

focus focus focus focus it has to be in

focused focus focus but if physics is

really clear on this

um there's only one thing that's in

focus

when you're using a fixed lens like this

not a one that can do tilt shift

and might use my favorite word in

photography introduces the chime

principle

the hell of a word isn't it

shine fluke which is being able to do

this

the only thing that's in focus is that

which the lens is physically focused

upon and anything that crosses the plane

of focus

stopping the lens down doesn't give you

more stuff and focus stopping the lens

down just increases the area of

acceptable out of focus

if you want four things in Focus you

need

four photographs if you want the whole

photograph and photo Focus you need up

to 300 photographs

it's true

oh mirrored so it's not extended it's

mirrored so wherever you see here will

go up that's that's okay can I get the

camera

you have to bring it up on this

of course I do do you have where's that

long

I can do it where is that I think I can

do it the long

um

USBC cable

okay

what you're what we're going to do here

is I'm going to show you how to do this

Photograph this is 72 slices

and what I'm going to show you here

is

Focus particularly in focus and in blur

now one percent of your pictures in

focus

99 of your picture is out of focus what

should you actually be paying attention

to

in Focus or in blur

you sure if only one percent of your

picture is in focus and the rest of the

pictures are varying levels of blur

paying attention to how the quality of

blur is controlled and handled becomes a

much more important aesthetic

consideration the pretty

is always to be found I think

I'm mad I've always been I'm sorry

it's been a long day

um the pretty is always in the blur

when you look at a picture it is the

softness and the geometric patterns that

the blur causes that becomes the area of

retreat and a photograph when you're

looking at a photograph

and tomorrow I'm going to talk about

this at Great length when you're looking

at a photograph you want to control

where the eye goes

you want to have a point of attack the

in Focus element and you want to have a

point of retreat the in blur element

if the majority of your picture is in

blur it's how you handle the blur to get

it back to the point of attack which is

the area of focus that matters because

it's all an illusion it's a coin trick

that's all it is

and how you control the way the eye

perceives will dictate how your picture

will be received

it's not 17th century painting Theory

that's looking at this picture it is a

pair of eyeballs

that is looking at this picture

I'm afraid of those speakers

truly afraid

um

the speaker gods are mad at me

so

how am I doing

I was afraid you're going to say that

all right

can you give can you give me that like

you had it and then we'll hop to the

camera which is this okay

camera

the camera is this

yep

this is all planned

truly all right so blur back to this

topic okay

can I

I'm running out of things to say

you had it baby

well

I can have your laptop you mean my

laptop right now yeah

and then we'll figure out the camera in

a second

I just need I just need the laptop this

is what we're gonna do

we're going to do all the laptop stuff

and I'm going to show you all the stuff

in the beginning that I'm going to do

then I'm going to switch over to the

camera and show you how to shoot it

does that work

yay

I love it when a plan comes together

organization is the key to success be

prepared

so

in doing this what we can do with modern

cameras is we can do something called

Focus Shift

and

Nikon does it Olympus does it Canon does

it and Fuji does it and

Sony my understanding is we'll do it

there is a way to do it if your camera

doesn't do it which is you pick a series

of points you make decisions about it

and then you shoot

the key is to know some things about

your lens

first what is its maximum aperture and

what is its critical aperture

critical aperture is where the light is

most evenly distributed across the

sensor plane which derives or delivers

the sharpest picture

stopping a lens down to F-16 does not

give you the sharpest picture it

increases the area of acceptable out of

focus but it can actually soften the

edges of the sharp parts of the picture

that's diffraction

so determining what the critical

aperture of a lens is is important

basically anything below 2.8 is f45 f56

2.8 is f8 four five is f11 so between f8

and f11 and that's the rule of thumb

that's if you do the math gives you the

sharpest possible picture so you need to

make some decisions about the picture oh

Say It Isn't So

Okay so

bokeh

I'm using

okay unplug that plug in my camera we're

good okay

hear that

okay I went on the internet and found

somebody that could say it correctly

that spoke Japanese bokeh

is the correct way and it's a quality of

blur

so to show you this picture this is the

BTS this is how much

effort went into it and I'm using a ring

light

this is everything in focus

is this picture interesting or does it

look like a seed packet

or something from the encyclopedia

barrica

this

is the same image

except this is that F14

and then this is that f56

how did you do that

Focus Shift

the beauty of Focus Shift is and I'm

going to show you as soon as I get the

camera that I can

slice it

slice it

to where I like the focus at F14 and

then I can come back and slice it at f56

to get the critical aperture of the lens

so I have the sharpest elements and I

have the prettiest blur

the beauty of where we are today is that

impossible is just an opinion and that

opinion of impossibility is derived by

the person that is sitting in the same

chair you are

you define impossible

if you can imagine it

you can create it

which I think is the coolest thing in

the world so

what I did

here

with this image

foreign

I'm not asking you to do that

is I took

150

slices of this image

come on

Jesus

let's try this I took 150 slices of this

image

and then picked the 75 that I liked and

how I determined that was where was the

edge of the focus here

and where was the pretty of the blur

here

I found the nearest element in

the picture

and I'm going to show you how to do that

using something called focus peaking how

many people know what focus peaking is

okay pretty much everybody's camera does

it I don't know of a modern camera that

doesn't do it

this was one of those you know how you

you make accidentally do something and

you go no way

but I'll take total credit for

Brilliance on this

so what I do is I use the manual

focusing capability of the lens and I

move it using focus peaking to find the

thing nearest the can that you got it

okay that's exactly what I did

because you never guess what's closest

to the lens have you noticed that it's

always how did no that can't possibly be

so what we're going to do

is we're going to use the godox ring

light and what's cool about this ring

light is that it has the ability to have

a left side

a right side

and

I can

dim it

now

what I came up with was a way to side

light it

I have a way to top light it but the

deal here is I want to keep you under

150 dollars

I gave myself a whole list of things

because we can throw

a lot of money

and going see how cool it is it's only

fifteen hundred dollars

to which you're going to go

see ya

so this is you can do what I'm about to

do with

we all have one of these right

we all have one of these right

okay

and this is a shout out to Paul Van

Allen this is not my idea but I am going

to steal it from this moment forward and

the only reason why I'm telling you that

it's Paul Van Allen that came up with

the idea is he's here

this was his idea and what I'm going to

do

come on that's cool

let's give an Applause to Paul Van Allen

[Applause]

and remember this Talent copies

genius and steals

and we're going to take a picture of

this flower and I'm going to show you

all the different things you can do with

the way in which the camera meters

and we're going to I'll show you how to

make it a black and white

I'll also show you

time permitting how to make the berries

warm

and the berries cool all in camera

but wait there's more

so let's first start with

this

this which one

let's first

I did mention I hate technology right

is that long enough yeah

okay

good good

have you ever noticed that cords grow

like underneath your desk

you start with two and the next thing

you know you have a small little Rat's

Nest underneath there

all right so

what we're going to do

is

are you sure yes yay

let me show you how you set your camera

up and then we'll set the camera up so

this is pretty much true

for

more or less every camera the theory

behind it is true how many are Nikon

shooters

I love you

the rest of you are okay

have you updated to 3.0 if you're a z9

shooter

okay uh this I don't know if the update

for the z62 and the z7 to do this but I

believe they do

this one feature is very very cool what

we're going to do

is go to Focus Shift you see that

now the reason why I'm using this

monitor here in conjunction to these two

is this is a calibrated color accurate

monitor and what I have found over the

years is that these type of projectors

or screens are not necessarily as

truthful about color

as one would like

so that's Focus Shift

it has a different name in a Canon Fuji

and um Olympus

but it's still the same so you have

start number of pictures so I can pick

up to 300 slices

so let's say for this

for this are you going to fix my

can can you follow me everywhere I go

because if it isn't Photoshop or a

camera I'm doomed

so you can pick up to however many

slices you want 150 100. so generally

what I will do until I figure out what

it's going to be is I'll shoot

200 shots and I'll look at it and go oh

I don't need that many

but I don't know but you can go up to

300 if I want the whole picture in Focus

I will do the whole 300 because the

camera will stop if it determines that

it does doesn't have anything to shoot

but if you're dealing with the 45

megapixel camera 345 megapixel files is

a lot of

a lot of file

so let's set it for 100 click ok

now you have your choice of focus step

with

it's from narrow which is these little

tiny slices all the way up to Big

movement the bigger movements or if

you're doing landscape

I've not had as much success with

landscape as I've had with close-up and

still life and things inside

flowers that sort of stuff

I've seen people that do it I've just

not been one of those lucky ones to win

the Focus Shift lottery for landscape

so I set it to narrow if you're doing

this type of photography

probably in the middle five

okay I think 10 would be too wide that

would be like you're shooting the Grand

Canyon from one end to the other this

way

so that

intervals until next shot

I want this to go as quickly as it

possibly can and the reason why I wanted

to go as quickly as it possibly can is

if it's on a tripod right

it ain't going anywhere and if I want to

play with light and exposure I can bring

it down to a two second or three second

exposure because if I'm in a contained

place there's no wind and stuff

do be mindful though of your floor

where you walk

because if you walk sometimes you can

cause a vibration so one of the things

that I'll do is I'll hit it with a if

it's like a three second exposure I'll

hit it with a pencil and then

chew the cats out of the kitchen and all

of that so just be that's something to

be mindful of is the vibration but at

fast shutter speeds it doesn't matter at

slow shutter speeds it does

most important of the most important

first frame exposure lock

you want all the exposures to match

correct

so once it determines the exposure let's

hold that exposure so we don't have any

variation

this is new to the update and to be

perfectly honest with you this was a

gift

from to all of us for that do this first

position Auto reset so once you

determine what is the closest element

you never have to determine where that

is again

because it will the camera will

automatically go back to that point

I can't speak to the other brands but I

can speak to Nikon and I suspect that if

they don't they will because this is one

of those things that it should

this is the other thing to do

particularly if you are going to do

multiple aperture variable aperture

exposures f8 F28

f56 F18

is you want to do the following

new folder

yes

reset file numbering

yes

why you ask

well I'll tell you okay

the reason why you want to do this is if

you're doing this uh 150 images the

camera will do the same 100 or 150

images at exactly the same spot so if

you're doing multiple aperture

capture or multiple exposure at

different

uh you know light dark N1 and minus fat

by having it start at the same place and

having everyone be in exactly the same

place when it takes a picture that means

that everything will exactly line up

we can't do that

but the Terminator over here can

it can always line back up so you can

save yourself all sorts of issues one of

the things you can also save yourself

doing is when you load this into the

camera

um

you don't have to use Auto align

the image is in Photoshop because if you

do that you will pass a birthday

so you don't have to do that

because they're already all lined up

because you did this here

so it's all about getting life back and

saving time to be able to go out into

the into nature and see pretty things so

now that all of that is done

let us set up the picture

this is near Focus photography

now one of the things that I have

that I use is I use the Nissi diopter

which we're not going to do today

because that changes the configuration

of the lens and as much as I like to

play with it I like extension tubes and

this

now what we're going to do here is we're

going to

frame our photograph

to bring you down a little bit more

and this is also made by Nissi

which I think is a cool little thing

it's not

inexpensive

but what it does is it saves you all

sorts

of hassle

which is macro rails

to do what I'm going to talk about you

don't need them

but if you get into this this makes life

so much easier so let's first

frame this up

now what I can do here

is I can move this in or I can move this

back and then I can also move this side

to side you see how I can fine adjust

this the issue with doing this type of

imagery the way I I've found it is oh

shoot oh no oh shoot oh no oh damn oh no

versus

being able to

simply

now the problem at hand here

watch watched the screens

did you see that blue line

I'm going to find what is the closest

thing

that's where the closest thing is

if you only get one thing out of this

class

please get that

this has saved me so much hassle and so

much pain and misery and also please

feel free to steal it and claim that

it's yours

because Talent copies

genius deals now what I want you to

watch is the plane of focus

because it I find that it tends to be a

literary event with people oh yeah the

plane of focus and we think that it's

the focus point that we're focusing on

watch the blue line as I move it

that's the plan of focus and it goes all

the way up the lens or so all the way up

the frame so as I cross this see this

anything that crosses the plane of focus

will be

in focus

this is an important concept to get

so we're right there we have that

okay let's go to the menu Focus Shift

now I pet the cats and make a cup of

coffee wax the car

don't move

so right now it's going to be black can

you can you see the green flashing light

okay it's taking a picture

and what's happening is the lens is

being moved like this

so I don't have to do this and it's

going to do it all the way through

now one of the things that I I do and I

know that this is

you're going to gasp because P those

that know my work know that I always

shoot in the Raw but not in the buff

oh come on

all right no so but you notice where am

I

I'm right back at the beginning

now

one of the things that I can do what I

do is I will now

turn off focus

so that if I touch the button it doesn't

automatically focus and you see what

f-stop am I at

3.2 so what I'm going to do

is

go to

f

8.

now f8 is going to be one second so that

means that 100 seconds from when I push

the button will have a picture

so let's go to

menu

let's kick focusing back on let's start

Focus Shift and hit start

now why I did that is I have one set of

shots that is at what maximum aperture

wide open and I now have one set of

shots that's at critical aperture

sharpest it can be

I now have my cake and eat it too I can

have the blurriest the camera can be and

the sharpest the camera can be and I can

put the two pictures together and people

will do this how come my pictures never

look like yours

don't know

it's because I understand resolution and

I understand focus and the camera is now

capable of doing this all cameras that

are capable of doing Focus Shift are now

capable of this particular aesthetic

choice you can have the TAC sharp shot

you can have the beautiful bouquet you

can have both and you can have the

improbable probability or the probable

problem no being probable probability

because you can't do it but you believe

that it happens

are there any questions at this point

because this is how simple that is

okay

do I have a question over here

ah there you are sir

am I using a z lens I no longer own any

F glass

this is the 105 2.8 macro micro nikor

and I have this at near Focus I'm not

doing

um

macro yet

macro is next and what we're going to do

once I get this back is we're going to

use my favorite flower holder

the binder clip

I mean we all have binder clips right

particularly if you bought a house

you've got a contract you sign that big

with the bank

um

I'm now going to use one

thank God two rubber bands

everybody got this

now what I would do is I would go over

here

I would then

go to

scripts once I've loaded this into the

camera

load files into stacks

there is a step before this and once I

show you this I'll show you that step

okay I click that this is in Photoshop

you cannot do this in a Lightroom or raw

processors it's not something they do

this is a Photoshop thing I load this in

I then will everybody got this you want

to take a cell phone picture of this for

those that are

this will also be rebroadcasted so you

can watch this

no

you're right it's not on the screen

one second

come on

there you go

okay so you go to Scripps load file into

stack

in the Photoshop part of this

how many people have photo mechanic

right for those of you who don't it will

be the best eighty dollars you spend you

don't need the expensive one the cheap

one why that is is it's the it's a it's

a browser and what it does is it reads

the high resolution thumbnail of your

raw file which means that you can edit

raw files

instead of waiting for it to be ingested

into the raw processor of your choices

database and looking at it you can pick

what it is that you want and then you

can open it up in whatever software you

use I recommend using the camera

manufacturer's software because it will

give you the best color but if you use a

third-party raw processor I would invite

you

to do it that way so what that is is

it's you put it in it opens it up you

pick the 75 or whatever number that is

you then transfer this over here and if

we look

at this let me turn this off this is

Photoshop

coming in

this is Photoshop coming in

and

picking

this all the segments that are in focus

so you see how it says oh this part's in

focus and it takes all the sharp parts

of those 75 pictures and puts it

together and then leaves the blur where

you want it so what I wanted was the

face of this watch in Focus this is my

great great great great great

grandfather's pocket watch

and so I figured that would be cool and

so I have the face in focus and I have

the blur here

and I have the cufflinks out of focus

and what I'm able to do when it's all

done

is have that I can see how this matches

up perfectly and it's blurred in the

back

and you see how this is all in Focus but

I have beautiful bouquet here

that's an improbable image

there is really no way to do this other

than that

so now let's go to the next picture

which is going to be quickly setting up

a photograph

using one

grid how many of you have these

you can buy these godox makes them

they're inexpensive and you get a whole

set of them for like I think it's forty

five dollars fifty dollars plus a um

a reflector that you can use my favorite

tool

velcro invented by the Vulcans

and you can make a volk a thing to fit

so what I'm going to do here

with my tripod

and my rubber band

is

I now have

a grid spot

with the ring light

that is capable

of that so let's do the same thing

over here

let's use

this finer grid and the finer grid will

give me even less light

up

ah somebody didn't put his batteries in

right

now

let's really

let's go macro

that'd be good

okay I like that but

I have some problems with it

what would those problems be

boring

out

you're with my friend John over there no

one likes you

no

this is a problem right

so

one

boring

here's what's really cool about my

flower holder

still boring okay no okay good

thank God for that

all right

here's the thing that I've observed over

the years that I've never done

ever

is I make the mistake of I see this

what's the camera see

this

so rather than going oh my God

everything's everything you see you see

what's happening when I move

that's the thing I say you need to pay

attention to

is

the pretty

in this image

will be how I play with a slight level

of detail in the blur

the area of attack on this image is

going to be how I hold your eye

with these nooks and cranny hard

elements because a very important thing

to keep in mind about the way the eye

tracks a photograph is the eye is always

in a seek mode it doesn't want to look

at the pictures always

so what's your job as a visual artist

okay my job is to grab you hold you put

two fingers in your nose and go look

here look here look here and then have

you thank me for it

okay my other job

pardon me oh

47 arrests not one conviction just keep

that in mind

so

you're not supposed to laugh at your own

jokes okay so what I'm going to do here

is I'm already seeing where the edges

are

so

I'm going to

go to where I

according to this

that's the first element of focus

what's the most important one of the

most important things in this picture

that knowledge

and it will always go back now what I

can do here

is

just by the way the camera meters Center

wait what happened to the picture Matrix

Center weight we haven't gotten to

playing with the light yet I just want

you to see this

spot and highlight

so what's happening here

is

and I can with this

move it so that I can get the picture

right where I want it which is right

there

let's move this

over just a hair

you see how this is now a lot easier

okay

oh that's too much in that one lower

corner

okay

problem solved

now what I'm going to do is let's go

back to finding what is the nearest

focus on this picture

right there

it's that one right here

when I don't walk and move that was in

focus

so apparently for the entire shot I'm

going to have to stand here

all right

so we got all that right now the other

thing that I can do

is I can now dial up

this light

that's too much

that's plenty

I think what I want over here

is I think I want

more light

see what happened

that's what's cool about these lights is

I can control them and if I have ways to

modify them what I can then do is paint

with light

this was a lesson that my mentor gave me

a a guy named Jamie Zell

he approached light this way he

approached light he approaches light as

if it is a solid object yes if you're a

physicist we can argue that it's not

solid it's a particle or a wave and all

that but conceptually if you treat it

like it's a solid object and your

subject

interrupts the light

if the light's pretty everything that

interrupts the pretty light will be what

pretty

I have a friend

my friend Lee who's an interior designer

and he I stole this and I claim it's

mine light are the jewels of the room

light is the Jewel of the photograph

the word photography photography means

to write with light you are all

light riders and you wield a lightsaber

you have some other advantages here you

freeze time

now with this you see how I'm playing

with the light and dark of the image

and with just changing

the different exposure modes

see how I changed the image by how the

camera measures the light and how this

is highlight metering so what it does is

it compensates for highlights this is I

use this a lot when I photograph film

sets particularly with dark backgrounds

because I'll have all this light and I

blow this subject out with this part

this system does is it goes oh you want

me to go for the highlights okay

so this becomes interesting and what I

would do what we're doing here is I

would shoot the shot this way then I

would shoot the shot another way with a

metering system with different light and

then what do I have the ability to do

blend them together

using a piece of software that's not

designed to do this which is HDR

software

right because this isn't really an HDR

photograph but I can use the technology

to be able to marry it all together

because one of the things that I think

is important to allow yourself to do is

to not put your knowledge of things into

boxes

look at what something does observe what

it does and go huh if I do this it does

that that means that if I do this it

should do that

don't just say oh I can only use this

for HDR no

I can make an HDR out of one file I can

go one plus n and n minus and then I can

use the software to put together an

extended dynamic range because I have

two and a half stops of information in

the shadow I have 14 stops at dynamic

range in the total file

so if I do that I can extend my dynamic

range and I can fill in my Shadows so

it's all about not getting busted

it's all about when you're done when

people look at this flower my job is to

make it so that what you see first is my

picture of the of this type of flower

then you see the flower if I can

accomplish that task as an artist I did

my job

I made it so that you can see everything

wow

I landed This Plane

okay I have I have one more

because it would not be

of Versace demonstration of Focus Shift

without blueberries and strawberries

of which you're all welcome to eat some

when we're done

so any questions about what I did here

I did too this one here

is highlight spot metering

okay

and if I go here this is spot

this is center right in this instance

they're more or less the same and this

is Matrix

I would probably shoot one of each why

because I'm here

no I'm serious I'm here and I'm never

going to be able to line this all up

again so why not you bought the camera

right

you bought the the card right you bought

the lens so how much did you pay for all

this get that number in your head if you

only took one shot how much of that one

shot cost you

your return on investment but if you do

10 000 shots

your Roi is a dollar per shot you saved

money you can buy more camera gear

try that on your spouses see if that

works

I'm saying that you should look

and determine what you like

okay in this instance I like highlight

and I like

um Matrix

it's not a there's not a if then always

okay it's a

what do I like whose picture is it your

picture

doesn't matter what anybody else thinks

well I know if you're going a contest

and you want the judge

I can tell you how you win contests and

get more work

and I know this sounds like I'm an

absolute ego pig when I say this but

this was a discovery that I made I don't

care what you think

I didn't make the picture for you I made

the picture for me because it felt like

when I saw it and if I can be true to my

heart in my work others will look at

that and go damn that's cool and that's

what I'm after because if you're trying

to make a picture for somebody that

you've never met you'd best hope that

they have good taste because you've

never met them you have no idea what

they like but you do have an idea of

what you like

and you got into photography for who

okay so that at 4 37 in the morning when

you're finally done and the cat's tired

of sitting on the keyboard going

it's time to go to bed

you have a picture that blows you away

first

because once you make the print and I I

have some prints up at the Epson booth

and some stuff up at the Nikon booth

those prints are on their own little

journey in life and nothing makes my day

more don't get me wrong when somebody

looks at my pictures and go wow but if

you don't like my pictures my attitude

really is I know something about you

to which I'm sure in the comments I am

going to hear endless grief about that

statement

but my point is they're your pictures

embrace them love them enjoy them and

make them for you you will be happier

and you'll spend less money on therapy

trust me

all right the berries

Too Close you say

Pasha

fish Shaw

now the reason why I turned the camera

off

was so that I could do what

hold on

this is at one of those weird angles

that I can't see

there we go

so right there it's that green leaf

we don't like that green leaf

you may go

so I have my lead strawberry

see how close I can get

thank you

that almost was an expensive

accident

um

I now

can take my 105 and get it even closer

because what I'm doing is I'm changing

the physics of the way the lens Works

without disrupting the Optics

you're sure you don't want to follow me

wherever I go

sorry

so I love these because this is a quick

makes any lens macro

105 bucks

um oh do this please do this got it

please do this

this is my super secret email address if

you have a question please feel free to

send me an email I will eventually

answer it

ready

Vincent

at versacephotography.com

if you can't remember that

or my name

tough

I'm I'm there to help do I'm going to be

out of the country for the next six

weeks so I may be a little slow getting

back here's the other thing you can do

for me

if I don't get back to you in a timely

fashion you Hammer me

and pester me until I answer your

question you are doing me a favor

I'm not blowing you off like I'm going

to be in Cuba for uh 10 days and then

I'm in Portugal on Madera so I don't

know what my cell coverage is or my

internet is so I know that in Cuba I

will get internet twice

things are different down there

but I want I'm here to help that's my

job I live a blessed life and my job is

to make your life as easy as I can

possibly can if I can

are there any questions here

Vincent

at

versacephotography.com all right I'll

give you the other secret really secret

one

vincent.versachi gmail.com

so send me an email I'm there to help

I have three minutes before I get shoot

off the stage

how can I any questions here anything I

can

was this did I explain it in a way in

which made sense

is it do you see how much how really

easy it actually is

it's just tedious

but it's fun these pictures are an

absolute utter blast

and on that note thank you very much for

sharing some time with me

[Applause]

thank you Vincent you're also doing a

meet and greet over at the godox booth

so if you have those questions you can

catch them for the next hour or so

now you know

[Music]

okay

all right

thank you

foreign

thank you

thank you

congratulations

are you going to get a cocktail oh

apparently this mic is hot

everyone's heads turned though they're

like yeah

oh

why because you're gonna get it

yeah yep

okay

hi everyone how's it going is everyone

having fun today

all right I've been having fun I've been

over at the booth all day so I've been

talking all day so I'm a little hoarse

um if you need me to speak up just say

louder

uh today we're going to be talking

Adventure photography this is this is

what I do so we're gonna just Dive Right

In Here We Go

uh quick introduction who am I my name

is Liam Duran I live in Breckenridge

Colorado if anyone has been to

Breckenridge Colorado as you can imagine

for an adventure photographer it's

pretty much the ideal spot to live right

out my door I can get uh I can be back

country skiing mountain biking fly

fishing I have access to Great

Landscapes and Wildlife all within a 50

mile radius even less than that 20 mile

radius of my house so it's a good spot

to be

so what do I shoot I shoot well

adventure sports Adventure I shoot a lot

of backcountry skiing I shoot a lot of

mountain biking I shoot a lot of

kayaking and fly fishing but in addition

to that I also do the landscape and the

wildlife as well

who do I shoot for I shoot a lot for

Brands and magazines uh dmos at

destination marketing organizations

and I shoot for tourism boards so that's

kind of like that that's my general

pool of folks that I work for

my inspiration is easy as a kid I grew

up in Colorado and on my coffee table

every day I had National Geographic you

guys probably had the same you probably

had life I had Powder Magazine ski

magazine I had the Patagonia catalog

back then it was called the I believe it

was called chanard I had all that stuff

right in front of me and I always

wondered how these people did this how

are they making a living out of being

out of Adventure how do you do it but

those are the people that inspired me or

those are the magazines that inspired me

and the photographers Galen Rowell art

wolf Franz who's here those are the guys

that I looked up to and and that

inspired me to do what I do today

so first off a big thank you to b h for

making this all happen and a huge shout

out to Sigma for bringing me here to

talk to you guys today

um

so how how do I get here well

I was you know I was shooting on a an

old crop sensor cameras at a 1.6 crop

and I needed a super wide angle lens

so the brand name lens was I'm sure it's

a phenomenal lens but it was quite

expensive it was more than I could

afford as a young man trying to figure

out his way through you know the

adventure photography world so he took a

little bit of a Gamble and I got this

Sigma lens at Sigma 1020 F35 I put it on

my camera the photo on the Left Right

There is the first cover the first shoot

I did with that lens we landed a nice

little cover with it

same thing with the 7200 I wanted to

upgrade to a 7200 to 8. the brand name

one phenomenal lens but a little more

expensive that I could you know swap

more that I could want to pay for really

so I bought the uh the sigma 7200 to 8

and we got this next powder cover

um and if you look at it it actually

says Colorado we're looking at you and

the reason they named that cover that is

because if you look you can see his eye

right through the goggle

so I'm saving a few bucks and I'm

getting great shots so I'm in at that

point Sigma called me and said who are

you what do you do what's your story and

I've been with Sigma ever since so

that's that little story

thank you guys

so this is what I do now um all those

things that were all those magazines and

ads and the adventures that I saw on my

coffee table are on other people's

coffee tables now and that's pretty

exciting for me

so how did I get started in this well to

be honest it was like basically the pure

fear of a desk job

and it's kind of a joke but it's

actually kind of true too

um you know at this point in my life I'm

in my mid to late 20s all my friends

back home have real jobs they have

things like Health Care

401K Dental

I'm making 12 bucks an hour in a ski

shop

but I love it I love what I'm doing I'm

having real Adventures I'm out there and

I'm skiing all the time and biking and

fishing and putting together all these

adventures and the whole time you know

what I have with me

camera

so that time making 12 bucks an hour was

not wasted it was not in vain that was

how I cut my teeth in the world of

Adventure photography

back then there was no YouTube well let

me think about that

um

where was I

so a career that almost wasn't this is

um Adventure photography is very

challenging it's hard to make your way

in this world and I've had numerous

times when I was almost bounced out

either because I wanted to quit or

someone was wanting to quit me and I'm

going to tell you a couple of those

stories the first one is that as we go

through this presentation you're going

to notice that

a lot of the adventures I have require

much more than photo skills you need

you know you need to learn how to manage

Avalanche terrain you need to know how

to rock climb you need to know how to

manage White Water there's all these

different skills

so the way I learned all these different

skills was at the national outdoor

leadership schools anyone know what that

is Knowles

so I do a nulls trip and my dad buys me

a little camera two little kit lenses 20

rolls of film

so for two and a half months I'm out

there shooting right I'm like having so

much fun I'm doing it here I am I'm

early 20s I'm like shooting the

backpacking I'm shooting the Landscapes

I'm shooting the wildlife I'm shooting

details I'm like this is it I'm doing it

this is great

load up all my gear we're we're in

Arizona rock climbing all the bags go on

top of the van we get down to Tucson

it's one bag missing

my bag with it all the rolls of film

that I had shot for two and a half

months gone

that was a big big setback that really

hurt and it kind of put me back and I

didn't really continue with my

photography for quite a while

the second big one was we're going to

fast forward now to the 12 an hour ski

shop days

ski bum if you will and I'm shooting I'm

getting better I think my work is good

enough to turn in I'm going to send my

slides yes slides send my slides to

Powder Magazine and they're going to

publish me it's going to be great

send in my slides and I get this letter

back it says Dear Mr Duran

please take a look at our magazine and

notice how good our photographs are

notice that they are sharp in Focus

notice the composition and and attention

to detail the whole nine yards right I

get this thing back it's basically you

are terrible

but I didn't give up

I kept shooting because I have a massive

passion photography I love it it's so

exciting to me

and you know I've learned to basically

embrace the failures and learn from them

and when you do get the wins

you know chalk that up to to basically a

testament to all your hard work and and

not quitting

we'll come back to that story later at

the end of the presentation

okay what we're going to talk about

today we're going to define the genre a

little bit tell you exactly what

Adventure photography is I'm going to

talk a little bit about what makes a

good Adventure Photo

talk a little bit about gear and

techniques and also some of the business

of Adventure

okay defining the genre

does anyone have any questions you guys

I'm used to these small rooms where

people are always like raising their

hands so if you have a question just

feel free to raise your hand

um okay well I guess I should tell you

more about the photography that's going

on as I go through these slides too this

is part of a big editorial piece that

I'm working on for uh freehub magazine

it'll be out in the uh in this when will

it be out in the spring

anyhow

outdoor photography is or sorry

Adventure photography is outboard

outdoor photography that focuses on

sports like climbing surfing uh mountain

biking skiing of course that's a big

part of what I do ski is a huge part of

it

but it can also be landscape and

Wildlife is too that is definitely part

of Adventure photography

the other part of it is that you know

Vincent was up here and he's got he's

doing the fruit and he's got the lights

you kind of know what you're going to

get when you're doing indoor photography

and things like that with with Adventure

photography there's a big element of

what's going to happen you have no idea

if you fly halfway Halfway Around the

Globe to chase a storm

and it doesn't show up what are you

going to do

but a good Adventure photographer you

fight through that and you get shots no

matter what there is no complaining

there is no whining there's no such

thing as bad light in my world you go

out and you get the shot

the other thing is that you're very much

an active participant in the sports that

you photograph if you want to if you

want to be a rock climbing photographer

guess what you need to know how to do if

you want to be a Backcountry skiing

photographer all that stuff you are very

much a participant in the sport that you

are shooting

okay so I I do have a couple little

videos here we're going to cross our

fingers and hope that like everything

works and it doesn't I don't know like

sound crazy but these are just like

little cheap little quick phone and

GoPro videos but it's going to kind of

bring you into my world so you don't

just see me hearing it like a collared

shirt looking fancy you can see what it

really looks like out there so here we

go

of course there's no audio

okay well I'll narrate how about that

okay so what had happened just here is

that well first of all my 1424 lens that

I rely on and I bring it in the

backcountry with me all the time had

just popped out of my pack and rolled

down that 2000 foot Chute all the way to

the bottom of the mountain so I'm a

little bit in like oh my God I just

totally lost a lens this is terrible

but the oh wait

aha my man

whoop so I had a little bit of a

we'll start over

I have no idea

fellas

look at getting a shot now without the

wide angle I'll have you guys kind of

come through here but I needed that

super wide view Oh I thought you played

baseball I know

you're like I'm gonna be a hero I'm

sorry Liam

so kind of got a little jog hard left

and see

let's see get in there you've already

describe the shadow yeah exactly but

like kind of come from the Shadow and

then angle back from left to right

through there

[Music]

okay so that's what I do that's that's

my job that was an editorial and

commercial shoot that I did for a brand

and a magazine combined where multiple

days out in the back country so as you

can imagine there are all sorts of

additional skills you need to be able to

pull off a shoot like that but that's

what I live for that's what I love to do

um it's fantastic

okay here we are now we're above the

Arctic Circle this is in Nora yes sir

oh yes I totally forgot yes uh the lens

was fine I found it at the bottom of the

shoot picked it up put it on my camera

took a picture totally fine used it the

rest of the trip so there you go

Testament to Sigma build quality right

there

um so anyway here we are we're going to

kind of go through like the genre a

little bit of Adventure photography

we're up in Norway this is earlier this

spring we're above the Arctic Circle I

see my four buds are in front of me and

I was like oh my gosh we have this Flat

Lake and this amazing backdrop I'm gonna

get up there like scooch up the hill a

little bit and shoot down so they look

tiny in this giant scene in addition to

that we had to take a boat to get us

there this is an island so we're like

boating through the Arctic sea and then

they you know come into this Inlet drop

us off and off we go so that to me it

kind of epitomizes what Adventure

photography is

but you don't have to go far from home

this is basically my backyard you know I

had to drive and do a little four-wheel

drive action to get up there but

essentially those are the backyard

you guys anyone living here in central

California you don't have to travel the

world to be an adventure photographer

you can literally do it right here

so don't be don't think that you have to

go to Antarctica or Africa or anything

else you can do it here so what makes

this an Adventure Photo one um the

headlamp right like we've created this

feeling of Adventure by going up at

sunrise super early in the morning it's

dark she's got her headlamp on that's

where all the adventure comes in that

makes it fun and interesting and unique

you shoot this in the middle of the day

oh it's still a nice shot but it's far

more interesting when you do that so

intense action I love the good intense

action this is absolutely a part of what

Adventure photography is

so this is and the other thing I want to

note on this is micro composition and

this is really important to me this is

one of the reasons why I shoot at a

really high frame rate

and I'm also moving as my kayakers

coming down the hill or down the hill

down the river I'm moving a little bit

so I can keep him if you'll notice not

his entire boat and all his paddles are

free and clear of anything there's no

trees in front of them there's no leaves

in front of them he's got the one spot

that he can be and that's not an

accident one I'm moving with him like

uh-oh hey that well there we go one I'm

kind of moving with him so that I keep

him in that clean spot as long as

possible and two I'm shooting at 20

frames well 20-ish frames a second so I

can make sure that I can capture that

okay there we go

but again it doesn't have to be extreme

it doesn't have to be hardcore it

doesn't have to be gnarly uh it can be

totally Sublime a multi-day backpacking

trip through Southeast Utah is a total

Adventure

but anyone can really do this your skill

level I mean if you can walk and sleep

outside you can do this and that's what

makes it really fun that's what makes an

adventure this is a does anyone know

where this is

coyote wow okay coyote Gulch in

Southeast Houston is one of the coolest

hikes multi-day hikes you will ever do

it's fantastic

the other thing I've done here is

a five shot panel so I needed a wider

angle lens I had a 2470 with me but it's

not quite wide enough so what do you do

turn it vertical

shoot a Pano Stitch it in post and then

you can get your full scene

a little trick there

so here's like four days condensed into

about 15 seconds

[Music]

thank you

I don't know what's going on there's

like something right here that's like

shorting everything out well you saw

just about the whole thing you get the

idea though right it doesn't have to be

gnarly it doesn't have to be extreme you

can go out and shoot Landscapes and

Wildlife close to home and it's still an

absolute Adventure

okay so I'm gonna try maybe I'll move

over here maybe I won't trigger that

little short

um so what makes a good Adventure Photo

and this is important

um is it you know for me it's you have

to be shooting with intent and that's

really important why did you pull out

the camera in the first place what Drew

your eye to the scene is it great action

is it beautiful light is it an amazing

backdrop is it a storytelling situation

why did you pull your camera out of the

pack intent shoot with intent and that

will make that alone will help your

photos get better

okay right here this is pretty obvious

what the intent is really intense action

uh there's no story component

storytelling component to this at all

this could be in the Zambezi River the

Colorado River it could be anywhere

right but all that matters is that we

captured the action notice the shutter

speed too 3200th of a second

you guys might think that 1 800th or one

one thousandth of a second is a really

fast shutter speed when it comes to

stuff like this you want to freeze every

water droplet and every piece of snow

really high shutter speeds are going to

do that for you

anyhow this is also a branding image I

was not actually On Assignment uh for

any brand when I shot this but you can

imagine if you were the owner of Waka

kayaks that's the image they want to see

it it sells their product very very well

I should have probably contacted them

and made a sale on that

great light

um this might not seem like great light

to you but it was really good light to

me this is um

this is a client shoot I did in Taos New

Mexico and all day it had been snowing

super hard and it was dark and stormy

and kind of Moody we were getting some

really good shots out of it but we

didn't have any light at all then all of

a sudden it was reversing

uh my friend Amy she's up above me and

I'm underneath and all of a sudden we

get this glow this really cool beautiful

glow we both stop and we like she sees

the light as I do you know we work

together as a team like oh my gosh light

so all I did was I was shooting in the

dark so how much time do you think I

spent figuring out my exposure

almost none

almost none all I know is that I need a

faster exposure than one sixteen

hundredth of a second I need to darken

it down a little bit just got really

bright

and so I don't care I'm shooting at what

125th 125 hundredth of a second I

basically just spun the dial and watched

my histogram move a little to the left

that's all I need to do I don't care

about anything else I just just make

sure it's exposed properly have her come

through the scene she's a professional

skier if anyone knows Warren Miller do

you guys know Warren Miller movies she's

one of the women that stars in all those

movies

um

she gets it she gets the shot and we

walk away client couldn't be happier

now we're getting some storytelling here

this is a

shot that I was working on for a story

that ended up not running that's always

heartbreaking when you'd work on a story

that doesn't run if you had that happen

yeah it's tough but the point of the

story is if anyone's been through the

Eisenhower Tunnel if you're coming up

from Denver and you're going to

Breckenridge and Vail if you look in the

shadows there you can actually see the

tunnel right there and the highway

so it was all about the story was about

skiing in that area so at some point I

have to put my ski action I have to

connect the road and the tunnel with the

ski action so that's how I did it here

another thing we have going on we have

some beautiful light Sunset light we

stayed out we're super cold our fingers

are like numb inside our gloves but

that's what we wanted we're going to

wait until that light gets perfect

one more thing I did here look at the

look at the corner on the left

how do you think I got that snow to be

like right up in it

you got it I am laying down in the snow

and I generally do that quite a bit I

almost never take a photo standing here

like this click click I am always down

in a bush somewhere or I'm laying in the

snow I'm crawled down as low as I can

get into the snow I crawl up into a tree

I'm doing something to create depth I'm

doing something to create interest I'm

trying to frame the action in some way

shape or form but rarely do I take a

photo like this

details always show the details are

really important as well you got to show

the big picture you got to show the

small picture

not much too more to say about that one

storytelling is really important I got

to tell you a little quick story

years ago and this is I don't know the

early 2000s and I'm trying to get jobs I

want to do more work for Brands and

magazines and I'm showing my book right

I have all my photos in my book and

everything is like rad skier guy rad

mountain biker gal rad this and and the

editors looking he's like okay okay we

get it you can shoot action

but I need someone that can tell the

complete story what what was the food

that you were eating what did the place

look like was the hotel nice well yeah I

need the whole story so from a young

part of my career I started shooting

this complete story and that's what we

have here so

you know we got fine dining we got a

little travel Scapes we got the fish

drying so always shoot the complete

story don't concentrate on just the

action

here's a really classic uh storytelling

image this is a shoot I did for Bike

Magazine a few years ago and the story

was all about avalanches and how they

uh may or may not be affecting mountain

biking we had come through this massive

Avalanche cycle the winter before

and so we had to find evidence of

avalanches hitting bike terrain so once

again I crawling into this this is

basically Avalanche debris right all the

snow comes down it smashes the trees

they're all over the place they're

buckled and snapped I crawl into that

broken tree like cutting myself it's

totally miserable getting in there and I

just take that 14 24 I put it right on

the tree so you get the leading line and

there's one spot for the athlete to be

one clean spot and I just wait for you

know I yell down hey John okay I'm ready

for you he comes up through those little

one clean spot I pull the trigger

there's your shot

um it's also storytelling because it

gives us time of year it's fall

obviously and in the mountain bike world

that mountain that mountain back there

is gothic encrusted Butte and if you're

a mountain biker you know exactly where

that is so I've landed the viewer in

time and place really quickly and lots

of all that micro uh composition is

going on too I made sure that I had uh

Gothic totally clean I made sure that my

mountain biker was totally clean

okay photo gear what am I shooting these

days so the last few shoots I've been on

I've been shooting all contemporary

lenses I shoot a 1628 C lens that's a

brand new lens that Sigma just put out

shoot the 2870 another new lens they put

out and the 100 400. that's been my

go-to for the last few months

more on that in a minute

you also need a good pack to carry all

your camera gear but you you need a pack

that doesn't just carry camera gear it

has to carry all your other stuff

what is that oh wait

well

like I said this is this is the first

time I've given this presentation I'll

show you this one this is kind of fun

this is just me and my buddy cruising

out doing some fly fishing Photography

in the mountains using all that gear

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

storytelling

[Music]

foreign

[Music]

just me using all that stuff having a

good old time putting the gear through

the paces I was kind of testing it out I

just gotten the stuff and I was like oh

we'll just make a little quick video so

I hope that brings you into the field

with me a little bit you can kind of

smell the fire and feel the coldness and

all that good stuff

okay so this is what my pack looks like

on a typical day if I'm gonna go out for

ski photography I have my Trifecta

lenses in this case I'm using 1424 2470

and 7200 that's going to be if I'm on

assignment that setup is going to be

with me basically every day

in addition my pack is going to carry uh

climbing skins those attached to the

bottom of skis so I can walk uphill I

have Avalanche gear I have the shovel

and the probe that helps me if we do

have an avalanche that's our rescue gear

for getting us out of sticky situations

I have food I have water I have extra

clothing I have oh and I have a radio

that's another really important part of

all this we generally always have

two-way radios with us so that we can

communicate

both for safety and for art so it kind

of hits both things there

my pack probably weighs about it's not

as heavy as you'd think but I would

guess about 30 to 35 pounds depending

which is a lot when you consider I'm

climbing mountains at 10 12 14 000 feet

um it's a lot

um you know like I think the funniest

thing about this is people are always

like what are these little Loops at the

bottom of the backpack you know what

those are Fords anyone know what those

are for those are ice ax Lubes you're

probably like what are they here for so

that's what I'm like one of the few

photographers will probably actually use

an ice ax but that's what that's what

those are for in case you're wondering

okay but gear doesn't mean anything

unless you're willing to do the work to

get the shot you can have the greatest

gear set up in the world but if you

don't get up at 4 30 in the morning or

if you don't stay out until sunset

Shop's not coming to you

uh you've got to do the work in addition

to doing the work you have to have the

vision and the skill the photo skills to

get the shot that you want so that's

really important

so why do we buy all this Pro gear why

are we here today everyone's going to

buy new lenses and new cameras and all

the pro gear

um well you're going to see in a minute

this might shock you some people but we

buy it because it lasts it's going to

last US 10 15 years we buy it because it

lasts the day it's going to last a day

like this

oh my God

there's more snow in your pack than on

the mountain well

camera's pitted get the ninjas

at the top of something that's what it

takes that's what it takes

so that might be a little bit excessive

but that's not out of the question for a

typical day that my gear goes through so

when people come up to the booth and

they're like well is it weather sealed

and well now you know it is very well

sealed it can take a beating you know I

I took everything out I dried it off I

have a chamois with me we went and got

some lunch 40 minutes we come back later

we go out and shoot the rest of the day

it's fine I don't think people realize

just how much of a beating your gear can

take not that I'm saying go abuse your

gear but it can do more than you think

okay a typical day this is just a

screenshot from a shoot I did for K2 up

in British Columbia

um but let's just go through a typical

day we get up early we get on

snowmobiles we snowmobile 18K up into

the back country

come home we shoot all day we do all

that stuff we come home first thing I do

is what download all my images

then what I well I'll tell you what I

don't do I don't clear cards ever when

I'm in the field I have enough card

space to make sure that I never delete

anything I have what I don't even know

how many let's call it five or six 64

gig cards and five or six 32 gig cards I

shoot those during the day I flip them

around in my little you know your little

pack that you put your uh your SD cards

in and I never delete them so I come

home I download to this computer right

here I have another backup drive that I

drop those into there and then I also

have the cards themselves that's three

points of protection for all my stuff

this is all assignment work right I

can't come home I can't lose it I can't

delete anything it's got to be done

right so three points of protection for

all my stuff then when I'm flying home I

also separate that

so my camera pack is always with me

never put your camera under the plane do

anything you can to avoid putting your

camera pack under the plane I've broken

a lens doing that before actually it was

on this shoe uh it was on this very

shoot right here I forgot that they made

me check my bag and when we got there a

12 what was it a 1224 F4 was smashed so

I was out of lens

um

good thing to know

anyhow I charge all my batteries I clean

all my gear you guys saw me beating the

heck out of my gear I do take very good

care of it when I get home I I dry it

all off I pull the rear lens cap off the

front lens cap dust it all down I have

my blower and also take it you know I

have a little bit of liquid I clean off

the front elements I let everything dry

overnight I charge the batteries and as

as important as charging the the gear

batteries I charge my batteries I make

sure to hydrate make sure to have a good

meal and make sure I get some good rest

all that stuff is really important if

you're out for eight nine ten days

beating yourself up you will start your

performance will go down if you're not

taking care of your body

so that's really important too

okay anatomy of a shoe the business of

Adventure photography oh man the dark

art

of business

[Music]

um every photo shoot is completely

different

every way I've put it together in in 10

different ways of of how you get paid to

do this stuff

um this photo right here actually isn't

even out yet but if anyone gets Osprey

packs this will be in your mailbox in

probably two or three weeks actually

sooner than that probably next week

you'll see that in your mailbox

um but I wasn't there for Osprey at the

time they are a client of mine I do work

with Osprey quite a bit we were there

for the ski area in South America

um well let me take a step back when I

go somewhere to work I am never paying

to be anywhere if I'm going to leave the

country or even leave the state on a

shoot I make sure I'm at least

at the bare minimum I'm at zero I'm at

break even when I when I land so

somebody's already taken care of my

flights my hotels rental cars all that

kind of stuff it's already taken care of

some some client is doing that first

ideally I'm already making money before

I even get there but you never know

for this particular shoot I was there

for the ski area I had two brands that

were already supporting the trip so

they're making sure I'm getting paid

then I come home and I take those images

and it all depends on how your contract

is sorted out right like some people

want exclusive stuff

um which is fine they can have that uh

but generally that's not how it works I

come home I give client a their images I

give client B their images C gets their

images and then I have still have tons

of photos so what do I do I sell those

out to all the other brands that maybe

didn't support it to the to begin with I

mean like hey check out what we got in

South America that's how we got this

cover the Osprey catalog Osprey stopped

the presses pulled out the other photo

put in that photo and started the

presses again they're like whoa we're

using that

uh and there were a couple other brands

oh and then editorial so then I take the

rest of that stuff and I move it into

editorial so it'll go into all the

different magazines yes magazines are

still very much a thing today I was

talking to another photographer about

that

um there's some great new magazines out

there

um check out Mountain Gazette if you

like this world of Adventure Mountain

Gazette Adventure journal or two that

are kind of new and really awesome uh

put that in your notes because they do

really cool stuff big large format very

little advertising beautiful magazines

um so the bottom line here is that you

want to have multiple revenue streams

for every shoot that you go out on I

never go out and just have like oh I'm

working for client a end of story never

do I do that you want to have oh I'm

working for client a but athlete also

has this sponsor so I'm going to be sure

that they get some images and then I'm

going to send it to the magazine so you

have multiple revenue streams coming in

from every any given shoot that you go

out on

so again it is a little bit of a Dark

Art because people like well what do you

charge I'm like what do you got

now I don't have a rate anymore

um I just work within budget at this

point so if you ask me that's going to

be my answer I'm like I really don't

have a rate anymore I work within a

client's budget

okay outdoor photo 101 these are just

some of the basic elements that you guys

will need to master to get any of this

kind of stuff shot

um first off camera settings raw so

everyone's shooting in raw is anyone not

shooting in raw how does you raw I have

to shoot in raw almost all my clients

demand that I shoot in raw typically I

have to turn in all my images as dngs

that means they can see every when I

send in my dng they can go in and look

at the history of the image and see

every move I've made they know they know

what I've lightened they know what I've

darkened they know what I've removed or

added well I don't really add anything

but I would remove maybe spots and

things like that

I'm generally shooting in my fastest

frame rate your camera whatever it is

it's going to shoot in five frames a

second eight frames 10 15 20 now and

even faster

um I'm generally shooting in that

fastest frame rate

I'm shooting in my lowest ISO possible

but that doesn't mean I'm afraid to

shoot at ISO 2000 or 6400 I will use

whatever I need but I want to as soon as

I'm done needing that high ISO I will

dial it back down to whatever 400 200

100 ideally

but don't be afraid to use those High

isos

um back button autofocus this is a

classic do as I say not as I do I like I

said I never had a mentor I never was

properly trained in photography I had to

figure this out myself so I'm a horrible

old school using the the shutter to do

my autofocus don't do that learn to use

your back button autofocus it is way

more efficient in a way smarter way I'm

just old and belligerent and yeah I'm

just stuck in my old ways but that's the

way to do it autofocus settings the two

main ways I shoot

good old-fashioned flr who knows what

that is

Focus lock recompose that's an old like

film thing I think I must have read it

in a book because well because I didn't

have any Mentor but anyhow single shot

if I if if the setting is more important

than the action that's how I'm probably

going to shoot the backdrop is

incredible I'm going to pre-focus to a

point I've got everything set up I'm

probably not standing here I just told

you I'm not standing here like this I'm

down in the snow we're doing whatever

I'm doing

pre-focus to that spot call up to the

athlete Hayes Fenn I need you 15 feet

right of the uh the the last tree at the

bottom of the slope whatever it is you

should hear our I need to have one of

those because like us communicating is

pure comedy

um so I make the make the call we figure

out where he's going to be I know

exactly where he's going to be and the

communication is important right because

I'm pre-focused if he goes 15 feet to

the right of where I'm focused we don't

have a shot if he comes 15 feet inside

shot's gone so it's really important

that we're communicating very very well

anyhow I'm there Focus lock I got it all

recomposed okay you're in he comes in

makes his turn there's the shot that's

how we do those

the other way we do it is a uh autofocus

Servo AI servo and that's when the

action is more important than the

backdrop I mean this is all General

right there's also times when I use

Servo and I'm shooting the backdrop too

but generally if the action is more

important than the backdrop I'm going to

shoot in Servo mode and really at that

point I'm just letting the the autofocus

of the camera track the athlete as he

comes or he or she comes down the

mountain at me

so that's the other way and an important

note about that is that most people

don't realize this or they don't utilize

it but your autofocus points on all your

cameras you can move them anywhere you

want on that screen don't be stuck in

the middle if you want your athlete in

the upper left corner move that auto

focus point right over there if you want

in the bottom left do the same thing you

can move it anywhere you want don't get

stuck shooting everything perfectly in

the middle

this is the key to composition when

you're shooting in AI Servo so here's a

little quick video about that

uh one thing that's like super important

um for me at least when I'm shooting

especially in AFC mode and continuous

Focus mode is to

um is that I'm I'm sure to move my focus

point out of Center because I don't want

my athlete Center punched all the time

right in the middle of the frame so on

your particular camera whatever you have

you can move that around move that auto

focus point out of Center and put it

wherever you want the athlete to be in

your picture so for me here

I'm moving it left and up so that way

she's going to be kind of on the left

side of the frame and then it's tracking

her her head so her eyes are in focus

and that way I get all that background

back there too

[Music]

that's right across the street from my

house too it's a nice little spot that I

can run to and get photos all the time

um okay so going back to single shot or

Servo what do you think this was shot on

Servo or single shot

single shot

single shot it is that's what it was so

this is a really easy one for me

actually I told you earlier that I'm I'm

always a uh an active participant in all

these shoots this particular day I was

on a Hut with a cup of coffee on my hand

and my camera on a tripod as these guys

are risking their life basically skiing

this vertical wall and I'm just on the

radio and the filmers are next to me and

we're just like all right Corey let's go

come on the coffee's getting cold and uh

so we call him in

all I have to do is pre I know where

he's going to be he's up top and he just

throws a snowball and he shows me

exactly where his Line's going to be

pre-focus to the snow right there

recompose let him come through get the

shot

the other thing that's going on here and

you guys might not think about this is

there's a lot of safety this is a really

dangerous situation there's so much snow

that if he catches an edge and goes head

over tea kettle however you want to call

it

um he ain't getting out

it is so deep if he goes head first he

cannot get out so just out of frame on

the left and just out of the frame on

the bottom are two people sitting there

ready to go if something goes wrong now

he's a pro skier and he did just fine he

stuck the landing and was great but we

do have all that safety and almost all

this kind of Photography you see out

there there's there is an element of

safety going on in the background that

you might not see or might not think

about yes sir

no I don't use manual focus

um I mean you could you certainly could

but you know and it is tough sometimes

when you're shooting on a hot white snow

but I'm always able to pull up a little

auto focus point I bet I focused

right here

because there's a little bit of contrast

there and it'll pick that up it was fine

no full full manual oh did I not go over

that in my settings I'm shooting in full

manual all the time

I want control over well we'll just do

that right now full manual because I

want complete control over what the

image looks like uh especially when

you're shooting on snow

you have to actually over expose which

some people is very counterintuitive you

think it's so bright you need to like

dial down your setting but that's wrong

because you're you're uh your your meter

wants everything to be 18 gray so you'll

have gray snow if you shoot it right in

the middle you want to over expose about

a stop same goes for anything bright

okay uh same thing this is a very easy

photo you notice I'm kind of shooting

through the aspen trees there I'm

framing up the athlete framing up the

situation

all I have to do is pre-focus right to

that spot I know where the kayaker is

going to be he comes through the scene I

just hit the trigger uh and we get our

frames and then I just go back and pick

the best one that being my favorite of

them

AI Servo or single shot

I heard serbos I did her a couple

surveys he'd be right yeah that's a

really easy photo right he's just coming

right at me I just want that dark

background it's a nice morning shot he's

coming right at me the camera does a

really good job of picking him up and I

get I don't just get this shot I get all

40 shots of him riding the bike back and

forth left and right so then I can pick

out the one that looks best for me the

one that I want to use but yes AI servo

Servo or a single shot

same thing Servo Amy's up the hill all I

really care about there's no backdrop

there's nothing else to see she's going

to be coming skiing right at me at Full

Speed Ahead all I have to do is keep

that red auto focus point right on her

goggles that's the skill right you can't

move it behind or anywhere else you got

to keep it right on him and if she comes

at me I capture the entire sequence as

she comes down the hill this was

actually part of a client shoot that

also went into editorial again I'm like

trying to maximize the amount of revenue

streams I get from every shoot that I'm

on

another interesting point here almost

every cover I've ever shot has been cut

out of a horizontal

everyone thinks that you have to shoot

vertically to get a cover and that's I

mean I do have a few vertical covers but

90 of my covers have been cut out of an

image just like that

okay flash flash used to be really cool

and really important in Outdoor Sports

Photography when I first started it was

like a huge thing and people were

carrying like Ellen Chrome Rangers miles

into the back country and they would

make their athletes carry do you know

what an Ellen Chrome Ranger is a massive

battery pack and everyone was doing it

so I had to do it I didn't really want

to do it but if you wanted to get

published you had to know how to to use

Flash so I still use it today it's still

a good skill to have and it's still very

useful for getting published and just

for creating unique looks

um

I think I have a video for you here

using again this is a focus lock

recompose there's a trail right there I

know exactly where he's going to be I

can pre-focus to that trail and then all

I have to do is move at the same speed

as him and let the flash do the rest so

here's what that looks like

so panning shops like this without a

flash are really hard you just kind of

have to get a little bit lucky

um you can't

move your camera faster than they're

moving you have to keep them on the

exact same plane as you if you're moving

faster than they are they're moving

faster than you it'll be blurry so

generally when we shoot these kind of

shots

um we'd shoot a lot of them just to make

sure we get it the other thing we can do

and I don't know if we're going to do it

today or not maybe we will is we can

introduce a Flash and what a flash will

do is guarantee that our athlete is

going to be super sharp so we'll think

about adding some Flash in here and

decide if we want to do it or not but

until then we're going to do one or two

more passes through and hopefully we get

a nice sharp shot without the flash

we'll see

when you see my flash set up don't laugh

it's the jankiest thing but that's not

how I usually roll I swear

foreign

so we decided we are going to fire off a

few flashes here and see how that looks

but um to do so I had to steal the

tripod that I was using for the GoPro so

here it is right here there's my little

setup I'm gonna have to cook it at the

moment we'll get that straightened out

but um I'm using the Nissan system here

the air 10s works really well it's super

easy it's way easier than I ever

um way easier time than I ever had with

my uh what was it the Pocket Wizard

stuff those were terrible those did not

work for me at all so this is what we're

going to use right now we got the flash

set up we got everything going so you're

going to see a big difference between

how we shot it without Flash and how we

shot it with and you might like one

versus the other you might like both I

don't know but we're going to shoot them

both so here we go

foreign

[Music]

flash

um

if you are shooting for commercial and

editorial clients one thing

one thing that you need to know is that

you always have to have room for copy

there has to be a place for the words to

go two things going on here one I I very

deliberately use the entire left side of

this image for copy that's where the

words go the other thing I did here is

that I'm shooting through so the dog

came out of nowhere got in front of the

scene totally wrecked it but instead of

just like standing up and be like Oh dog

wrecked everything I shot through I had

this idea it's like oh if Zuni moves

over just a little bit I'm gonna get my

photo of Michelle and she's going to be

right underneath the dog

um and and it came out exactly as I

wanted it when I as I'm shooting I think

it's messed up I'm like wait for it wait

for it wait for it and there it is and

then it happens so shoot through every

scene

I was just giving the five minute

warning so we're gonna like go pretty

quick here

um same idea commercial you always have

to have a place for all the all the

words to go so if you do end up in that

world make sure that you're thinking

about that stuff negative space is

really important

uh writing is also really important um

back in the day they always segregated

the work between writer and photographer

now it's a little bit less so there are

writers that are doing the photography

and there are photographers that are

doing the writing so I think if you can

write well and convey your story well in

words it's really just going to help out

your photography as well so and if

you're a writer keep working on your

photography because that that's kind of

just that world is getting a little more

mushed up than it used to be

okay illegitimate non-carborundum we'll

just say don't let the bad guys get you

down

um earlier in this presentation I told

you about that horrendous rejection

letter my very first time I submitted

photos to a magazine

well I didn't quit I told you I didn't

quit and I kept with it and 10 years

later after shooting and learning and

doing my damnedest to just get better at

this thing 10 years later in front of

about a thousand of the of my peers the

entire ski community that same editor

brought me on stage and handed me the

photo of the Year award for this image

here so 10 full years from the absolute

worst to at least for one night the best

I'm not gonna say the best but that

night

the best so that's that's that's what

it's all about it's this kind of

Photography thank you

thank you

um it's all about passion it's all about

the love of photography I still love it

I'm gonna guess that all of you guys

have a strong passion for photography as

well uh because you're here you wouldn't

be here if you didn't care about it you

wouldn't be here if you didn't love it

um you know how to get better just keep

shooting and keep shooting and persevere

and don't let a little bit of rejection

or don't let 20 rolls of lost film end

your career persevere push through and

enjoy it

um you might think at this point that I

just get to like hang out and all of a

sudden these great jobs come in and I

just am always traveling the world that

is not true the hustle never ends I

still have to have my foot on the gas

pedal every day to get work and I make

the calls and I do the emails and I

create adventures and a lot of them

don't happen but a few of them do but

the hustle never ends it's always a job

you're always your job is always to look

for another job

I love that what it says right here

where do we go from here

um I don't know where we go from here

this year I turned 50. marking basically

pretty much halfway through my

photographic life

um

I think more than ever I've realized

that photography Adventure photography

is way more than a trip it's way more

than a single Adventure it's really The

Arc of our entire photographic lives

summed up it's about making friends in

in random places around the world it's

about suffering a little bit it's about

the rejection but it's about the wins

too right like the winds feel so good

after a few losses

um it's just a way of life and I and I

love doing it and I think that you guys

here can understand that because I bet

it's a way of life for a lot of you guys

as well so

that's what I have for you guys today

thank you so much for coming out I

really hope you enjoyed that

um I'll be over at the sigma Booth to

answer any questions you have come say

hi tell me your story because I want to

hear your photo life story because

everyone has one

um and then they're doing cocktails over

here in a few minutes so

one more time let's hear it for Liam

yeah

and if you're here in the audience the

fun continues with our cocktail

reception but if you're watching from

home we are saying goodbye today and we

will catch you tomorrow for a lot more

fun education inspiration and all that

good stuff so thank you for joining

digitally and if you can hop in the car

and make it here tomorrow we'll be back

all of you in the audience we hope

you're back tomorrow we have so much

more fun planned and that concludes the

Explorer stage on day one thank you

[Applause]