Wildlife Photography across the Water: Gimbal heads,Wide angle lenses and long exposures

Tuesday 5 January 2010

Gimbal heads,Wide angle lenses and long exposures

As i have mentioned before i am now taking more and more Landscape images, This has posed a problem in that i have to carry 2 heads around, The Wimberley Gimbal head for long lenses and the Arca Swiss ball head for Landscapes, My Arca Swiss suffers from sticky ball syndrome and has for years, Last year i shot in Colorado with Phil Shaw who had a gadget that allowed him to shoot wide angles with the Wimberley head, Its called a Wimberley M-8 perpendicular plate which is just basically a Wimberley plate with a clamp on the end, At $85 its very expensive but its very light and well made and will mean that i can just carry the Wimberley around and save weigh and frustration of the Arca Swiss, Using this combined with the RRS L bracket that i covered over Xmas means that if a landscape opportunity arrives i can set up very quickly, The other night i took my friends into down town Raleigh, Its somewhere i dont normally go as i am not a city person but decided to go as the sun was setting and combine the tour with some low light photography, It was bitter cold but we made our way around starting off outside the city doing long exposures to get the city at dusk and get some trailing lights from passing cars, We then moved into the city centre and concentrated on the Xmas lights, Exposures ranged from a few seconds to 30, Evening city scapes are something that i have enjoyed doing since my trip to New York and something i can see my self doing where ever i go, If you shoot with long lenses using a Gimbal type head and do the occasional landscape then the M-8 plate is well worth the investment

Dave

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.