Wildlife Photography across the Water: New Gear

Friday, 9 December 2011

New Gear

Some of my new gear has arrived, The shorter column now sits happily on the Manfrotto 055 Pro, Its actually a major improvement and anybody who has one of these tripods and does nature photography should spend the $30 and get one, The Manfrotto is my backup tripod so i havent bothered with it much but i will now be using the 600 on the gitzo and the 200-400 on the manfrotto at the same time so its about to get plenty of use,
The pop up Black velvet background is an unknown as its creased to buggery and is currently hanging up in the hope that the creases disappear, I took a few test shots yesterday and the creases were very evident, I think maybe moving the subject a bit further away from the background will help so i will be testing it further over the next few days and then decide if its its going back,
The Joe McNally named Lastolite Ezybox is a very nice bit of kit for the traveling portrait shooter and i am sure it will find its way into being used in some nature photography as well, Just go to you tube and put in lastolite ezybox and see how many ways it can be used especially with all the different screens etc, They do them in many sizes, Mine is 24'' but they do a nice small hotshoe sized one that would be great in my garden set up and when funds allow i will get 2 for the front flashguns, They have 2 diffusers so allow the light to soften nicely, One thing to remember with softboxes is that the larger the box the softer the light so don't expect great light like i get from my 50'' boxes from a 8'' box but they will be a good improvement over just the bare flashgun-not cheap and what is but very very nice
The Joe McNally DVD is still in transit and i am hoping it will arrive today or tomorrow as it was in Raleigh yesterday, If you are going to learn then learn from the best and Joe is a master of light and using flashguns, His blog is also a good read as are his books which i have
Our friends are moving house so we have their dog Jazzy for a few days to help out, Jazzy and Alfie make good models and yesterday they posed happily infront of the new gear and i managed to play around with the Ezybox to see what the images would be like compared to my Elinchrom studio lights, I even managed to get them both working together

2 comments:

Peter Edge10 December 2011 at 09:55
Hi Dave, are you firing your speedlite on the ezybox with a pocketwizard attached?
One of the videos on youtube says that you cant get the pocketwizard under the speedlite.
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WPATW15 December 2011 at 16:38
Hi Pete
Sorry for the late response, I must have missed it, I am just using the SB900 in remote mode with a SU800 transmitter which is similar to a ST-E2 Canon unit, If the pocketwizard is too big then a phottix unit may work, I will look into it and let you know

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.