Photographers Ephemeris....or where the Sunrises/Sunsets to you and me

I have blogged about this great bit of software before a couple of years ago.

Having had it on my Netbook for more than two years, it is one of the great tools for both wildlife and landscape photographers in that you can check anywhere in the world and on any day of the year where and when the sun comes up and goes down. It is a tool that I used when taking the shots on this blog earlier this year.

For PC use, you will need to download Adobe Air.

However, Stephen Trainor has added the App version for iOS, again which I blogged about earlier this year, and more importantly it is now available on the Android system, so I now have it on my Galaxy S2 phone and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

If you check out this link here, you will see the full details, and check in at the Android Market for the App, although it is a paid app so you will have to pay a small fee. Oh and I 'spose you can get it at the Apple App store too :-)

Martin

Garden,Xmas and travel

The night creature that's been eating my bait turned out to be a dog and a big one at that, I couple of bangs with the BB gun should see that it wont be back any time soon, The opossums seem to have done their disappearing acts, I have seen this before, They come every night on the dot and then disappear for weeks or even months for no apparent reason, I guess they have no set territory and are really travelers so i hope they soon return,I have been told of a neighbor about 1/2 mile away that feeds foxes everyday and the foxes have become habituated, Well i met her at a meeting the other night and sure enough she has 3-4 fox most days/nights in her garden and they are relaxed enough to take food from her and sit/lay around whilst she is close by, I now have an invitation to shoot in her garden, Last week i met with people who have 4 different woodpeckers in their garden including pileated so i will take them up o their invitation too,We are getting up to 9 deer at any one time in the garden but that's not what i am really after and really hope to get a fox family that i can work with long term,
I ordered some new gear the other day and most of it should arrive today, As i am doing more and more studio work and would really like to get to grips with good portraiture i ordered Joe McNallys new DVD 'The Language of light' along with a 24'' Ezybox softbox (Mcnally design) which i will use for both portraiture and in the garden to get nice soft light, Light direct from the flash can be pretty harsh, The Ezybox will take a normal flashgun , My Manfrottto 055 pro tripod has a long centre column so i ordered a short one for it to allow for lower shooting, I also ordered a black velvet pop up background mainly for portraits but may be used for hummingbirds etc, there are plenty of things that i would like but i can make money out the portrait stuff so they were a priority,
I have just booked my flights for California in January where i hope to shoot Elephant Bull Seals and will be off to Florida in just over a week which i cant wait for

Dave

A few more (unlikely) Gift Ideas

Here are a few 'off the wall' things for wildlife photographers to consider as addition to their Christmas Stocking, if you happen to wear them.

A few 'camo' items to think about



Flash or lightweight camera supports



Finally, if you are like me and get bored with endless hours in pop up hides or reserve hides waiting for something (often nothing) to appear, and boredom sets into the desire to eat, I can thoroughly recommend these babies.

Not easy to find in the shops except for the Cadbury Outlet stores, it is worth sticking a few in your camera bag to bring a smile to your face



Happy Chomping

Martin

The weekend

Where did the weekend go? 2 partys, some shopping and a family shoot and whoosh its Monday, I have spent today processing the weekends images which i hope they are happy with, Its nice to work in controlled conditions and it was nice to have the studio lights set up again, Its certainly easier to make money doing portraits than trying to sell an images of an opossum but not half the fun, Either way i enjoyed it even though they say dont work with animals or children, 1 girl of 2 and a half and one of 21 days, I have continued to put some bait in the garden and something has been coming in and really digging to get every bit, I think the disturbance is too big for an opossum and must be either a fox,raccoon or dog, I will be keeping a closer look out to see whats going on, I really hope its not a dog and that a fox or raccoon is now feeding there but we will see





For those of you interested both Martin and Myself have Elinchrom D lites for our studio gear, Very easy to use and not overly expensive, I have the D-lite 4 with a 53'' octa softbox as my main light and a D-lite 4 with standard softbox for fill

Dave

Drought conditions continue

I wasn't referring to the weather conditions, although we haven't had a lot of rain recently. No I was thinking photographically.

I had decided this weekend I would get out to one of three locations.

Was it to be from the choice of a couple of Bitterns that are making a regular appearance at Slimbridge at the moment or across to Northants where there are reports of a lot of Short Eared Owls making regular shows, or should I stay closer to home and concentrate on my own garden subjects?

Dave's recent blogs on his woodpecker perch encouraged me to get my 'woodpecker' silver birch back into service.

So I did that yesterday , mixed up a load of fat, suet, seeds, nuts etc and liberally spread the stuff around to see if I could attract any garden wildlife.

It has been quite a lean spell with only occasional flurries of activity. I thought after the last short colder spell of a few days that we had got the birds back in from the countryside, but they have disappeared again.

So that didn't bode too well.

Waking up early this morning, or should I say being woken up by the two Burmese kittens that live with us, the light was dull grey flat and threatening rain. That ruled out an early drive to Slimbridge for me - it have got lots of flat grey ducks in my archives thanks.

Second choice of garden birds was looking bleak too, with just a few Magpie, Wood Pigeon and Blackbirds making use of the food I had put out.

And with the light staying rubbish, what was the point of an hours drive across to Northants. I have got lots of SEO's in fine light.

So a day in the kitchen preparing fine food on the run up to Christmas, and ice cream just coz I like it was a better use of my time today.

But I am getting itchy shutter finger nevertheless, and as I finish this blog off this afternoon, listening to the wonderful late Gary Moore playing Parisienne Walkways on Planet Rock radio, it has started to rain heavily - drought over!!

A few winter/Xmas ideas

A quick one from me as i have spent the morning shooting a family in my home studio for their Xmas cards etc and now a trip to the sales before a party this evening. I have been making a small list of things that may want the wife/girlfriend to add to the Xmas stocking after the camero of course, As winter is coming or already here for some there are some winter ideas as well
1.Memory cards, I know we have mentioned these before but they have dropped considerably in price and are niow a bargain and you can never have too many, Martin and myself recommend Sandisk
2.Filters-ND,Grad and polorisers are all very handy (make sure that they are good ones)
3.Spare Battery-The cold kills batteries although the batteries in the new cameras are amazing in how long they last, Dont go out on a cold day without one
4.Double Bubble hot show level-One of the best things ever invented and worth every penny, I rarely have one off the hotshoe
5.Hide/Blind, Good deals in the sales on the pop up hides at around $60-woth having a spare and THE best way of getting close to wildlife
6.Flashgun, Not cheap but if you havent got one you will need one and if you have one an extra gives more ways of using light especially at night
7.Underwear-yes thats right, Keeping warm in winter is very important and good quality long johns and long sleeved vest are worth every penny, If you are not warm/comfortable then you are not enjoying yourself so whats the point, I have cableas military range and under armour which are both excellent,
8.Raincover-I mentioned the new ones from lenscoat about a week ago, Keep your gear dry and it will last
9.Plamp, This is something i have yest to get but every year i wish i had one, It will keep things still whilst doing macro and will hold a reflector and free a hand up
10.Reflector, Get a 5-1 or multi sided/coloured reflector for you macro and portrait sessions,Gives a nicer light than flash, I have had mine years and its still like new

Happy shopping

Dave

Some more Christmas Ideas for you

Picking up from Daves blog of yesterday, these are the new Phottix wireless triggers for you in either Nikon or Canon flavours, depending on your persuasion.



A couple of other favourites of ours include two of the main bits of Adobe software.

Firstly, Photoshop, here in upgrade versions for PC and Mac



And Lightroom, the all in one processing software in full or upgrade variants.



Happy Shopping

Martin

Flash

Yesterday Nikon announced a new flagship Flashgun, The SB910, Looking at the specs its nothing more than a revised and tweeked SB900, There are very few differences, The main one being that people have been having problems with the SB900 thermal cut out, If you use the flash heavily it will protect itself from over heating by not working, Imagine that at a wedding, The new one changes this by slowing down, i still dont think that is the answer as you will still miss shots but i guess that you can turn it (the thermal cutout) off if you want, Other changes are that you can illuminate the back buttons which is a good idea for people like myself who shoot a lot in the dark and it has a couple of clip on filters instead of gels, Thats about it apart from a price hike, Now a top of the range flashgun is going to cost around $550, I currently have and use 4 guns and would like to add 2 more so it starts to get very expensive unless you use a cheap manual gun and put them on some kind of trigger
like radio poppers,pocket wizards or even cheaper ones like these, If you look on ebay you can buy transmitters/receivers for around $30, The benefits are that you can use them without line of sight which believe me is great and you are not stuck with any particular brand so you canon boys can use the great Nikon flash system, I know people that use very old and very cheap guns by using these systems and they work great,
Multi flash is great to use and for hummingbirds or night time animals its really the only way to get great images that have depth,
One thing i will say is that i dont know anybody who uses the cheap stuff off of ebay but at that price it may well be worth the risk
One thing that i like when using multi flash is the Nikon SU 800 transmitter, Its very simple to use and shows what your flash groups are set at on the LCD on the back, Its a huge step up from the Canon ST-E2 which works ok but is very basic in comparison, If you are a Canon user then take a look at the new Phottix sytem which is basically a rip off of the Nikon system, You can find it at the Naturescapes store, If i were a Canon shooter i would defiantly get one
Dave