Reflecting on the trip - learning points

Our trip to Scotland was great fun, and while it seems churlish to moan about the weather (blue skies every day temperature just below 30C), as photographers it did cause us a few issues.  Whereas I had hoped for leaden skies, summits shrouded in mist and cloud, etc etc we had the odd puffy blue cloud instead.  Unfortunately, this meant that during the day we had very flat high contrast scenery with little detail, making for lacklustre shots.  Evenings produced some lovely vistas though.

The trip also provided an opportunity to observe how four very different photographers interpreted the same situations.  This was not just in technique and equipment chosen, but also in enthusiasm for a subject.  I have to confess to being uninspired enough a couple of times that I didn't bother getting out of the car to take a shot as in my opinion, all I would end up with would be an uninteresting image, rendered so by the very strong midday sun.  To note though, my pals that did make the effort made the best of a bad job and got some nice shots.

One of the highlights of the trip was the opportunity to get close up and personal with a nesting pair of wild Ospreys.  This session provided a lot of food for thought in regard of wildlife photography and equipment.

Iphone photo of Osprey nest top of tree left and
Osprey in tree on the right, the little dot towards the top,
not the dot further up thats a Crow.

The picture on the left was taken from my Iphone to "scene set" and also provide the GPS location for where we were.

So you can see things are pretty small (but not as small as at the nearby RSPB reserve which is really far away!

The birds are sitting in trees on a small island and luckily its easy to get down to the waters edge and set up a tripod and chair.

Cameras trained on the Ospreys

So that's exactly what we did as you can see in the following photo.  We were joined by a couple of other chaps.  Notice how two of us are sitting close, that's me and a buddy that is well into wildlife photography.

It gave us a good opportunity to do a little comparison of the kit we were using and the outcomes.

I was using a Canon 7D, a Sigma 120 - 400mm lens and a no brand 2x converter.  My buddy was using a Canon 5D mk 2, Canon 300mm f2.8l lens and a Canon 2x converter.

If we crudely priced these up then I would guess the 300mm lens alone would far outweigh the cost of my entire setup!  but hey lets not dwell on that!.

So we had the same subject, doing the same things, in the same light from the same spot, the only difference, was kit and photographer.  So how did we fare?  Well in terms of zoom I had the advantage, as I started with 400mm at the long end, with 2x converter giving me 800mm and then a sensor crop factor of 1.6 which meant a massive 1280mm! whereas my buddy had just 600mm.  I also I had the advantage of a far higher frame rate of up to 8 frames per second versus 3.9 of the 5D mkII. 

Of course its not all good, at full zoom, the Sigma 120 - 400 has an aperture of f5.6, add the converter and I lose two "stops" so it becomes f11.  That's pretty dark, and as we were photographing birds I wanted a high shutter speed so had no choice to up the ISO, with all the sensor noise that brings.  Needless to say, my pal didn't need as much ISO though he'd too dropped two stops to f5.6.

The other main difference in this setting is mega-pixels.  7D =18mp and 5D = 21.1mp, so he can throw away 3mp of data in a crop and he'll be at my total image size, if I crop in 3mp I'm down to 15mp and much further and the image could get ragged.

So anyway lets look at the images:

Canon 7D, Sigma 120- 400

This is mine, if you view it full size you'll see its really not sharp.

Exif data:1/1250 @f11 and ISO 400, 800mm











5D mk II, Canon 300 f2,8L

This is the 5D version, really nice and sharp.

Exif data: 1/1600 @ f8, ISO 400, 600mm











So there we have it.  The compromises that manufacturers have to make to bring components down to affordable levels do have an impact when situations become more extreme, like the high zoom levels here.  In more normal situations I'd expect the differences to be less stark.  We were blessed with very good light, if it had been overcast I would have really been in trouble.

Time to start saving!!!!

Scotland Day 3 - Success at last!

After the nights snoring competition we all seemed to drift into the kitchen at around 05:30 - 06:00 for a cuppa, seems none of us had a great nights sleep.  Nevertheless come 07:00 we were on the road and heading to Chanonry Point.  We arrived in good time, just as two ladies that had been watching for Dolphins gave up and wandered off, that filled us full of confidence.

Wobbly shot of a pair of Dolphins, one with its head out.

Stayed put though, and after a while a single Dolphin obliged and came and entertained us, and then another and a couple more.  It soon became clear that all they were going to show us was backs and tails, not very good, I managed a shaky shot of a pair where one had its head out of the water, but if they don't jump out its more of an actual spectacle than a photographic one! 

After that and a Scottish breakfast, we headed to Cromarty and saw oil rigs parked in the bay, and a pair of Mergansers.

Male Merganser, last one I saw was in Iceland

From there it was a quick dash off to the Cairn Gorm Muntain Railway at Aviemore, where incredibly, in Mid May they still have a prepared Piste and it was quite busy for Skiers and Boarders, of course that messed up our trek to the top but we're getting used to disappointment now.

Skiing on May 21st 2012 at Aviemore.

A swift coffee at the restaurant, a few pics and down again.  This time off to a secret place to take pictures of an extremely rare bird, the Capercaillie.

Final stop of the day, Kincraig to see a pair of Ospreys nesting and take a few photos.  Sadly the sun was behind them so we only really had silhouettes to work with, think we may be back tomorrow morning.

Topped the day of with Haggis and chips, and a couple of Bellhavens!

A better day by far.

Scotland here I come

I'm off tomorrow morning with 3 photography buddies for an 8 day photography trip to Scotland.  Not quite sure where we're going but I do know that the Farne Islands, Aviemore, Edinburgh, Inverness and Chanonry Point are in the mix somewhere.

Whilst there I shall be thinking about How to Make my pictures different from those taken before in those places.  Might be a big ask.

I seem to have packed loads of gear but no clothes yet, best get on that.  Weather forecast looks ok ish, may even be some snow left on the hills.....make that warm clothes!

I'll be updating here frequently so check back often and keep an eye on Flickr, Facebook and Twitter too.