Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number 1

Work flow... Okay, not the most important lesson, nor the least. No chronological order. This is trial and error. I think everyone has their own system and that's okay. I don't believe there is a right or wrong way. It is more what works best for you. When I go on safari, I typically take between 6,000 to 20,000 pictures per safari, so I really need a good way of organizing my images, so I can easily and quickly find any pictures that I am looking for at a later date. In this blog, I am going to share how I organize my work flow.

For my work flow I like to make a folder, title it according to the subject and date it was shot. I do this between each safari drive or at the end of each day. I Copy the pictures to that folder on the first hard drive, then copy it again to a second hard drive. Sometimes the computer gets interrupted copying the files somehow. Be careful because if this happens, not all of your pictures will be copied to your hard drive. Make sure that the number of pictures on your card corresponds with the number of files in each folder before you delete the camera card.

A lot of photographers catalogue with lightroom. It is convenient and you can edit them from there, but I don't like that work flow for my own reasons, so I guess I am a rebel. I just don't like it. Don't get me wrong, I love lightroom. I just don't like to use it for cataloguing my photos. Instead, my pictures are all in a folder and I open them in bridge within photoshop. Likely not the most common way, but at the end of the day, I think you have to do what works best for you.

My next issue with workflow is organizing your pictures from good and bad.  I go through all of the pictures and pick out my favourites and make a copy of each picture in a favourites folder. Over the next year, I will likely go through all of the pictures once or twice more. Each time I go through them I tend to find another couple images that I missed the first time.

Not the most exciting blog, but believe it or not, I did go through quite a bit of trial and error before I figured out a system that I like.

Tuesday I fly out to Wapusk National Park to photograph polar bear mom's and cubs. I will try to blog daily over my safari as a diary. The sightings aren't guaranteed. Some days you have great sightings, some times we blank and sometimes the storms and weather prevent us from going out at all. So if you are curious about what a wildlife safari in the arctic is like, follow my next week of blogging from March 9th to 17th.

Polar bears starting Wednesday. Until then...

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number Two

Ten Biggest Mistakes and Lessons…

Number Two:

Traveling with camera equipment can be challenging. It costs a fortune and it's fragile. For that reason, I always try my best to bring my camera equipment on as carry on. I have heard horror stories about airlines losing baggage and have seen their workers throwing around bags as though they are playing some kind of “bag toss game”.

As a photographer, my worst nightmare is discovering that my camera gear has been stolen or damaged en route. Especially if I am going to the safari destination as opposed to coming home.

My first tip is to buy camera bags that are meant for airline travel. I really like think tank bags as they have a line of camera bags that have been specifically designed to fit in over head compartments and underneath seats. The other thing that I like about them is that the main compartment locks the zippers into a combination locking mechanism thus keeping your gear safe. My think tank bag also has a lock on the end of a wire that is hidden away behind a zippered pocket. I love that feature because sometimes I find myself traveling straight for two or three days. I don’t sleep very well on planes, so sometimes in airports I find myself having a difficult time staying awake. If I think I might doze off, I simply take out this cable, lock it around my other camera gear and lock it all to my chair. That way, all my gear is locked and secured together in case I fall asleep for a few minutes.

Sometimes when traveling domestically, you can find yourself on smaller planes and can't carry on any of your equipment with you. Remember this phrase. “May I valet my camera equipment?”  Often the people at the airline counters will say no immediately. It is important to stay calm and explain that you understand that there isn't any room in the over head compartment on this plane, but please could you valet your equipment to the plane so your gear is carefully stored on the plane last. That way, you can see them put it on the plane. This gives me piece of mind regarding how it is handled and I know it is going on the right plane. Secondly, it comes off first, so it is waiting for you right at the door when you get off the plane. This gives me extra piece of mind that it won’t be thrown around by the guys in the back and there is less likelihood of the equipment being damaged or stolen if you are watching them loading and unloading your gear and delivering it to you.

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number Three

Lesson number three...This is the easiest and yet the hardest lesson of them all.


First shoot in raw. Stop shooting in jpegs! Jpegs are compressed files to begin with and every time you edit them, you lose even more image clarity. Every time you edit a jpeg, it is like passing a handful of sand from one person to another to another. At the end of the line, the product isn't the quality that it started with. With Raw images, you can edit them a million times if you like. If you don't like what you did, it is simple to start again from scratch. Sometimes, I look at pictures that I edited four years ago and think "I didn't do that picture justice, or I think of a technique that may make the picture look more appealing.

Mother and daughter elephant in
Tarrangire National Park, Tanzania

Having fun with sepia. Same picture,
different interpretation.

Second, learn to use photoshop and lightroom and/or other types of editing software. We are in the digital age and part of digital photography is digital editing. 


One of the great things about photography is the option to continue learning and never master. There are always new techniques to learn and different ways of viewing and interpreting what you are seeing. Photography also provides a wide spectrum of ways to capture experiences and moments that you can celebrate, record and recall for the rest of your life; and beyond your time, potentially touching lives for years after you are gone.

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number Four

Learn how to clean the sensor in your camera...


I have always been really careful changing lenses. But  having big hands and being somewhat klutzy, I have always been a little paranoid about the inside of a camera, so probably like most people, I learned how to clean inside the camera with a little dust blower and figured that would be sufficient. I figured that inevitably I would have to take the camera in to be professionally cleaned, but in the meantime, I felt I was pretty good not rocking the boat. Last year I went up north to photograph polar bears. I hadn't realized it before, but I had quite a few spots of dust on the sensor. Now when you are photographing normal things with colour, you likely won't notice (as I didn't) that there are any problems. When it comes to photographing subjects that are white on white however, the imperfections show up.

This picture of a red panda is a good example of what dust spots do. Look in the top
right hand corner of the picture. They aren't difficult to remove in light room or
photoshop. They are just annoying and time consuming. I would rather just have
a clean sensor than to waste time removing what shouldn't be there in the first place.

My advice? Check your sensor before you go on safari. Take a picture of something white, then enlarge that picture and look for dust spots. They will show themselves more easily on a white background. 


Did you find dust? Whether or not you did or didn't, you should go to the local photography store and buy some lens and sensor cleaning supplies. They are expensive, but inexpensive compared to the price of your cameras and safaris! 


Visible Dust has great products designed to carefully clean your sensor. I highly recommend them.


In regards to cleaning the sensor, I simply referred to video's that I found on you tube such as the one linked here. I found them to be informative, easy to follow and I successfully removed my dust issues. 


My one tip before cleaning a sensor is to use a butterfly dust remover first. I prefer that over using a blower as a blower just blows dust from one corner of your sensor to another where as the butterfly creates a charged environment that actually attracts the dust to the gentle bristles of the butterfly. Please note that I am not a professional sensor cleaner. The guy in this video is. I really don't want to be held accountable for your sensor successes or failures. I'm merely pointing you in the right direction. I believe that a sensor cleaning kit should be in your camera bag for every safari. Especially the dusty ones! If you find yourself in India or Africa and you find dust on your sensor, you had better know how to get it off, because there aren't any camera repair shops in the bush.


Well, now we're down to number three. Oh, so many things for me to learn the hard way. Until next time...


Greg

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number Five

One year we were on a boat on the ocean whale watching when a black bear came out of the dense bush. It was early in the morning, there was a slight fog on the water and yet the lighting was perfect. The light illuminated his fur and the images were just perfect. I snapped away for about ten minutes. I was feeling cocky as I was the only one on the ship with a 600mm lens. No one else could really get the images that I was getting and although I would never want any of my fellow photographers to have a bad photography day or experience when the opportunities presented themselves, part of me was feeling quite proud and cocky of the images that I was recording. The bear left and as the captain of the ship moved on, I figured I would scroll though my shots to find that "perfect" image that I knew must be in one of these pictures. After all, the lighting was perfect, the bear was almost posing and the reflection off the water was breathtaking. It was such a great moment that even the photographers who were out of reach of the scene were still in awe of the moment. It was such a perfect moment that the other photographers seemed to want to see my images almost as much as I did.

Black Bear Cub

Now for the lesson. When I went to check my pictures, I discovered that I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera after downloading the pictures on to my computer from the day before. OUCH! Five years later I am still pissed off at myself about that one. Note to self... When setting up the settings in your new DSLR camera, make sure your camera is set to "Shoot without card off". This setting disallows the photographer from taking pictures if no card is in the camera. Had I set up the camera that way, I would only have missed out on one shot, not ten minutes of shots!!! ARG!

The picture to the left by the way is not from that day. It is another cute little cub from another day on a different safari. This one was in Minnesota at the Vince Shute Wildlife Sanctuary. I spent two days with the wild bears in an unfenced area. After giving me a bear safety lesson and staying with me for about 30 minutes, the guides then left me on my own to photograph the bears in their environment. It was a thrilling experience. They are habituated to people, but are still wild and would come and go as they pleased. If you enjoy photographing black bears, I would recommend checking it out.

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number Six

Bring a second camera body...
When we first started going on safaris, of course we could only afford a camera each and when that is all you can afford, then you make due with what you have. In the meantime, I saved and learned lots of things the hard way. From showing up on safari and realizing that the sensor was dirty and I didn't know how to clean it, to missing shots because I had the wrong lens for the situation. Unfortunately wildlife doesn't wait for you as you change lenses.


My dad used to say "hope for the best, fear the worst and..." well the rest is inappropriate, but I did learn that that part of hoping for the best is also preparing for the best. Start by bringing a minimum of two camera bodies.


There is nothing worse than traveling half way around the world to discover that your only camera is malfunctioning for some frustrating reason that you can't figure out or is broken or magically some smudge of some sort has appeared on the sensor that you can't seem to remove...Learn to clean your sensor...A topic for another blog

Baboon Portrait

On a bright note, a second camera body isn't just insurance. It will give you the opportunity to get shots what you wouldn't be ready for otherwise. Keep a long telephoto lens like a 500, 600 or 800mm on one camera body and a wide angle or medium range telephoto on a second camera body like a 100-400mm on the other. This way you can very quickly get different views of the same shot. Another option is to put a 70-200mm on one camera body and a 100-400 on the other. If the action is close, I will set a small large aperture of f-16 or so on one and a fast speed of 1000 or so on the other. 

Baboon Fight

That way if I am interested in taking portrait shots, I am ready with the high aperture camera and if the animal runs, I am ready with the camera with the high speed. Otherwise you will be fiddling around with settings while you are missing the shots.


Another tip is use camera straps that enable you to carry two cameras comfortably at the same time. I use R straps. They are comfortable and enable me to switch cameras quickly.


If you can afford a second camera body and a second lens, get them. Both cameras and lenses can malfunction. Last year when I was photographing polar bears, one of my cameras froze up and the image stabilizer on my 600mm lens was locking up. Thankfully, my camera thawed and my lens started working again. In the meantime, I was very frustrated, but I still had back up equipment.


Next blog. Lesson number 5. Hmmm, what will it be? I have made soo many mistakes and learned soo many lessons. I seem to have an unlimited supply of material in that area.

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...Number Seven

Back Up! Back Up! Back Up!
I can honestly say that I haven't learned this lesson the hard way, but I have seen it happen to others. In 1998, we went to South Africa and Gaye had all of her pictures on SD cards. The cards are small and difficult to keep track of. When we got home, she discovered that she was missing three of these cards. Those cards represented at least two days of her safari that were completely wiped out. Never mind losing the cards, they can become damaged and sometimes for no apparent reason, the information on these cards can become damaged as well. You may think that this only happens to amateur photographers, well it doesn't. When I was in Northern Manitoba photographing polar bears, one of the professional photographers was doing the same thing. I know it is extra work and after the safari, people are back at the lodge socializing and enjoying a snack before dinner and talking about the events of the day. Yes, who wants to miss out on fun. I don't either, but did you travel around the world for the snacks and some socializing that you can do later or for the photography? Some people leave pictures on their cards from the previous day and buy extra cards. Their card fills up more quickly in the field and inevitably you end up missing some great photo opportunities as you search for the next card instead of backing up your pictures at the end of the day, then deleting the pictures on the card, so you have a fresh start each day with empty cards. Some people are scared to erase their cards. If this is you, don't fret. I am always paranoid about it too. That is why I down load to two different locations, then I double check that all of the pictures backed up properly by noting the picture count on each hard drive. Once I am positive that my work has been backed up twice, then I erase my cards.

A Taste of Daisies. Minnesota, 2009

My advice is to back up all of your pictures after each photo shoot. Go to your room, turn on your computer and back up your pictures on a portable hard drive and then back those pictures again on a second portable hard drive. Remember that hard drives have moving parts. Anything with moving parts can become defective for one reason or another. I label the hard drives, then store them in separate places. When I get home, one hard drive goes in the safe and a second hard drive goes in the safety deposit box. I also have unlimited storage in cyberspace, so I intend on uploading the pictures in cyberspace one day, but unfortunately at this point, they take forever and a day to upload each one, so until I can figure out how to upload them quickly to cyberspace, I will continue doing what I am doing until I figure out how to more efficiently upload to cyberspace...I think I will  learn that trick and save it for another blog.


You travel around the world and work hard for your pictures. The picture of the bear smelling the daisies is a one in a million for me. What are the odds that I am going to get a picture quite as unique as that one again? That being the case, why would I risk losing it? I wouldn't. And truth be known, he wasn't smelling the daisies. He was trying to eat them. I have a couple more shots from that day here.


Another trick is to buy a picture viewer for the field. I use an epson 7000 picture viewer. Between shoots, if you would like to quickly see a larger version of your pictures without firing up your laptop, this little device is a great option for you. You can also download your pictures on to the viewer in case you are getting low on card space. I personally don't use the device for storage very often unless it is a third option for saving. Like I said before, for me, I am not comfortable until my pictures are backed up in a minimum of two separate locations.


So to recap; lets see, this one is complicated... BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!