Philippines: Underwater Photography

Today we are off to the Philippines for another underwater photography trip. - A long flight with two flight segments.

As written in an earlier post "Thresher Sharks at Malapascua" one of our goals is to capture some thresher sharks at the famous spots in Malapascua.

But there is much more the area around Cebu has to offer for underwater photographers. In the interest of our limited time we decided to focus on only one second destination which is the island of Cabilao, south of Cebu City. There is a series of very promising dive sites around Cabilao. Here a listing of sites by local dive operator Sea Explorers - link.

Let's find out what the destination has to offer.

Wildlife Photography Using Hidden Camera-Traps

This is a short documentary by wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas on using hidden camera-traps to capture African wildlife in Namibia.

Aerial Photography: Zurich by night

http://www.helvetiabynight.com/ features two very interesting night photography contributions from the city of Zurich, Switzerland.

The movie:

This was a co-production of photographers Alessandro Della Bella und Christian Mülhauser showing impressive time-lapse sequences from the city of Zurich at night.

360 degree panorama:
Following the link you take off on airborne perspective above the nightly city of Zurich.
The panorama allows to move your point of view by 360 degrees and consists of twelve different viewpoints. - An impressive piece of interactive photography.

To further improve the viewers virtual reality experience it is possible to use the Google Cardboard together with your smartphone: VR manual

Anti-reflective Coatings: Carl Zeiss T*

What makes the Carl Zeiss T* lens special? - It is a high value anti reflective coating on air facing glass surfaces.

The T* coating has been patented already in 1935 and is still one of the top solutions to reduce reflections.

Here some comparison - T* coated lens on the left vs. uncoated lens on the right:

Read the scientific article by Dr. Vladan Blank and Dr. Benjamin Voelker (Carl Zeiss AG) - in German only: link

Diving Valle Verzasca

The Valle Verzasca is a long and very scenic valley in southern Switzerland. The Verzasca river - an alpine river - offers a couple of very spectacular opportunities for scuba diving. One of them is the roman bridge at Lavertezzo. - Get an impression by watching the video from Florian Fischer.


Valle Verzasca - Die Brücke from Florian Fischer on Vimeo.

Black and White Train Photography

Bienvenüe Paris - Magdalena Roeseler (500px)

Crowded Train - Faldhy Boer (500px)

Crossing Ribblehead (Mono) - Peter Jarvis (500px)

Long train - Alex Hunt (500px)

Waiting the train - Carlos Gonzalez Vera (500px)

The Sounds of Film Photography

Watch the video by Robert Marshall. - A funny 1:18 minutes sequence showcasing the sounds of film photography.

While the sound of digital photography is mainly around "electronic beeps" and shutter release sounds analog photography has some more typical sounds and noises to offer!

Product Photography - Watch Photography

Product photography is an important part of marketing a product especially in luxury goods such as watches.

The blog post by Bert Buijsrogge at Fratellowatches.com gives a series of tips for better watch photography.




The list of tips is:
1. Tripod - close ups need to be clear and perfectly in focus, do not jeopardise on hand holding the camera

2. Accessories - build the scene with accessories which make sense and go together

3. Cleaning - there is absolutely no space for dust, fingerprints, ...

4. Hands - statistics shows that hands of the watch are most of the time at 10 past 10. This gives symmetry and an up rising dynamics to the image.

5. Composition - Watch and accessories need to be combined into a meaningful scene underlying the brands and models message.

6. ISO - use low iso values. Close ups go better with lower noise level.

7. Diffuse daylight - in close up images using strong and bright light gives strange shadows and strange contrast

8. Artificial light - using diffuse light is important

9. Macro and Close-up - use a lens with good short focusing capabilities. Using intermediate rings can help.

10. Practice makes perfect - one shot is as in all photographic disciplines not enough!

Film Photography Communities

What I notice in recent times, and it has been confirmed by recent research, is that film photography is getting more popular again.
Interesting is that most of todays film photographers are younger than 35 even though this generation grew up with digital technology.
See the post at petapixel.com.

Is it a global trend that analog photography will gain importance again?
Similar than the watch industry, where with the introduction of quartz watches mechanical watches were losing popularity and then became a high value product.
Will we at some point (re-)value handcraft, manual artistic skills over flexibility, speed, ease of use?

Just performing a quick search on Facebook already gives a good overview on analog photography communities:

Just to mention a couple of examples...

Film Photography Podcast (Internet Radio Show)

Facebook page by FilmPhotographyProject.com

Film's not Dead

Let's shoot slide film again

Ferrenia Community

Creative Film Photography





and many more...

dear readers, feel free to enrich the collection by posting in the comment field!

Iconic film - Kodak Tri-X

Kodak Tri-X: The best black-and-white film ever made? - Read the blog post Zorki Dowling at https://zorkiphoto.co.uk/2016/04/03/kodak-tri-x-film-photography/

Kodak Tri-X came out in 1940 as large format film. In 1954 it was release for 35mm and 120.

The film is on the market for more than 70 years and still widely used today.

Flickr even features a "Kodak Tri-X" group with images shot using this classic film.

Underwater Fashion Photoshoot in Tahiti

Mission Impossible:


James Bond:

Cherry Blossom in Japan - Nature Phenomenon

Cherry Blossom Season from Lauren Astir on Vimeo.

Black and White Oldtimer Photography

when ghosts are dreaming II - Chris R. Hasenbichler (500px)

Old Fiat Polizia - Chris Kernstock (500px)

 - rinatus (rinatus) (500px)

PV NATURE - Franck MAILLET (500px)

Night Ride - Larry Goss (500px)

Saturday Morning at the Zoo

Saturday morning at the Zoo. - When wildlife
awakens.

Some weeks ago I went to the Basel Zoo together with some of my photography friends. An opportunity to use once more the big glass sitting most of the time in the storage at home.




My setup for the day was the following:

Camera: Nikon D4
Glass: Nikkor 300mm f2.8 VR II together with teleconverter TC-20E III
Support: Manfrotto

For results visit my 500px profile.

Main difficulties taking photographs at the zoo using long focal length setups are caused by finding the right perspective across the fence and finding the right background.
Most of the time, even tough not in focal plane, the very geometrical structure of the fence causes blurred areas in pictures to end up with certain unwanted structure.
Same applies to background. In a zoo the farfield background often is something one would not expect the main subject - exotic animals - to sit in.

More images of my friend Joe Lackner using Nikon D800 with the Nikkor 200 - 500 mm lens can be found at http://joephoto.jimdo.com/tiere/zoo-basel/

The Beauty of Black and White

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” - Ted Grant

Find a collection of Lomography black and white sample images at: http://www.lomography.com/magazine/316552-the-beauty-of-black-and-white

Developing Style and Vision in Street Photography

Watch this talk by Michael Ernest Sweet on developing style and vision in street photography.

Aerial Photography - Shooting using drones

Aerial photography is an interesting field of photography. Becoming airborne and shooting the landscape, cityscapes, or sceneries from perspectives we usually are not used to. This gives images a special and unique touch mainly by means of perspective but also by means of color contrast and composition.

There are several possibilities to get into these arial perspectives such as tall buildings, a flight in a plane, or a flight in a helicopter, or in recent times using drones and camera remote control.

Using drones:

Since not every photographer can afford hiring a helicopter or a plane for shooting arial pictures or when topography does not allow to fly with a large vehicle drones become more and more popular in photography.
The image below shows a beautiful panorama of the Raja Ampat archipelago shot from a drone (I guess).

Kri Island, Raja Ampat, Indonesia - Nu Parnupong (facebook)

Have a look at the 3dr blog: GoPro Dorne Aerial Photography: Beginner's Guide

Moar popular cameras on Flickr

Flickr offers some interesting statistics on the camera models images in the community have been shot.

Overall, most popular cameras are smart phone cameras. From the top ten camera brands in the statistics six are cameraphones. By camera model the top 5 are all cameraphones, while Apple iPhone6 models have the biggest share.

Looking at point and shoot cameras the most popular model is Sony DSC-RX100 and its newer versions. Fujifilm X100T is raising.

The statistics for the big and traditional camera brands Nikon and Canon. We do see negative trends for their most popular models.

Since all these statistics are pure upload statistics with no special weighting for popularity or image quality this reflects more the accessibility to imaging and image sharing possibilities than the popularity of results of certain cameras.

Underwater photography - Thomas Peschak

An impressive TED Talk by Thomas Peschak on his experience as an underwater photographer.

The talk features some of the most impressive pictures of manta rays feeding in the Hanifaru Bay on the Maldives and many more.

Black and White - Mount Kilimanjaro Photography

Kilimanjaro - Andreas vdH (500px)

Masai herdsman - Craig Korszen-Bennett (500px)

Kilimanjaro Cloud Sea - Jeffrey Zabinski (500px)

Elephant Procession and Mount Kilimanjaro - Andy Biggs (500px)

Kilimanjaro - Tanzania - Andrew Cassels (500px)

Louise Porter - Infrared Photography

Louise Porter is showcasing infrared film photography on a travel through Africa. Read the blog post at thetravelphotographer.blogspot.ch.

::: The Travel Photographer :::: Louise Porter | Infrared Tribal: Photo © Louise Porter | All Rights Reserved Infrared photography is a different technique that will appeal to those of us who have an a...

Entering film photography

A recent blog post by David Hayek on http://theodysseyonline.com is dealing with the question "Why You Should Seriously Try Film Photography?".

"But film photography is different. It's careful, thoughtful, and genuine; not rushed, mindless, or fake."

Hayek elaborates on the key characteristics of film photography:

- Film photography requires time and attention

- That photo is something you saw, something you decided exactly when to capture, and something you carefully created all on your own.

It is an art driven by understanding of capturing light, understanding of exposure, understanding of image composition, and understanding of the photographic film development process.
It is about true craftsmanship.

Nevertheless, modern digital photography gives many more possibility to the ambitious photographer. Going through the school of film photography handcraft gives the digital photographer the skills to invest time and energy on the parts of the photographic process adding the most value to the quality of a final image through being more determined on that one excellent and not only good image.

Special moments in landscape photography

Through the cairn - Hilde Sordal (500px)

Landscape photography is one of the oldest disciplines of photography. It has an artistic but also a documentary touch. On one hand landscape photography is about capturing the moment of a wide landscape combining uniqueness of landscape and topography with light and weather conditions, and capturing this unique moment at the right exposure.

Uniqueness can be added by searching for special perspective, special elements, or special landmarks in order to add another dimension to the landscape image.

An example is the image on the left by Hilde Sordal. The stone sculpture in the foreground adds some living, man built, element to the landscape scenery. This still being a static situation, captured at the right moment under sunset conditions is nothing special yet. But getting the last rays of the sun for that particular day shining directly through an almost invisible pinhole across that stone sculpture adds some dynamics and uniqueness of that very moment to the image.

To capture such an exceptional landscape image it not only needs the eye for the landscape, but also the understanding for the uniqueness of a very short moment which will not happen again for quite some time if not captured in this very fraction of a second.

Aerial Photography - Shooting from a helicopter

Aerial photography is an interesting field of photography. Becoming airborne and shooting the landscape, cityscapes, or sceneries from perspectives we usually are not used to. This gives images a special and unique touch mainly by means of perspective but also by means of color contrast and composition.

There are several possibilities to get into these arial perspectives such as tall buildings, a flight in a plane, or a flight in a helicopter, or in recent times using drones and camera remote control.

From a helicopter:


My only experience in a helicopter so far was a flight from Las Vegas across the Mojave desert to the Grand Canyon and back.


Since this was a standard touristic flight the conditions were not optimal.

The flight was in the late afternoon which is a good time of the day. The low sun gives rise to good contrast and puts emphasise on the texture of the topography

Since it was a touristic flight doors of the helicopter were closed. Even tough I was privileged to sit in the very front I got a lot of reflections from the windows.

For the first time in a helicopter it was also difficult to choose the right lens. I ended up to shoot mainly the Nikon 14 - 24 mm f2.8 lens. The wide angle lens yields images with enormous depth and clear features of the topography.

 Some other images I shot with the Nikon 24 - 70 mm f2.4 lens. Which was especially good to crop interesting landmarks. Such as the deserted city of Mead View on the right.
Only an airborne view makes visible the geometrical construction of this city which was advertised with beautiful view onto the Lake Mead not taking into account a mountain rim in between.

Another interesting wide angle shot on the left when approaching the airbase again.
The airstrips embedded into the landscape give interesting lines and structure to this image.









Photographer Jared Polin recently released a video on arial photography from a helicopter. He describes in a very interesting way his experience shooting out of a helicopter with open doors the city of Las Vegas.

Kim Yusuf - Underwater Photography

Since quality of compact cameras became more serious and availability of underwater camera housings is given underwater photography almost became a commodity. Looking through picture archives such as Facebook, flickr, 500px, and more the number of published underwater imagery is endless. And many of the images are average.

A couple of years ago I met Kim Yusuf, German underwater photographer on a North Sulawesi trip to Bangka Island and Bunaken marine park.
We were diving together at some exceptional dive spots. And already under water I could see that Kim was up to get the "big picture".

Kim and his wife, always worked closely together to get the big shot. Kim's wife referred to herself as "head of snoot operations".  And you can see the quality of that collaboration in the results.

After that trip I googled for him and found his work on flickr and on his personal web site.

Some of his images truly are cutting edge in underwater photography. Both macro and wide angle images are well composed and exposed. Something many underwater photographs are missing.

I can only recommend to explore Kim's gallery and web site for inspiration.

Kim travelled many places on earth to capture special nature phenomena.

Browsing through Kim's portfolio I am deeply impressed. Especially by his close up images of interactions between marine animals. Myself, diving and taking underwater pictures since many years I even did not really see respective situations underwater.  Some of these images are truly unique.

For the gear aficionados, Kim let's you to explore his portfolio by camera, lens, iso, exact location, ...

Pilot whales in Raja Ampat

Raja Ampat, the center of the coral triangle, the area with highest marine biodiversity on earth, is an exceptional place for underwater photographers and underwater videographers. But sometimes, given by the unpredictability of nature some of the biggest marine wildlife spectacles can best be captured from the air.

Watch that exceptional movie of a large school of pilot whales taken - probably by the owner of the Pindito livaboard, Edi Frommenwile!

Black and White - Spring Photography

spring - Anton Opanasiuk (500px)

Spring crocus - Teuni Stevense (500px)

Furry Flower - Davey Bessette (500px)

Through the Wall - Oleg Ermakov (500px)

... - Rauno Kalda (500px)