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Photo of the Month July 2019 – Arctic Fox Blizzard

Posted in Arctic, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife PhotographsLeave a comment

The headline photograph for my new and upcoming exhibition ‘Frozen in Time‘ is also the photograph of the month for July 2019. Photographed in Svalbard during the frigid winter month of March earlier this year, the image was one of a number I captured of this Arctic Fox high on the hillside just outside the town of Longyearbyen. I vividly recall the specifics of this particular series of photographs as the fox was nestled high up on the side of the hill and I had to park my snow mobile down the bottom and hike up the slippery and steep hillside in deep snow (t was not an easy shot to get!).  Luck was with me on this occasion and the fox, curious about my presence allowed me to approach quite close during the heavy snowstorm.

Iceberg in Antarctica

Frozen in Time – New Fine Art Print Exhibition 2020 – Save the Date!

Posted in Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Prints, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs5 Comments

I am excited to tease today that I will have a brand new exhibition of Fine Art Prints of my Polar Photography coming to Melbourne next year. The exhibition will run for one month only from June 4th until July 4th 2020 and will include approximately three dozen of my photographs from both the Arctic and Antarctic captured over a period of ten years. The exhibition will be held in South Melbourne and previously unreleased limited edition prints will be available – More details to come soon…Save the Date!

Iceberg in Antarctica

Winner 2019 AIPP Epson Victorian Professional Nature Photographer of the Year

Posted in Landscape Photographs, Media, News and Updates, Photographs, Prints, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs6 Comments

Over the last few days The AIPP Australian Institute of Professional Photography Victorian State awards (VPPY) were held here in my home town of Melbourne at Melbourne Polytechnic Fairfield Campus. The AIPP Annual state and national awards are my two absolute favourite photographic competitions to participate in because all entries (in the categories I choose to enter) are judged in print and not digitally. Those of you who follow my blog regularly are already well aware that I am a huge advocate of the print as the finished medium of choice for my own photography – enough said. The AIPP National and State awards remain two of the few remaining competitions to actually judge the finished print and they do so using a panel of judges all deemed experts in their respective genres and accredited as Masters of Photography through their years of success in this arena.

About the Print Judging: In case you are unfamiliar with either of these competitions the prints are judged in a controlled lighting environment and assessed for their content, originality as well as technical craftsmanship. The judging is enthralling to watch (it was live-streamed to the internet this year) and can be quite nerve wracking if you are a first time entrant as the standard of work is incredibly high. In brief, prints are scored out of 100 with images judged less than 70 being deemed not of professional standard. Prints judged between 71 and 79 are considered strong professional practice and entrants receiving scores in this area are considered to be producing professional quality prints. Images judged 80-84 are awarded a Silver and are considered strong professional practice of an award standard that demonstrate skill beyond strong professional practice. Scores of 85-89 are given a Silver with Distinction and demonstrate superior imagination, craft and skill that elevates the print far above professional practice. Prints judged 90-94 exhibit excellence in visual communication, craft and skill and are considered stunning and exceptional in every way. This level of print far exceeds professional practice and is reserved for only the highest quality prints. And finally those rare few images that reach 96-100 are considered to have exceptional vision, creativity, innovation, master craftsmanship and skill. Very, very few prints ever score Gold awards in these competitions.  Out of the hundreds and hundreds of print entries this year (over 700 prints) fewer than two dozen received Gold awards and only two Gold Distinctions were awarded.

This year I entered the Nature, Documentary and Landscape categories, entering the maximum allowable twelve prints spread across the three categories. I wanted to put what I felt were my strongest four prints into the Nature category, but also wanted to test the other eight prints and see how they performed in different categories. This turned out to be the right approach for me and I was absolutely thrilled to take overall first place in the Nature Category as well as being a finalist in both the Landscape and Documentary categories. The Nature category is very near and dear to my heart and winning it is a huge honour. On top of winning my chosen category I also took out the Highest Scoring Print award for the Nature category. As someone who is so passionate about the ‘print’ and the craft of fine art printing this was an incredible honour.

Below are the winning prints. All of the prints were printed on Moab Somerset Museum Rag. This wonderfully sublime paper has continued to remain my stock of choice for all my fine art photography prints. If you love printing and are not familiar with this paper I urge you to check it out and get a sample pack.

To help provide some insight into the judging I captured and uploaded the live-stream video of the judging of my four photographs in the Nature category. I did not bother with the Documentary and Landscape categories as these were more or less my ‘seconds’ and it was really the Nature category that I was interested in. If you are keen to check out the judging of my Landscape and Documentary prints you can find the full livestream on You Tube. It is both insightful and  interesting to hear the judges thoughts, comments and perspectives. Keep in mind, you are listening to individual opinions – hence a panel of five judges.

Face-Off in a Blizzard –  GOLD Award Nature Category

Lost in a Blizzard –  GOLD Award Nature Category

Family Reunited –  Silver with Distinction Award Nature Category

 

Arctic Fox Snow Storm –  Silver with Distinction Award Nature Category

Sinuous –  GOLD Award Landscape Category

Mars –  SILVER Award Landscape Category

Hanging Glacier –  SILVER Award Landscape Category

Greenland –  SILVER Award Landscape Category

Top of the World –  SILVER with Distinction Award Documentary Category

Wolverine –  SILVER Award Documentary Category

Polar Bear –  SILVER Award Documentary Category

Lone Hunter –  SILVER Award Documentary Category

Canon EOS R Mirrorless Camera Field Tested

Posted in Equipment, News and Updates, Reviews, Uncategorized1 Comment

Those of you who followed my recent landscape workshops to the Great Ocean Road and Tasmania (Read the Trip Report) will already be aware that I took the plunge and purchased a Canon EOS R mirrorless camera body to test in the field. It was not a decision I took lightly and I thought long and hard on the implications before I bought into this new RF mount system (more on RF below). I was quite prepared to take the gamble and sell the camera if I decided it did not work for me and the style in which I like to photograph. As it turned out, I am keeping the camera and it will serve as my dedicated landscape camera going forward. By way of some back story, I have been looking for a light weight landscape camera for some time now and was keen for it to be a mirrorless camera. Although the 5D MKIV has many appealing properties I really wanted something smaller and lighter with an EVF. I specifically wanted an EVF for my landscape camera for the focus peaking feature which is an absolute god send when using tilt and shift lenses. I have tried previous generations of the Sony A7 series; but frankly those cameras are not for me. They left me frustrated at their ridiculous ergonomics and scratching my head at their confused menu structure.

Unlike the vast majority of You Tube camera video reviews (does anyone actually use these videos to make buying decisions?) I wanted to actually spend a good amount of time in the field with the camera to really get my head around it before I made up my mind on what I like and what I did not like. Two weeks of intensive use in Victoria at the Great Ocean Road and in Tasmania gave me a great opportunity to come to grips with the camera and really see how it performs in the field  for my style of photography (specifications are really useless for anything other than armchair evaluation and armchair evaluation is about as useless as it gets for assessing the tool during real field work).

My impressions of the Canon EOS R are based on the application I intend to use the camera for – Landscape photography where I am primarily based on a tripod. My thought process for choosing the EOS R was fairly simple: I wanted a camera that was light weight for hiking and one with which I could utilise my existing Canon tilt-shift lenses (with or without adapter). I did seriously consider the Fuji 50 Medium Format but ultimately decided the lack of tilt shift lenses was a deal breaker for me (I have no interest in focus stacking in post).  I was also less than thrilled at the wallet breaking concept of purchasing into an entirely new lens system (I did try the Fuji camera on several occasions and found it an outstanding camera). Packing the same sensor as the Canon EOS 5D MKIV, the EOS R was perhaps the obvious choice. So how did it perform as a dedicated landscape camera?

In short, the Canon EOS R performed exceptionally well in the field and far better than I had thought it might have as a dedicated landscape camera. I very much appreciated its light weight form factor (especially on hikes) and surprisingly to me I also very much enjoyed the cameras ergonomics (although I have not as yet made up my mind about the touch bar). The buttons more or less fall naturally under my fingers (except for the AF button which is a little too close to the side of the camera for me – but I have big hands). I found the Electronic Viewfinder to be amongst the very best I have tried and although it is not as good as a high quality optical prism I did find it acceptable in most situations. Like all EVF’s, the display in the EOS R tends to fall apart in near darkness and is horrible for high speed capture (more on this below).

When it comes to battery life we need to be crystal clear.  Compared to something like a Canon EOS 1DX MKII battery life in the EOS R (and indeed all mirrorless cameras) is abysmal. I can get thousands of shots on a single charge with a 1DX MKII (even in sub zero temperatures). With the Canon EOS R I was lucky to get 100 shots. For landscape photography where I am utilising a tripod this really isn’t too much of an issue for me and it just means I need to carry a spare battery (no big deal as the batteries are small and light). Even a heavy days landscape photography is usually less than 100 images anyway so battery life is really close to irrelevant. Nonetheless I find the need to carry a 2nd battery an annoyance and the need to change it frequently even more so.

I know the arm chair experts out there are at this point brandishing pitchforks and fire brands with cries of ‘Dynamic Range!’  So, let’s clear up the DR issue right now: Yes, the EOS R has the same sensor as the 5D MKIV and yes it does not have the 14+ stop Dynamic Range of the Sony Sensors. But who cares? Im yet to see a single photograph that is worth the paper it is printed on that actually uses even close to 14 stops of Dynamic Range. Call me old school, but I want to make photographs in soft light with a limited dynamic range and if the sky falls outside of the sensors capability to record it I am more than happy to use a graduated ND filter to tame the Dynamic Range. The new range of high quality optical glass filters on the market are superb and have no negative impact on image quality.

As a wildlife camera and for the sort, type and style of wildlife imagery I pursue I am afraid the EOS R is all but useless. Its frame rate is just far too slow for subjects such as birds, its auto focus is not a patch on the EOS 1DX MKII in the field and the EVF is simply sub optimal with fast moving subjects. The time may come when a mirrorless camera is the weapon of choice for wildlife, but until that time the 1DX MKII and its replacement the 1DX MKIII will be my tools of choice for serious wildlife work.

Canon had a number of solid engineering reasons to develop the new RF mount for its mirrorless system. Frankly, none of those reasons offer me anything I don’t already have in my current EF mount so I think it highly unlikely at this point that I will be purchasing any dedicated RF lenses. The new Canon EOS 1DX MKIII when its officially announced will be EF mount. Working Pros such as myself are fully geared for EF mount and we are not about to dump tens of thousands of dollars of glass when the tools we currently have are more than sufficient for our needs. Canon know this and are not about to abandon their core high end market just because they have a new mount in two different mirrorless bodies. We will get a professional mirrorless camera from Canon with an RF mount, but don’t expect to see it until after the 1DX MKIII is announced.

During my testing of the EOS R I also inadvertently tested its weather sealing when I slipped on moss covered rocks at Hopetoun falls in Victoria and temporarily submerged both myself and the camera in the river – whoops! I managed to kill a 24-70mm F4L IS lens in the process, but the camera was absolutely fine. It not only survived the short dunking, but it didn’t skip a beat in the process. Once I extracted myself from the river I simply dried off the camera and kept shooting. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend you try this (I may have just been lucky) it is pretty solid evidence that the EOS R is quite a tough little camera with more than decent weather sealing.

In conclusion, I found the EOS R to be a fantastic tool for serious landscape photography and have decided to keep the camera for just this purpose. I love the focus peaking feature with tilt shift lenses and I really like the light weight form factor. I will definitely not be using it to photograph wildlife though. The cameras slow frame rate, EVF and focus tracking make it sub optimal for my wildlife work. The EOS R would likely also make a very nice walk around camera or travel camera for those looking for a light weight alternative to a traditional DSLR. If I were looking to use it for this purpose I would probably consider one of the new RF lenses so I could do away with the RF to EF converter. For landscape photography on a tripod though the converter is a small price to pay for the convenience of tilt shift lenses. I am looking forward to using the EOS R later this year on my landscape workshop in the Faroe Islands. I will also be taking an EOS 1DX MKII with a 400mm f2.8L IS MKIII for the Puffins.

The photograph below was taken at Freycinet Peninsula on the East Coast of Tasmania with the Canon EOS R with the RF to EF adapter, a 1.4 TC MKIII and the 24mm F3.5 MKII TSE lens (giving me an RF mounted 35mm f3.5 TSE equivalent).  Obtaining infinite depth of field with focus peaking with this setup in the field is an absolute joy and a pleasure. Exposure time was two minutes with a 3 stop Medium NISI Graduated Optical Glass Filter.

Photo of the Month June 2019 – Golden Eagle Landing

Posted in Arctic, Finland, News and Updates, Photographs, Travel Photography, Uncategorized, Wildlife Photographs, Workshops and ExpeditionsLeave a comment

The photograph of the month for June 2019 is of a magnificent Golden Eagle coming into land on the snow in northern Finland in winter. Photographed from a private hide during my Finland workshop in February earlier this year (Read the Trip Report); the image was captured with a Canon EOS 1DX MKII and 600mm F4L IS MKII Lens (I had not yet updated to the MKIII). The key to capturing really sharp, powerful moments of birds in flight such as this is a combination of anticipating the animals behaviour and having everything set and ready on your camera so that once the action starts you are immediately shooting and not fumbling with settings. In this case, I knew it would be really difficult to accurately track the eagle with a single focus point  (even with surrounding focus points) as it came in to land at high speed, so I used multiple points with ‘Case 3’ Auto Focus (telling the camera to instantly focus on objects as they came into frame). I also ensured I stopped down the lens enough for adequate depth of field in case the focus points grabbed the tip of the wing (as they are prone to do) to give me the best possible chance. I set my cameras shutter speed to at least 1/1000th of a second and to high speed capture at 12 frames per second which meant as long as I could keep the eagle in frame I was going to get sharp images.