A rare chance to get on board the Orbis MD-10 flying hospital

A good friend of ours is one of the leading ophthalmologists in the country and every year he volunteers his time to travel the globe helping others as part of the Orbis organization. Years ago, he told us about a new flying hospital that Orbis had acquired, and I was hoping for the chance to get on board to photograph this amazing MD-10.

The Orbis plane was parked inside the Moffett Field NASA base, in which one needs clearance to get in. Once inside the base (which has been many years for me), we drove around for a couple of minutes to check out the old hanger. Hanger One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures, covering 8 acres and was originally designed to hold large blimps. It is so big that it reportedly had it's own climate inside when covered. It was in disrepair and has since been "unskinned". Google has pledged the money for a complete restoration, but this is not likely to be done until 2025.

Then we continued our drive into the base until we came to the real reason we were there.

Here is the exterior shot of the MD-10.

Before we go inside, let me explain a little about Orbis. Their goal is to transform lives through the prevention and treatment of blindness. Did you know that there are more than 253 million people worldwide who are blind or visually impaired? And 75% of those people are living with conditions that are preventable, treatable or curable, if only they had the resources. Orbis brings those resources! They don't just fly to other countries and do surgical procedures, they teach the local doctors how to do the same procedures so that they can continue to help the locals even after the Orbis people have left.

The plane, which was donated by FedEx, is flown into other countries and parked for 3 weeks per location so that the doctors and other volunteers can do their work. Last year alone, using the plane and other methods, they performed almost 100,000 surgeries and laser treatments in 18 countries.

Before entering the mobile hospital, I took this shot looking down the body of this jumbo jet. Yeah, it looks like almost any other plane...until you get inside.

This is the operating room, which is located about halfway down the cabin. As you can see, it is not much different from any other hospital surgical area.

It isn't until you see outside the operating room window that you see the airplane windows.

This is a wider view of the operating room. If you look closely, you will see many video cameras on the ceiling and throughout the room.

All those cameras are fed into this control room where an AV specialist can determine what is shown in the training room.

This may look like your typical coach class, but this is actually where the local doctors are brought in to watch surgical procedures and learn new techniques.

Towards the back of the plane is the recovery room. They can work on three people at a time, with one in surgery and two in recovery.

In between the surgical room and the recovery room in a teaching lab with some incredible technology inside. (For those photographers out there who are wondering what equipment I used for this shoot, here is what I brought with me. I was using the Canon 1D X Mark II camera, Canon 16-35mm lens, Canon 600 EX-RT flash and the MagMod MagSphere diffuser.)

The volunteer doctors (who come from all over the world) spread their knowledge to doctors who have less technology and are not as well equipped.

Living in Silicon Valley, I have seen and heard many promises of augmented reality. Most of the time, this has been talked about in regards to video games and other entertainment. But to see augmented reality here in the lab was nothing short of amazing. Here, a doctor from Chile, shows me how a doctor can learn how to analyze the human eye on a simulator.

This was the most impressive piece of technology that I saw in the lab. This device lets doctors perform a surgical procedure on a virtual eye. In the image below, you can see the eye sensor, and in the image above, you can see what the doctor is seeing in the scope. He was telling me that the device has haptic feedback so that the doctor feels the same resistance as a real procedure.  That is awesome.

The eye sensor. It may nook look like much here, but what it does is simply amazing.

Here is a photo of me in the cockpit of the MD-10. (Photo credit: Annette Cable)

We stayed for a really nice reception, but before leaving, I wanted to go out and get a couple of shots of the plane at night.

As I walked out to the plane, I noticed that the moon had come out over the plane. I quickly ran back to my camera back and switched from the Canon 16-35mm wide angle lens to the Canon 70-200mm. I set the camera to manual mode (metering for the moon) and used my flash to light the plane.

I would like to thank Dr. Fredrick for giving his time to this cause and along with all the people at Orbis for giving us a chance to see the plane and learn about their organization.  If you would like to know more about Orbis, click HERE.

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Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
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If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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Want a fun and entertaining book for free?

Here is something different for all of you.

A good friend of mine, who used to work at Apple, has retired from the corporate world and become a writer. Like me, Marc Jedel left the board rooms and boring meetings and is following his passion in the arts. He just finished his second book and was kind enough to offer any of my blog readers a chance to download his first book for FREE. Thanks Marc!

Marc's books are humorous murder mysteries that fall into a sub-genre called cozy mysteries (like the old Murder She Wrote series for those that remember) because they’re clean and do not have any violence or sex. Well... if they do, they take place off-page. Marc told me that his mysteries wound up like this mostly because writing violent scenes when it’s dark outside would probably frighten him and writing sex scenes would frighten his friends and family. He is a funny guy.

Anyways...as I mentioned, he has two books:

* Uncle and Ants: A Silicon Valley Mystery (Book 1). Mysterious attacks. Mischievous nieces. Can a clueless uncle catch a tech-savvy killer… and be home before bedtime? If you like clever humor, sassy side characters, and average Joes facing extraordinary circumstances, then you’ll love this twisty mystery.

* Chutes and Ladder is the side-splitting second novel in the Silicon Valley cozy mystery series. 

When a camping trip uncovers a corpse, this amateur sleuth is stuck putting out the fire. Marty vows to investigate. After all, it’s poor manners to let a friend’s death go unsolved. Like quirky sleuths, wacky sidekicks, and laugh-out-loud moments? You’ll love this offbeat whodunit.


The books are really fun and easy to read. I am currently part way through the second book.

You can download the first book for free from Amazon using this LINK only between now and Mar 24th.

If you look at his Amazon page, you will see Marc's portrait. He asked me to shoot this for him about a 6 months ago ago. I started with a standard "back of the book" typical headshot but since his character always wears Hawaiian shirts, we thought it would be fun if he did the same.  Marc even had fun with the photos and created this page.

Download the book, kick your feet up and have some fun. I am!

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Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

Zebras in Africa - These black and white stripes are everywhere

Today we are going back to my recent trip to Africa for another blog post. This time I am focusing on the referees of the African plains, the zebras. During the reverse migration, it is not uncommon to see thousands of these animals during our 10 day safari. And did you know that every one of these animals has their own distinctive pattern?

It was early in the morning on our January safari and we were driving into the Ngorongoro Crater as the sun rose. We looked to our left and saw these zebras sparring in the early morning light. I got out my Canon 1D X Mark II with the Canon 200-400mm lens and captured many images of this activity.

We also saw this young zebra (foal) nursing.

There is nothing cuter than a young zebra. They actually start with brown fur, which falls off to reveal their black and white stripes.

At one point, we came across two cheetahs who were crossing the plains in Ndutu. They seemed to be in a hunting mode and I was confused why these zebra would just stand there and wait to be eaten. These were the dominant members who were watching out for the others in the herd. If I was a zebra, I would have been heading for the hills (even though I know they can not outrun a cheetah).

On the February safari, we saw these zebras standing in front of this large flock of flamingos and I thought it made a nice composition. Just as we started shooting photos, these two started sparring, giving us even better subject matter. I made sure that all of our guests were shooting a shutter speeds of at least 1/1000th of a second to freeze the action.

It was fun watching them as they jumped and swatted at each other.

It is this activity that may explain why zebras, which are related to horses and donkeys, have never been domesticated.

Once the zebras were done sparring, they sprinted away.

Most of the time, we will see zebras coexisting with the wildebeest. These zebras were within sight of a family of lions and they were on high alert. The zebras have excellent eyesight, and even night vision, which is why the wildebeest like to travel with them. This is an added layer of protection for the wildebeest who have poor vision.

We saw an endless line of zebras coming over a hill and crossing this small lake. We had fun capturing images of them as they ran through the water.

Since we had so many of these animals crossing in front of us, and everyone had nice shots of them frozen in action, I encouraged our guests to slow their shutter speeds to try and capture some motion pan photos. For this shot, I changed my camera settings from 1/1250th of a second to 1/20 sec (by setting my ISO to 100 and my aperture to f/36) and panned with this group.

Whenever I see zebras in or around still water, I always look for their reflections.

Using the reach of our long lenses, we zoomed in on small groups of zebra to highlight their reflections. I converted this photo to B&W using NIK SilverEfex Pro, since I thought that this particular image would be more dramatic without color.

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Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

Photographing a baby - A new member in our extended family!

It's funny that the last blog post was about a newborn wildebeest in Africa and today's blog post is about a newborn member of our extended family. I didn't plan it that way, but sometimes things just have a way of interconnecting.

We were actually in Tanzania when we got word that our niece had her baby, about 6 weeks premature. And ever since then, Caitlin and Adam have been asking us when we can get up to Sacramento to photograph their new baby boy, Patrick.

Two days ago, my wife and I drove up north to make that happen, and it was such a fun time. Patrick is now a month old and has grown from 4 to 6 pounds. He has more strength and has filled out a bit. This actually helped for taking photos of him.

As you will see in the following images, I used a combination of window light and added light from a flash in the new MagMod MagBox (which I love).

For this first shot, we put Patrick on the bed by a window and I used the natural light from the window to light his little feet. Knowing that he is so small, I chose to shoot many of the close-up shots with the Canon 100mm macro lens.

I got down low on the bed and shot some really tight shots of his cute little face. This is also using only the window light.

Since Patrick has dry skin on his little face, I retouched every photo to remove the dry flakes of skin. I used the Adaptive Healing Brush feature in Adobe Photoshop and painted out the flakes using the pen of my Wacom Intuos tablet.

We wanted to get a photo of Patrick's hand on top of his parents's hands. My wife took this BTS shot of me taking that shot. For this photo, I removed the Canon 100mm macro lens from my Canon 5D Mark IV and switched to the Canon 24-70mm II lens. (You will see that I have the Canon ST-E3-RT wireless transmitter on the camera, but I was not using any external flash at this point.)

This is the final shot from that moment.

I used the NIK SilverEfex Pro software to convert many of the images to B&W.

While shooting the previous photos, I noticed their rings, which I don't remember seeing in the past. Adam told us that he made these rings. My wife asked them to take off the rings and put them in Patrick's hand. I switched back to the Canon 100mm macro lens and took this photo. This is one of my favorites, since it shows how small his little fingers are.

We wanted to get some photos of Caitlin and Adam with their new son, but neither of them had planned on having their photos taken. Instead of having them change and having Caitlin put on makeup (since they are a little busy right now) I suggested that I take photos with them behind Patrick, and use selective focus to blur them. We moved Patrick close to me and had them on the far side of the bed to create some distance.

Ahhhhhhhhhh. I shot these photos at f/2.8 so that Patrick would be sharp and his parents would be soft in the background. And it works well since Patrick is my main subject here.

Next, we moved Patrick to a beanbag that was draped with a black blanket. I decided to add some light at this point. As you can see from this photo, I had two Canon 600 EX-RT flash heads mounted in the new MagBox soft box. (For those of you photographers who want a soft box that sets up in seconds and is all connected using magnetics, you need this product!)

I liked the results I was getting with the MagBox, but felt that it needed to be closer to Patrick and at a different angle. I asked Adam if he was OK being my VAL (voice activated light stand) and he agreed to help out. So I handed him the MagBox and gave him direction on where to hold it.

Having the directional light very close to Patrick, and shooting in manual mode (ISO 100, f/4, 1/200 sec) on the Canon 5D Mark IV, I was able to create some really nice images like these.

I was walking along the side of the bed, heading to change lenses, when I saw Patrick's feet sticking up. I had to shoot this!

I kept the camera in manual mode (this time at ISO 1000, f/4, 1/80 sec) and used only the window light to light his toes. This is another favorite from the day. I like this because it was unplanned, different from what I usually see from newborn photos, and I love the pattern of all 10 toes.

I converted this one to B&W as well.

My niece really wanted a photo of Patrick in this metal bucket. I started with the MagBox on my Manfrotto light stand, and shooting on the rug. Looking at the images on the back of the camera, I decided to have Adam help me with the light once again and to pull the rug back to shoot against the hardwood pattern of the floor. Why? I thought that the rug was a bit distracting, and I did not want the baby evenly lit.

See how evenly he is lit?

I asked Adam to hold the MagBox low and to the side of Patrick.

I changed the camera settings to kill more of the ambient light in the room, and relied almost exclusively on the light from the Canon 600 EX-RT flashes. See how much more dramatic this photo is compared to the other?

Caitlin put Patrick in his crib with the monogrammed sheet, and I thought it would be fun to try and shoot the light through the slats on the side of the crib. I stood over the crib while Adam pointed the MagBox through the side of the crib. Something different once again!

Then we moved the light to a more traditional spot (over head) and took some photos with Patrick and this stuffed bear.

This is one of the last photos we took. Adam loves skateboarding and has a plethora of them in their house. He pulled out this really old board which fit Patrick just perfectly. Caitlin placed the little guy down on the board carefully and he took a nap. I took numerous photos as his hands and feet moved around, with this being my favorite.

Overall, we spent about 4 hours taking photos, with many breaks in between. It was such a pleasure to take these photos and just as much fun getting home and retouching them. I then sent them off to Caitlin and Adam and got the best message back. Caitlin said "These photos seriously make me want to cry." That is the best!

__________________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

__________________________________________________________________________