Photos captured in Tanzania by our photo tour attendees

After returning from Costa Rica a couple of months ago, I thought it would be fun to post images that my photo tour attendees took on the trip. The feedback was so good that I thought I would do it again, this time from our recent trip to Tanzania.

Unlike the Costa Rica trip where none of our attendees were professional photographers, we did have two professional photographers on this trip. But, the group consisted mainly of photo enthusiasts and we even had one guest who came with only a point-and-shoot camera. I think you will be impressed with what she captured with her light weight little friend (posted at the end of this blog post).

I asked all the guests to submit their favorite images. I hope you enjoy what they captured...

This shot was taken by one of the professional photographers on the trip. I have to admit, this is my favorite image submitted. Just beautiful!

All the images above were captured with DSLR cameras and long zoom lenses. As you can tell, the images that people captured were really excellent. What really impressed me while on the trip, was the images that one of our guests captured with a little Canon SX70 point-and-shoot camera. The following images were captured with that camera. Pretty impressive!

What these images show us is that having a big camera and lens is not an absolute requirement for a trip to Africa, especially if that person is not a professional photographer and worried about every detail of the shot.  Not everyone is capable of holding a DSLR camera and large zoom lens, but they can still come away with great photos and even better memories!

Thanks to all the photo tour attendees who submitted their photos, and congratulations on the amazing collection of images you all captured.

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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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How to photograph with motion blur and do it correctly

If you have followed my work any time over the past ten years, you know that I do a lot of motion pan photography. I have done this for a couple of reasons:

1. I love the final outcome of the photos.
2. This effect allows me to show a subject to you all in a different way.
3. The technique is difficult to master and presents me with a great challenge.
4. Most people do not shoot this way, and so this helps me create unique photos.

For those of you not familiar with this type of shooting, let me explain how this works. To create a motion pan image, I purposely change the shutter speed of my camera to a very slow speed and then I take photos of my subject while panning the lens at the exact same speed as my subject. The speed of the shutter really depends on the speed of my subject and my ability to track that subject as it passes by me. For fast moving subjects the shutter speed might be 1/100th sec and with slower moving subjects the shutter speed might be as low as 1/4th sec.

There are three ways to achieve a slow the shutter speed:

* Shoot at a time when there is not a lot of sunlight (early in the day, late in the day or on a day with overcast skies)
* Adjust your ISO down to 100 (or even 50) and lower your aperture to something like f/22 or f/36
* Use an ND filter in front of your lens to cut down the amount of light coming into the camera.

Having just come back from another safari in Africa, I thought I would share more motion pan shots from this trip.  But first...

Two years ago I took this photo of a zebra running in Tanzania. It is one of the most requested images I have ever taken. The shutter speed of this shot was 1/30th sec (ISO 100, f/22). I was lucky enough to get the face of the zebra nice and sharp with nice motion in the legs, and all hoofs of the ground.

I even tried motion panning this group of zebras to see how that would turn out. Some people might love this and some might hate it, but I really like the effect.

Here are some wildebeests running through the plains of Tanzania (taken at 1/30th sec).

With the success of these previous images, I was challenged to create some more this time around.

Before starting our safari, Mike (the owner of M&M Photo Tours) and I arrived a day earlier than the rest of the group for a couple of meetings. Towards the end of the day, I decided to walk along the main road to check out a local marketplace. I grabbed my Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 24-105mm lens and went for a walk. There was not a lot to photograph in the outdoor market, but I saw the opportunity to shoot some of the passing traffic at slow shutter speeds. I took this photo of a local motorcyclist at 1/25th second as he breezed by me.

I saw this oncoming truck filled with banana leaves and wondered if I could motion pan it. Because the truck was so close to me, I was only able to get the middle of the frame sharp, but I like the effect nonetheless.

As I mentioned, this technique is not easy to master and not every one of my attempts yields top notch photos. I saw this jackal walking in the Serengeti and tried to motion pan it at 1/15th sec. As you can see, it was moving so slowly that there is not tons of movement in its legs and the face is not tack sharp. A good try but...

A couple of days later, I had better luck with this running giraffe. As soon as I saw the giraffe start to run, I quickly rolled my ISO down to 100 and changed my aperture to f/11. This gave me a shutter speed of 1/15th sec and I shot numerous photos (at the slow burst rate of the Canon 1D X Mark II) while panning the Canon 100-400mm lens along with the running giant.

Since we up in the northern area of the Serengeti for the Great Migration, I thought it appropriate to motion pan some of the wildebeests migrating. Since these guys were moving pretty slowly, I changed my shutter speed to 1/6th sec to capture the movement. I panned with the animal closest to me and hoped for more motion in background animals.

I saw this one wildebeest who stopped to check us out. Since he was standing so still, I decided to shoot with a slow shutter speed, and hold steady on him. For that 1/10th sec he stood still while most of the other wildebeest maintained their movement.  I would have preferred more movement in the background, but since I did not have a tripod to hold an even longer shutter speed, this was the best I could do.

We watched as a group of Impala jumped ahead of our vehicle. After capturing a couple of photos at 1/1000 sec, I slowed the shutter once again and took this at 1/40th sec.

On our last day on safari, we watched as thousands of wildebeests crossed the Mara river. Towards the end of the pack, I had already taken hundreds of photos at fast shutter speeds and thought it would be a good idea to bring motion into these photos.  My goal was to show the motion of the migration.

Both of these migration shots were taken at 1/15th sec, and show you a different view of the scene that unfolded in front of us.

I hope that the next time you have a chance to try motion panning, that you give it a try. Remember that this technique takes practice and some patience as well. It works best with subjects that do not move their heads a lot when moving, since the goal is to get the face really sharp with movement in other areas of the body.

It might take tens or hundreds of photos to get one you love, but the end result is worth it!

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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.
__________________________________________________________________________
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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The Great Migration and the Crocodile - check this out!

Last week, myself in partnership with M&M Photo Tours, took a group of guests to photograph the great migration in Tanzania, Africa. We spent the first 4 days on safari away from the Mara River, photographing lions, elephants, baboons, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, giraffes, zebras and more.

On our fifth day, after flying to the northern part of the Serengeti, we were treated to our first river crossing.  It was absolutely amazing to watch the thousands of wildebeests as they crossed the river.

As the wildebeest make their crossing, the path and pattern of the animals is constantly changing.

Most of our guests were using the Canon 100-400mm lens which allowed us to shoot wide shots like this, but also zoom into the mass to isolate individual animals making their crossing.

Many guests were using the Canon 5D Mark IV and I was using my Canon 1D X Mark II. And wow did we shoot a lot of images!

Thanks again to Canon Professional Services for the free loaner cameras and lenses for our guests. You rock!

On our first day, we were able to witness three river crossings. On this particular crossing, our guide happened to drive our vehicle right to the spot where the wildebeest were exiting the river.

The following day, we saw a couple more crossings, including this one, which turned out to be epic. We were watching the masses of wildebeest as they came down the bank on the opposite side of the Mara when one of our guides yelled "There is a crocodile there!".

I quickly zoomed from 100mm to approximately 300mm to isolate the crocodile. And this was one big croc!

He was in shallow water and making his way towards the herd. We were watching and expecting the reptile to grab one of the wildebeests.

The crocodile lunged forward and was unable to grab ahold of any of the crossing herd. But as the crocodile moved forward, we watched as the wildebeest stepped on and over the massive beast.

It is not uncommon to see crocodiles near the crossings, but it was amazing to see one this big, this bright and so shallow. As I looked back at the images, I was just amazed at the size of the crocodile in the photo. It is so big that it dwarfs the large wildebeests.

One of our guides was shooting an iPhone video, which I have included so that you can see the action for yourself. You can click on the image above to watch the video.

Even though we saw a ton of amazing animal sightings throughout the week, this was one of the highlights of the trip for sure.

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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.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

How to use multiple speedlights to take your photography to the next level - Part II

In last week's blog post, I talked about using multiple flash units to take your photography to the next level. As promised, in this second part of that post, I wanted to let you all know how I then took my use of multiple speedlights even further.

Sometime around 2014, I was setting up for some corporate headshots at my home studio, when I decided that my Canon 600EX-RT speedlites would be a lot easier to setup than my big strobes, and give me plenty of light for the job. At this point, I now owned four of the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT flashes (and a ST-E3-RT transmitter), so I could have a main light, a key light, a hair light and another flash pointed at the backdrop. The only thing is, I needed to set up each light in manual mode so that the light output would be different for each flash location. It was the first time I had taken the remote flashes and switched them to manual mode. After reading the manual and some trial and error, I figured out the lighting ratio that worked well for me. I loved that I could control the power to any of the remote speedlites from the transmitter on my camera.

Using the transmitter on my camera, I would set the flash on the backdrop to achieve the background color I desired. If I was using a white backdrop, I could adjust the power of the flash to get a very white background, but I could also lower the flash power to get a grey background. Using a black backdrop, I could add flash to the black background to determine how dark the background would actually be. Increasing the flash power, I could go from pure black to a dark grey.

I would also control the lights on either side of my subject's face to light them appropriately. My goal is to have one side of their face lit stronger than the other (which adds dimension to their face). Since everyone's complexion is different, I adjust the main light to match the skin tones of my subject.

As I mentioned, I also used a Canon 600EX-RT flash on a tall light stand to add some hairlight on my subjects. This light works great for people with a full head of hair, but does not work with people like myself who are, shall we say, follicly challenged.   A hair light on a bald person just adds a giant hot spot on their head. This is not a good thing. So...whenever I had a bald subject, I would run over to turn off that flash. I figured that there had to be a better way to do this. And, you know what, there is!

One of my friends at Canon asked me if I was using "Group Mode".  My reply was "What is Group mode?" Well my friends, Group Mode is yet another game changer for me.

Simply put, Group Mode lets me take full control of each of the Canon 600EX-RT speedlites from the transmitter on my camera (or another 600EX-RT on camera). With this mode, I can set some of the speedlites in manual mode, some in TTL mode, and even power them on and off from my camera. No more running to the remote flash to physically turn it off.

The group mode has really helped me when I photograph events, allowing me to have my on-camera flash in TTL mode (diffused with the MagMod MagSphere) while having my remotes (that are in the corners of the room) in manual mode. I usually power the remote flashes down to 1/32 and 1/64 so that they add light, but not too much. Depending on where I am standing in the room, I can easily increase the power to one or both of the remote flashes, or even turn them off if I am pointing directly at them.

Using Group Mode offers me another advantage. Now that I have 6 of the Canon 600EX-RT speedlites, I can set two remotes on each light stand, using the new MagMod MagShoe and MagRing. You might wonder why would I would want to have two flashes on each stand, and it is not to have double the amount of power. I set up two flashes on each stand so that I don't have to stop and change batteries during an event. I shoot the first half of the event on Flash B and Flash C, and then halfway through the party when I feel that the Powerex AA batteries might be running low, I turn those off and turn on Flash D and Flash E. Now I am shooting the rest of the event with cool speedlites and fresh batteries.

It does take some getting used to, especially when running around and shooting a party for a client. But with a little bit of practice, the group mode will become your best friend as well.

I hope that this inspires you to try out some new tricks with your flashes and takes your photography to the next level.


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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.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

How to use multiple speedlights to take your photography to the next level - Part I

People often ask me about new camera equipment and the what advances in technology have had the biggest impact on me. When asked this question, most people are expecting me to answer back in reference to the newest camera bodies or lenses. But as I have told many people, I feel that one of the biggest "game changers" is in the speedlights (or commonly called flash units). Yes, those battery powered flashes that we put on top of our cameras.

The older Canon 580EX II Flash

Before I get into the details, let me step back for a second and tell you about my first experience using an external flash with my cameras. My first real foray into the world of Canon Speedlites (as Canon spells that) started with the Canon 580EX flash, and the learning curve was steep. I felt then, and still feel today, that learning how to control the flash units (especially when combining more than one) is harder than learning the ins and outs of the camera itself. When I first started, I would put the 580EX directly on my camera, keep it in TTL mode and hope for the best. Then after learning about flash diffusers, I experimented with many different brands to determine which worked best for me. But even then, it was just the one flash mounted on my camera in TTL mode.

The first thing I learned was how to adjust the power of the flash, often powering the flash down a bit, which served me well when taking portraits. Later I played with was the remote control of one flash to another. With the Canon 580EX flash, the only way to trigger more than one flash (without using other devices) was through an optical protocol. This only worked in small areas, in direct line of sight from one flash to the other, and was not reliable enough to use when shooting any job for clients. This proved to be so unreliable that I never really tried it again.

In 2012, Canon announced the Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT and everything changed.

What was the big advancement in these flashes? With the introduction of the 600EX-RT, Canon added the "R" (receive) and the "T" (transmit) which means that they added wireless radio control. This allowed these speedlites to communicate with each other using a wireless signal which meant that these new flashes worked reliably in distances of 100 feet or more and they did not have to be line-of-sight. This wireless technology has increased the quality of my photography dramatically. This is especially true for my event and portrait photography, with the ability to use multiple flashes in sync with each other.

I started with just two of these 600EX-RT speedlites, often using them for my event photography. I would have one flash in "master mode" diffused with a MagSphere on my camera and another in "slave mode" in the corner of a room for more directional lighting. This created much more dynamic lighting for my party photos.

Here is a photo I took back in 2011 with only one flash diffused on the camera.

You can see that the light is all coming from the one flash on my camera. It is a simple, one dimensional look, with flat light on my subject.

And below is a photo with a diffused flash on camera (in master mode) and one remote light (in slave mode) shooting right into this young man's face.

In this photo you can see light coming from my left and lighting the side of the young man in the chair.

And in this photo, you can really see the directional light coming from my right side and perfectly lighting this young man's face. The diffused flash (using the MagMod MagSphere) on my camera is illuminating the crowd slightly, but the majority of the light is coming from the remote flash.

As I became more comfortable with this setup, I purchased another Speedlite 600EX-RT and shot with two remotes in different corners of the party venue. At that time, I was still using ETTL mode for all the speedlites. This meant that all of the flashes would fire at the same power as my master flash. And if I changed the power settings of my master flash, the remotes would adjust the same way. I am still using multiple remote flashes for events, but now I have found an even better way to control them. But that is coming up on the next blog post.

Here is a photo with me using two remote speedlights and one diffused on the camera.You can see both remote speedlites on Manfrotto 12 foot light stands behind the kids.

In the second part of this blog post, I am going to tell you how I learned some new tricks and took even more control of the lighting using the same Canon 600EX-RT flash units.

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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.

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