Sony A6000 – Stuck in Customs

The Textures of Namibian Sand

Daily Photo – The Textures of Namibian Sand

The sand dunes in Namibia are a sight to behold. They are among the highest and oldest dunes in the world, some reaching up to 300 meters tall! The dunes have a variety of colors, from pale yellow to deep red, depending on the mineral content and the time of day. The dunes are constantly shaped by the wind, creating curves and ridges that contrast wonderfully with the clear blue sky.

The Textures of Namibian Sand

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-09-24 23:03:32
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/400
  • Aperture8
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length84.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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Alone In the Desert

Daily Photo – Alone In the Desert

One great thing about a zoom lens like this 70-200mm for landscape photography is it allows this nice effect called “compression,” where you can do effects like this. The technique brings in the two layers of sand dunes from beyond and make them look more dramatic. I kept a little bit of light on the back sand dune to give a clue that I didn’t just Photoshop in a darker background. I don’t do that sort of thing, even though I could.

Deadvlei, Namibia

Alone In the Desert

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-09-25 19:07:16
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/1000
  • Aperture4
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length138.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

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In the long grass

Daily Photo – In the long grass

Just a couple of African buffalo doing their thing…

In the long grass

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-10-06 03:11:14
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/2500
  • Aperture4
  • ISO500
  • Focal Length200.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

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Blood in the Water

From the Helicopter!

Today’s photo was taken when I was hanging out of the helicopter you see in the video for our photography workshops! Of all things, our pilot was a Kiwi!

Daily Photo – Blood in the Water

We heard over the radio that there was a hippo being attacked by a bunch of crocodiles, so we thought, hey, “Let’s go fly over there and see if the hippo is okay”. As you can see below, he was not.

Blood in the Water

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-10-01 08:22:47
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/2000
  • Aperture4.5
  • ISO2000
  • Focal Length200.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

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Having a Snack in Africa

Join us in Africa!

I think we have two slots left for our Africa Photo Adventure! Come join me! 🙂

Daily Photo – Having a Snack in Africa

If I could be any animal in Africa, I think I’d like to be an elephant or a leopard. I think being an elephant would be fun because you can just kind of roam around, eat all day, hang out with your family and buddies, and contemplate life. Yeah, you have to watch out for the occasional poacher that wants to grind your tusks into a homeopathic medicine for superstitious Chinese people, but that’s more of an existential threat. The other option would be to be a leopard, like this one. You kind of rest all day, and then when you get hungry, you run 100mph and catch a warthog snack, then rest again, eating your warthog s’more on a tree.

Having a Snack in Africa

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-10-03 23:54:02
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/1250
  • Aperture4
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length200.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

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In the Danger Zone with the Cape Buffalo

Down in the Weeds

I love getting low to take these shots, but the only way I was able to get this one was from the water while on a boat. Normally, I’m up in a vehicle, which makes this sort of thing very difficult

Daily Photo – In the Danger Zone with the Cape Buffalo

These are the meanest of all the animals and the ones that the guides fear the most! I did not know that before I went… but when my guide got scared, I got scared.

In the Danger Zone with the Cape Buffalo

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-10-06 03:11:14
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/2500
  • Aperture4
  • ISO500
  • Focal Length200.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments

Mommy and Baby Elephant

Taken with the Sony FE 70-200mm Lens

Here’s one of the photos that is part of the new Sony FE 70-200 Review here on the site. The optical image stabilization really helped to make sure the shot was nice and crisp, even taken from a helicopter!

Daily Photo – Mommy and Baby Elephant

Aren’t they cute? It was really nice seeing so many baby elephants walking around. All the girls we were with would go CRAZY whenever we saw a baby elephant, but I think all the guys quite liked them too… we just kind of kept that stuff inside… you know us guys, all stoic and stuff.

Mommy and Baby Elephant

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-10-04 04:30:58
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/2000
  • Aperture4.5
  • ISO3200
  • Focal Length200.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments

New Sony FE 70-200 review

My Other Sony Goodies and Lenses

Go visit the often-updated My Equipment Page to see all my goodies!

Sony FE 70-200 – New Review

Go check out the new Sony FE 70-200 Review that just landed on the site! I just used this lens for the first time after my month in Africa. I’m now looking forward to using it more here for landscape-y shots in New Zealand. It’s so light and awesome!

Daily Photo – Alone in the desert

One great thing about a zoom lens like this 70-200mm (linked above) for landscape photography is it allows this nice effect called “compression,” where you can do effects like this: Bring in the two layers of sand dunes from beyond and make them look nice and overpowering.

For this particular one, I used the A6000, which is a cropped sensor camera. This means I was able to get in even tighter, as this camera will change the specs from 70-200 to 105-300.

Alone in the desert

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-09-25 19:07:16
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/1000
  • Aperture4
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length138.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments

Autumn Awesomeness in Queenstown

Sony A6000 Review!

Come see the new Sony A6000 Review! I’ll keep adding to it as the weeks and months go on, but I thought you might enjoy an early look! 🙂

Five Days of New Tips/Tricks Videos on the Blog! Day Three!

Let me know if you have any questions… happy to answer!

Here’s some behind-the-scenes from our recent autumn workshop! Don’t forget to check out the New Zealand Photo Adventure page to find out more about that upcoming event! It’s the only thing planned now for 2015… it’s gonna be another great one! 🙂

Daily Photo – Autumn Awesomeness in Queenstown

Even though I’ve been here three years now, I have only experienced one proper autumn! I travelled too much in previous years, so now I’m going to make a point to stay home more to be sure to get all these amazing colors. Amaze-maze I say! There is so much to explore and see and do around here in the Autumn. It’s just Spring now here, so I’ve got another five months or so to wait! But Spring and Summer ain’t so bad either!

Autumn Awesomeness in Queenstown

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-04-21 12:32:21
  • CameraILCE-7R
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/6000
  • Aperture
  • ISO100
  • Focal Length
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
  • Exposure Bias

Comments

Long Live the Painted Wolf!

The Wild Dogs of Africa

What an incredible species! It was so fun to track them across Botswana and finally catch up with them in Salinda.

Look, I sound like I know what I’m talking about, doesn’t it? I really don’t. Well, a little bit thanks to my friend Neville Jones who was my gallant trailfinder on this African adventure. He’s quite the African Explorer. He’s been to Botswana 7 times and never seen the Wild Dog before, so I can tell this is Kind Of A Big Deal.

We were staying at the Great Plains in Salinda — wow what a place! This fits perfectly into my wheelhouse because my idea of “roughing it” is slow room service. This amazing place is owned by Dereck & Beverly Joubert, who are now friends after our elongated stay! We had a wonderful dinner where they grilled me on social media! Haha… I had to think fast! I don’t remember what sort of advice I gave them, but it was just the beginning since I have a feeling I will work with them again… maybe on their great White Rhino conservation project.

Well this article is about the also Quite Endangered Wild Dogs, also known as the Painted Wolf. I like Painted Wolf better, don’t you? That’s a straight translation from the Latin Lycaon Pictus; another name that I also like is the Painted Ornate. It sounds like a Magic: The Gathering rare card doesn’t it? Awesome.

Botswana Amaze (310 of 2505)-6

They lie on the ground getting ready for something. These two are alert and smelling a wildness. They are watching something I don’t see.

 

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Holy fuck.

 

What Neville (and most people) find most fascinating about the Painted Wolf is their social structure. They live and hunt fiercely in packs. There’s a dominant male and female. They mate but the whole pack takes care of the young. They nestle the very young inside underground burrows that were made by warthogs or ardwolves (I didn’t think that was a real animal either — I feel like I should not have stayed home sick so much during kindergarten where normal kids Learn Their Animals).

The pack that we saw had eight members, and you could see how social and playful they are. There is also a wildness there. Sometimes, one would get close to me. I saw a regular, wonderful dog there… but sometimes you’d get a glimpse of a crazy-eyed-killer. There was something else feral and inter-dimensional going on in there…

Botswana Amaze (328 of 2505)-5

Here’s what they see across the way. It’s a warthog. At first I thought it was just a warthog head, placed there as some sort of a tribal effigy to warn other warthogs from coming into this den of wild dogs. But it was alive. It was just cold-chillin’ up there. Warthog don’t care. He’s inside an ardwolf mound. Yes, an ardwolf is a real animal.

 

One interesting thing (among MANY) about the Painted Wolves is how intimate they are with loving one another after waking up. They lick and nuzzle each other, a canine bacchanalia. At some point, the Alpha Male decides it’s time to hunt. Most of the pack takes off at 50km/h through the bush. They spread out like ebola and take down prey as they converge, as if they are a US Navy Seal team controlled via infrared by satellite. They quickly eat all they can and sprint back home before they can digest. The younglings chew on the bottom lip of the older dogs who regurgitate the viscera in a waterfall of ambrosial carnivorism.

I’m glad that the amazing Dereck & Beverly Joubert have done so much to influence the policies of Botswana to keep all these awesome animals wild. I felt like I was on a Star Trek away mission, watching an alien species that I didn’t even know existed for the trip. Thank you, Neville.

Botswana Mazy (238 of 1941)-12

These guys love to roll in the grass and play with their fellow painted wolves. Whenever they get up and become alert, they usually have a bit of grass here and there.

 

Botswana Mazy (168 of 1941)-13

Here’s the youngest pup we saw. He’d grab sticks and wander around the periphery, occasionally getting his stick stuck on other sticks.

 

Botswana Mazy (365 of 1941)-10

A wildness in there.

 

Botswana Amaze (389 of 2505)-3

Two of them stretch before going off for a possible 50km/h hunt.

 

Botswana Amaze (230 of 2505)-9

They would roll around in a semi-violent playfullness. See the painted wolf on the right? He was now heading off with the alphas. They went one at a time, in order of age. These two, the youngest, were last to follow.

 

Botswana Amaze (259 of 2505)-8

Downward wild dog.

 

Botswana Amaze (336 of 2505)-4

When he stared at me, there was no doubt that time stood still.

 

Botswana Mazy (302 of 1941)-11

Their coloring was so amazing. I see why they got the pretty name…

 

Botswana Amaze (400 of 2505)-2

Even while they walk together, they playfully attack one another.

 

Botswana Amaze (497 of 2505)-1

Their playfulness gets a bit wild and violent as they establish dominance in the pack.

 

Daily Photo – The Painted Wolf

What an awesome animal… I love the smile, I think, vaingloriously anthropomorphic.

The Painted Wolf

Photo Information

  • Date Taken2014-10-02 22:26:17
  • CameraILCE-6000
  • Camera MakeSony
  • Exposure Time1/1600
  • Aperture4
  • ISO400
  • Focal Length200.0 mm
  • FlashOff, Did not fire
  • Exposure ProgramManual
  • Exposure Bias

Comments