Hello again guys,
Divegypsy here again. I’m really pleased with the direction and new thoughts people are expressing since I stirred the fire a few days ago. A few more thoughts.
Dynamic range. If you want a longer dynamic capture range. And to increase the percentage of successful shots. Forget digital. And forget transparency film. Shoot negative film, which can hold a greater brightness range than either of the preceding two. National Geographic has done exactly that on several stories where the brightness range of the primary shooting situations exceeded the brightness range capabilities of transparency film. One of the stories was about people who harvested birds nests from seaside caves in Thailand. By a French photographer if I remember correctly. But NGS pictures editors HATED the workflow which required making prints of virtually every frame for the selection process. Today’s film scanners would allow the negative film to be scanned and edited more or less in the same way digital images are. And also on the negative side, transparency film has a nicer, sharper grain structure than negative film.
Following up on Alex’s comment about the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest. I also thought that WPoY was a very good contest when I did enter it, for two or three years. But then they changed the rules concerning their picture usage rights from five years use limited to promoting the contest, to usage for the lifetime of the copyright, ie your LIFETIME plus twenty-five years. And said that they no longer needed your permission to use the pictures for any use that involved the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest OR associated WpoY products. Several times during the years, maybe three years total, that I entered the contest I had declined the offer of a calendar company which wanted to use contest pictures (including “also ran†commendations – I had some also-rans, too). I seem to remember the company was called Inkspot and they asked to use the picture and be guaranteed exclusive world-wide calendar use for that year. For just $100! Under the rules which took effect when I stopped entering the contest, I would not have been able to say no. And my pictures could have been given to anyone for such use in any year for the REST OF MY LIFE! Which would also mean that I could NEVER sell my own picture to a calendar client of my own choosing and guarantee them ANY kind of exclusivity for that picture in calendars that year. I would have LOST any ability to guarantee any client the kind of exclusivity many of them expect forever. So after writing to the Wildlife of the Year contest people about my objections with the new usage rules. And getting no response what-so-ever. I stopped entering the contest because I no longer felt I could enter any of my best work. I hope they have changed their rules. I haven’t looked lately.
And many other photo contests are even MORE EXPLOITATIVE of entries. I saw a recent National Geographic sponsored contest where the rules stated they could use ANY picture entered in the contest, in ANY way they wanted, without any compensation. SO if they saw a great shot and wanted to use it in the Magazine, or in any number of their books, or even for promotional advertisements, they could legally do so. And they not have been obligated to give anything to the photographer, whether or not the picture had won a prize.
I was pleased to see that the recent contests associated with WetPixel limited use of the winning picture to ONLY announcing contest results and promotion of future years of te same contest. This is the way it should be. Especially when you are required to pay an entry fee.
OK, ‘nuff said about contests and exploitation. These days I just don’t enter any.
The original topic, the Nikon F6. In addition to my excessive (5) number of F5’s, I also own one F6. I bought it for topside shooting. And like it very much for that, although at times I think it has too many focusing points. And although you can “cluster†the AF-points, they do not “cluster†in the pattern I would like best. THE F6, Underwater. Having used the camera for a while now, I am generally less excited about using it underwater than I was initially. Reasons. Firstly, NO ACTION FINDER. Some of the supplementary viewfinder optics, such as those by Seacam, are really quite good. But still not as quite as bright and clear as an action finder. And far less compact. To me, what you see when taking the picture is very important, critical. If I can’t really see exactly where the focus is, that’s can be a big problem.
Auto-focus is getting better and better. But it is still mechanical, and “unintelligentâ€. It doesn’t know what part of the subject is really important. Auto-focus works on contrast, brightness difference. And an animals eyes, where you usually want the focus, is frequently not the area with the greatest contrast difference. And auto-focus will “zero in†on a point, a bit in front of or behind the eye, especially if the eye camouflaged, or situated within a dark line. Because there is more contrast at that “wrong†point. This is where seeing really well through the viewfinder comes in. You can see the “miss†and correct it before the shot.
As I mentioned before, maybe the F6 has too many focus points. And switching between them would involve too much time and too many mechanical movements with the control linkages of an underwater housing. The five focus points of the F5 is good, though I think five in the shape of the five dots on a dice rather than like a + pattern might be a bit nicer. My F5 housings have been modified so that I can very easily switch between the focus points WITH the housing held at my eye. No housing I have seen for the D2X makes changing the focus points easy and fast while held at eye-level. They usually have four little spring-loaded push buttons that you really can’t reach readily while holding the camera at your eye. And you may have to push different buttons multiple times to move the foucs point from one area of the picture to another more distant one. The F6 would be equally difficult to change focus points on in a housing as it also has eleven focus points.
One type of subject matter where I think the F6 (or a D2X) might be really advantageous is shooting marine mammals where you would most often be using ambient light only exposures and a wide-angle lens. The auto-focus capabilities of this generation (F6 & D2X) Nikon are even better than that of my F5’s. In this situation, you could activate all eleven focus points simultaneously and choose the “closest focus priority†option to select between them. With the basic workings of a dome port and a wide-angle lens, where there is more depth-of-field behind the point focused on than in front of it, this could be very effective in getting the focus accurately placed on a subject type that is frequently dark and relatively low in contrast. I notice someone has said that Nexus now has a housing for the F6. Historically I have felt Nexus housing have been a bit “control-deficientâ€. But if I were going to shoot a lot of whales or pinnepeds, I would probably give the Nexus housing a serious look.
Someone named Drew posted an experience about shooting in Africa with an “old manâ€, a Filmosaurus like me, who shot only 40 shots on a day where Drew shot 1600. Yet came up with “amazing stuff, while I got mediocre..†This also says again what I said in my post a week or so ago. Rephrased - that maybe shooting only a few shots at exactly the right moment was more important and effective than shooting hundreds. And giving the animal time to adjust to your presence and taking time to watch the animal and learn from the animal, is even more important and more rewarding. I dive with two housings only rarely. And do so primarily so that I can have two different lenses and two very different photo capabilities. Not to have 72 shots instead of 36. I would guess that on well over half of my dives, I don’t even finish the 37 shots I have in the camera. I think one of the disadvantages of digital is that you can have too many pictures. And feel you “have†to take advantage of them. When you are shooting, you aren’t really seeing and learning from the subject. Too much of the thought process is focuses on the mechanics of the camera and flash. And things like composition. Quantity is no substitute for quality.
In a more recent post Michel, AKA Manatee19, says, “..what counts is the satisfaction expressed by the customer…†Again, this is exactly the opposite of my current point of view. In the past I sometimes worked on projects that I thought would “sell†or advance my career. In reality, these projects were NEVER as successful financially, nor as satisfying, and the projects that I did, FIRST and FOREMOST, to PLEASE MYSELF. And that is how I would today. I won’t take on any project or accept any assignment that first and foremost doesn’t really interest and excite ME. And I work on a project until I am really satisfied with it or give up on it. And only when I am satisfied, do I show it or try to sell it. How can I expect anyone else to like or be excited about something that I am not, personally? And usually, in the realm of the kind on biological story that I like to do best, the basic idea is what is usually what is most important.
At a DEMA show the year after my “crinoid†story was run in National Geographic, I had a conversation with Hawaiian underwater photographer Mike Severns. He said he thought the story was nice, but that the real elegance of the story was the idea. That was because he said that he, and probably a couple dozen other underwater photographers, all had enough similar pictures to have done a similar story. But none of them had thought to put it all together in the same way. Within a year of the Geographic publication, similar pictures sets and stories about crinoids and the animals that live with them had run in about half a dozen dive magazines that I saw. It was the idea, the concept, that made the project really fun and exciting for me while I was doing it. And successful in the magazine world where my story sold not only to National Geographic, but also to German, French and Koren GEO’s, and several other big magazines.
And to many people who ask if my job is hard, I often say that taking underwater pictures isn’t really any harder than shooting on land. (For me it is actually easier) Just different. And that the hard part of my job is to think of a really good story idea and do it before some magazine editor thinks of it. Because if the magazine thinks of it first, they will simply go to one or more photo agencies until they find all the pictures they want for their story. And in that case, if I’m lucky, one or two of the pictures they use will be mine. IF I walk in the magazines door with the story idea, all done, they buy all the pictures from me.
Business aspects aside, what I really feel is most important, is to first please yourself.
Life is too short to do anything else. The image is all that really counts when sharing with others. But personally, the experience is what has real meaning.
divegypsy
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