Monthly Archives: February 2011

The Chimp Reserve

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On our safari, after a full day of traveling, there was an early morning flight from Nairobi to Tanzania. Our safari guides picked us up at the airport. They took us on an ATM safari before our actual safari started (more on that later).  Once we got the cash sorted, we left Moshi. Our first stop was at a chimpanzee reserve.  The stop was likely intended to get us out of the car and stretch our legs. However, there was an amazing reserve where there must have been a hundred chimpanzees just hanging out.  We dutifully stretched our legs. This was the first time we used one of our rental camera lenses. It was the Canon 100-400 mm monster.  That lens was incredible, and anytime that I go on another wildlife trek, I will rent that lens again.  Here’s one of the first looks at the chimps.

Canon XSi | Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L | 150mm | f/5.0 | 1/125th | ISO800

Over the Grounds at the Winery

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During out stay in Australia over the holidays, we went wine tasting in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne.  We visitied Sticks Winery, which was good, relatively easy drinking, fruit focused wines.  We visited Domaine Portet Winery, which was much more refined and classy.  Finally, we visited Tarrawarra winery, which was generally good wine, but had a feel of mass-production behind it.  We also had lunch at Tarrawarra, which was really good food, but the service was a little pretentious.  The photo below was looking out from the tasting room and over the grounds, which were beautiful.  Again, used HDR technique to give slightly more depth.

Canon 7D | Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 | 31mm | f/18 | 1/250th | ISO400

Apocolypse over Air New Zealand

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Hi all – apologies for the disappearance, but we’re back with some very special photos.  Here is my very first HDR shot.  For those of you that are not familiar, HDR stands for High Dynamic Range photography. It is a process where you combine a handful of photos. These photos have different exposure levels. They are combined to create a single image.  Opinion is pretty much split on this style of photography.  Many people say that the images are too color-contrasted. They argue that it makes images look flat.  Others say the images are closer to what the human eye sees. This is true if you don’t make the HDR look like a cartoon effect.

I personally like them, and here’s my first one.  We flew overnight between San Francisco and Auckland, New Zealand.  The sun was rising in the distance. I was trying out a new 14mm Canon lens that I bought. I was also adding in the HDR automatic exposure bracketing.  The result is sort of an ‘apocolypse over Air New Zealand’.  Hope you enjoy!!

Canon 7D | Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L | 14mm | f/5.0 | 1/100th | ISO100