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Traveling the Southwest with a Digital Camera
by Mary and Larry Berman |
Related Links:
Southwest Photo Gallery
Shooting the Slot Canyons
Digital Shooting Issues
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Overview
My wife and I have just finished eleven days of shooting in
Arizona and Southern Utah, visiting Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley,
Antelope Canyon, Bryce Canyon and Arches National Park. I took over 1500
pictures with the Nikon CoolPix 5000 and about 300 infrared pictures with
CoolPix 950. I created a Southwest Gallery on my web site and updated the
pictures daily. We used both Robert Hitchman’s Newsletters and Laurent Martrès
books extensively to pick the places to shoot at the right time to catch the
right light. That helped us maximize our time.
I would have never attempted a trip like this shooting
entirely digitally if I didn’t trust the camera as well as the medium. I briefly
had thoughts of taking one of my 35mm Nikon bodies and a few lenses as a back up, but
the cost associated with that was prohibitive as was having to actually carry
and shoot with both on a daily basis. As a result of this decision, my workflow
became easy. I ended up using a simple small F-803 Domke shoulder bag with the CoolPix
5000 and CoolPix 950 in the main pocket, wide angle lenses for both in one of
the front pockets and my infrared filters and polarizer in the other front
pocket. That bag and the small light weight Velbon tripod went with me every
time I left the van.
As a matter of fact, when I was shooting in the slot canyons,
two photographers came over to talk with me, explaining how they were initially
making fun of my equipment, until they saw how I was using it in the same
professional manner that they were using theirs. Though I was using a very
lightweight tripod (under two pounds) I was using my left hand to hold down the
tripod as I used my right hand to operate the camera. That made it as steady as
the heaviest tripod that they were using. Using the Xtend-a-View viewfinder on
the CoolPix 5000’s LCD screen made composing as accurate as if I had been using
an SLR.
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Preparation
I took the following equipment:
CoolPix 5000
WC-E68 wide angle lens
CoolPix 950 for shooting infrared
WC-E24 wide angle lens
CoolPix 990 as a backup for the CoolPix 5000
WC-E63 wide angle lens
TC-E2 2X teleconverter
Manuals for all three CoolPix Cameras
Xtend-a-View LCD view finder
Maha Powerbank 7.2 volts for the CoolPix 5000
Extra rechargeable AA batteries and chargers for the CoolPix
950/990
Dell Laptop with a 30 gig hard drive and CD burner and a full
compliment of image editing software
Photoshop 7 for my editing program
PanaVue for stitching software
3 tripods. The Gitzo Mountaineer
A heavy duty Gitzo for shooting panoramic photos
Velbon Maxi 343E (under 2 pounds) for hiking and as a back up
Kaidan Panoramic heads for all three CoolPix cameras.
Sandisk CompactFlash cards.
512 mb Ultra for the CoolPix 5000
128 mb for the CoolPix 950
192 mb as back up
Sanyo SCP 4700 Sprint phone with Internet capability so I could
get on line in the van while traveling
Robert Hitchman’s “Photograph America Newsletter” for all the
regions we were going to visit
Laurent Martrès books and CD’s “Photographing the Southwest” Volume
1 and 2. |
Procedure
Everything I shot was moved to my Dell laptop each evening.
I created folders for each camera by date and location. Then I burned a
CD. All total, I burned 11 CD’s of images as a back up to what I had on
the laptop. Each camera that had been used had it’s battery charged and
images transferred off the CompactFlash card whenever possible, if not
each evening. Some days we would go back to the motel after shooting and
charge the batteries and transfer the images before going out again.
Trying to shoot in the best light left us mid day non-shooting options for
our time. We tried to keep our shooting schedule to before 9:00AM and
after 4:00PM. Only once did I fill the 512 card completely and run down
the battery on the CoolPix 5000. That was when I was shooting the slot
canyons at Antelope Canyon. I scheduled a five-hour photographer’s tour
with a local company that was immensely helpful.
Antelope Canyon Tours.
They took us to the entrance of the canyon walked us through pointing out
where the sun would come down at specific times. I started shooting
immediately upon entering the slot canyon and didn’t stop until the tour
was over. I was carrying the
Maha Powerbank and as soon as I realized the
battery in the CoolPix 5000 was running down, I clipped the Powerbank to
my shirt pocket, plugged it into the camera and kept on shooting. The 512
card filled up at 351 high quality jpeg pictures. Once I started burning
CD’s, I started carrying the small folder of backed up CD’s in my camera
case so we wouldn’t loose any of our images if the van had been stolen, or
broken into and the laptop stolen. |
Issues
Exposure issues with highlights and contrast.
Shooting at the right time of day to capture classic
images under the best lighting conditions.
Trying to keep the sun out of the image because the
prosumer digital cameras have multi element zoom lenses with a tendency to
flare. Capturing the sunlight on the subject instead of silhouetting it.
The ability to work with the CoolPix 5000 in a similar
manner that I work with my 35mm Nikon equipment in that I didn’t let the
fact that I was shooting digitally slow down my shooting at the times that
were important. Not having to think about the limitations of the camera
and it’s associated support equipment. Will I run out of memory? Will the
battery last though I’m shooting the equivalent of 10 rolls of slide film
in a five-hour time frame? Will I have to stop shooting and read the
manual to figure out if I’m using the camera properly? All of these issues
slow your shooting down and make you stop and think. I wanted each
situation to be intuitive and let my creativity be all that I considered
when shooting.
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Problems
Problems were minor compared to what could have gone wrong. We experienced
a major sandstorm at Monument Valley, so severe that you couldn’t see the
road at 5:00 in the afternoon even with headlights on. My Gitzo
Mountaineer locked up from the blowing sand the next morning and I had to
finish the trip shooting with the Velbon. Also that morning, the CoolPix
5000 wouldn’t turn on. But after taking the battery out, cleaning the
contacts by blowing the sand out, it worked fine. That was the closest I
had to having a camera failure and never once needed my CoolPix 990. |
Shooting
I had previously used the CoolPix 5000 for about six weeks to review
it so I was comfortable with it. But I was worried about getting
properly exposed pictures on such an important, once in a lifetime
trip. Also I was familiar with the complaints of digital camera users
who report blown out highlights. I studied the manual to make sure I
knew how to bracket. But as things turned out, I resorted to my
procedure of using the Exposure Lock button to create bracketed
exposures. I treat shooting digital like shooting transparency film by
exposing for the highlights. In difficult situations I have always
bracketed generously not worrying about the cost of film. With
digital, there is no cost of film, and you can easily see if the
exposure is correct be viewing the LCD screen. My technique is to
point the camera at a brighter area of the scene, lock the exposure by
holding down the Exposure Lock button, recompose and shoot. Every
picture was taken on a tripod so there was no question about camera
movement, especially since I was holding the tripod down solidly with
my left hand while shooting. I think I deleted a total of three
pictures because they were not sharp. I use the
Xtend-a-View LCD
magnifying finders on my digital cameras, always, for three reasons.
They allow critical composition on the LCD, they allow shooting in
bright sunlight, and most important, they allow me to use the CoolPix
like a SLR by resting the camera against my face to balance it when
shooting. |
| Contents of this page © 2002 Chris Maher
and Larry Berman and is protected under United States and International
copyright laws and may not be reproduced, stored, or manipulated without
written permission of the authors. |
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