Dave Hartley

Laysan Albatross on Midway Atoll

I uploaded an initial batch of photographs from my recent trip to Midway Atoll. You can access them through my Galleries page or directly via this link.

Here is a YouTube link to two Laysan Albatross doing their dance on Midway Atoll.

Here is a YouTube link to a whole field of Laysan Albatross on Midway Atoll.

Here is a YouTube link to two Black-footed Albatross doing their dance on Midway Atoll.

Rotating Rubber caps on the Nikon D3/D3x

The Ten-pin remote and flash sync terminals on the Nikon D3/D3x have rubber caps that are attached to the camera. This is a big improvement over the small screw caps that were on previous models. However, I found that the rubber caps would sometimes get in the way when attaching remote cords. The other day, I was attaching a remote, and had a moment of clarity. The rubber caps actually rotate, so you can move them out of the way. This is shown in the photo. It’s only taken me a 18 months of using the camera to find this neat feature!

Two images demonstrating the difference in angle of view when using long and short lenses

I recently spent a week at Midway Atoll; this is located about 3200 miles west of my home town of San Francisco. To say that this is an incredible location to photograph birds is an understatement. It is the equivalent of St. Andrews Bay on South Georgia, with endless opportunities. Both locations allow you to use your range of focal lengths, from long to really wide. The images on the left show the possibilities. I was photographing the pair of Black-footed Albatross with a 14-24mm. Joe Van Os asked me to hold the pose whilst he photographed me with a 500mm lens with the Albatross in the foreground. Whilst “modeling”, I snapped a few images of him, showing the picture from my perspective. Everybody has a favorite lens, but you should remember to shoot with various focal lenses so that your images show different points of view.

Pelican 1550 with Nikon D3 and D2x

Sometimes when traveling via air, it’s necessary to put your equipment in checked luggage. This all depends on which airline you are traveling with and their carry on restrictions. One of the most trusted storage options are Pelican cases.   Choosing which case is suitable for your needs is often a hard choice. One of the best options is to take your equipment down to your local camera store and try them out. It’s amazing how a case which on paper seems large suddenly shrinks in size when you start putting your gear in. I find the padded dividers work best for me as it allows me to reconfigure the case as needed.

One of the key things to consider is the internal height of the case. This is especially important if you have one of the “pro” bodies that have an integrated vertical grip. A large number of cases that on paper look fine will not work when you try to put a Nikon D3/D3x in them. The reason being is their interior height is much too short, making it impossible to shut the case lid! The photo shows a Pelican 1550 case with a D3 on the left and a D2x on the right; this case has an interior height of 7.62″. You can see that this case is the minimum height that allows you to store the camera upright. Cases such as the 1450 and 1500 do not have sufficient interior height (6″ and 6.93″ respectively). You would have to lay the camera down flat with these cases, hence consuming precious space.

A king Penguin and Antarctic Fur Seal with the M/V Ushuaia

Last week on Thursday 4th December, the MV Ushuaia grounded in the Antarctic Peninsula. Luckily, nobody was hurt and all the passengers have been taken safely off the ship. Full details can be found at the IAATO website  (see the press release section). We sailed on the M/V Ushuaia on our trip to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island and Antarctica back in January 2008. The ship has a great crew and we wish them well. One of the photographs I took on that trip is shown on the left, with the M/V Ushuaia on the horizon with a King Penguin and Antarctic Fur seal in the foreground.

Country Road

Images from our 3.5 day trip to Northern Ireland are now online. We had a great time travelling with a friend. Although we had typical weather… two days of rain and one good day, the scenery and people were “grand”. Next time we’ll plan a longer trip so that we can cover Ireland. I’m still processing some of the images, so more may be added in the future. You can access the photos via the Galleries tab or directly using this link.

The last rays of light hit a cactus and Elephant tree growing in the lava flow of the Tres Virgenes

Photographs from our trip to Baja California Sur, Mexico, are now online. This trip included photographing California Gray whales. You can access the photographs via the Galleries tab or directly using this link.

We have 47 of our photographs on display in the gallery at Keeble & Shuchat Photography. The collection consists of landscape and wildlife photography from the African Savannah to the frozen continent of Antarctica. The exhibitions runs Dec 2 through Jan 15. We’ll be holding a reception on Saturday January 10th 2pm-5pm. The photographs are in the gallery, which is up the stairs and past the darkroom/repair department.

Keeble & Shuchat Photography

290 California Avenue

Palo Alto

CA 94306

Here’s a map

Launch of STS-126

On Friday November 14th, we were lucky enough to watch the night launch of the Endeavour space shuttle from the Causeway at the Kennedy Space Center. This was pretty amazing to say the least and was quite challenging to photograph. The cropped image shows the launch, just as the shuttle cleared the tower. The orginal photograph was taken in portrait orientation, with my D3, 200-400 with 1.4 teleconverter, ISO 800, 1/125 sec @ f11. The causeway is about 6.5-7 miles from the launch pad. I”ll be posting an article on my experiences photographing the night launch in the near future.

During my recent travels, I’ve been keeping a log of camera battery usage. I did this to get a better feeling on how the camera and battery combinations were working so that in the future I would have a good idea on how many batteries I would need out in the field.

The first major workout for my D3 was our trip to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the Antarctic peninsula. This was a twenty five day cruise in the Southern Ocean. I used the Nikon EN-EL4a rechargeable Li-ion battery exclusively taking a total of three on the voyage. The usage statistics for this trip are shown below (14-bit RAW capture with loss less compression). The lenses used and the approximate percentage of use were the 17-35/2.8 (~15%), 28-80/2.8 (~10%), 70-200/2.8 (~15%) and 200-400/4 (~60%). The 70-200 and 200-400 lenses have VR and this was enabled.  Weather conditions on the Falklands are similar to England (rain, wind, sleet, sun, all in about 60 minutes!). South Georgia is colder, with temperatures from just below freezing to about 5C (windchill can lower this considerably if you get Katabatic winds). The Antarctic peninsula was about the same as South Georgia. During the trip, I never had to change a battery whilst out shooting.

D3 Battery Usage for the Falkland Islands, South Georgia & Antarctica 2008

Compare these numbers with a trip to Antarctica and the Falkland Islands that we did in late November/ early December the previous year. This was early in the season and hence we had colder weather whilst in Antarctica. I was also shooting with the D2x as the D3 became available whilst we were away. The lenses used were almost identical to those mentioned before with the 12-24/4 being used instead of the 17-35/2.8. Both EN-EL4a and the lower capacity EN-EL4 were used; capture was 12-bit uncompressed RAW.

D2x Battery Usage for Antarctica and the Falkland Islands 2007

Notice that the average number of pictures increased with the D3 compared with the D2x. You can also see the higher capacity EN-EL4a performing much better than the EN-EL4.

Finally, some statistics for the D3 in hot climates. The D3 with the EN-EL4a was used for a trip to Belize for the last two weeks of May 2008. The first week was spent in the jungle whilst the second week was spent offshore on the two of the Cayes. Temperature was very hot, around 38C (100F) with humidity through the roof in the jungle; on one of the Cayes, we were photographing Red footed Boobies on a platform, in absolutely scorching sun, so temperature was around the same but humidity was lower. The same lenses were used (17-35, 28-70, 70-200, 200-400) with the 200-400 being used for about 90% of the images. All images 14-bit RAW capture with loss less compression.

D3 Battery Usage for Belize

The middle battery numbers included using the live-view feature in tripod mode; this tends to use up more batteries due to the use of the rear LCD. Normally I would expect the battery performance to be better in warmer conditions, but the numbers are slightly distorted due to the more intensive use of the 200-400 (with VR) and also the live view mode.