Read your copy of The Dan Bailey Photo Newsletter - May/June 2016
Published: Tue, 05/31/16
Hi ,
Oh man, I love this time of year!! I think June is my favorite month of all. The weather is usually awesome, and the days are the longest (sunset on summer solstice in Anchorage happens at 11:45PM), which means many endless days of hiking, bike riding, flying and of course, photography.
I hope you’re spending lot of time outside with your camera these days and finding the inspiration to push your creativity. Remember, creativity is not an end game, it’s a process. The more you practice and experiment with different ideas, and the more you get in the habit of exercising your creative skills each and every day, the more easily it will flow through you, especially during those times when you find yourself in front of a compelling subject in stunning light.
Also, don’t put too much pressure on yourself when it comes to being creative. It’s all a natural part of being human. Blocks do occur, but often times creative blocks stem from our own expectations and the hopes that we’ll step up to the plate and knock it out of the park whenever it counts. Expectations can get you in a lot of trouble in life, but if you hold true to this mindset that creativity is a process, you’ll take the pressure off yourself, and chances are, you’ll feel better about your photography.
Here are a couple of recent blog posts I’ve written about this topic. Hopefully they can help you unlock your creative mind even more.
There is No Failure In Creativity
Being Self Critical Within Your Creative Process
My summer workshop schedule with Alaska Photo Treks is coming into full swing this month. I’ll be running sunset photo tours every night this coming week, and I’ll be doing my first custom bear viewing photo tour next weekend. I spoke with the air taxi guys last week and was told that they’re seeing upwards of 20 bears each day right now! I’m really looking forward to that, especially since I now have the Fujifilm XF100-400mm lens and 1.4X teleconverter. (I’ll talk more about this lens below.)
If you happen to be in Anchorage this summer, and you want to do a Sunset Photo Safari workshop or a custom photo tour, or if you just want to do a couple hours of private instruction, please get in touch with me, even if you just want to say hi, that’s cool too- I always like meeting my readers in person. I met a few of my followers last weekend down at the Samy’s PhotoCon LA trade show in Los Angeles. Thanks to everyone who came to see my talk or who tracked me down at the Fujifilm booth!
Fujifilm Tips and Tricks Guide
Last month, I released my brand new e-Guide, Fujifilm Tips and Tricks: My 10 Favorite Settings for the X Series Cameras. It’s a free ebook for Fuji shooters and it’s designed to help you get the most out of your camera. These cameras have so many functions and features, many of which you might not know about, and I wrote the guide to show you just a few of the really powerful features I like to use a lot in my photography.
The guide is free, but it’s only available to my newsletter subscribers. If you haven’t gotten it yet, you can find the download link here. If you’re a X Series user, I hope you find the guide useful!
With that in mind, here’s something else that can help you get the most out of your camera this summer: USB battery chargers for camera batteries. These work with solar panels, like the Goal Zero Nomad 7 and the Venture 30 power pack, (these two items are available was a kit) which is what I use in my adventures, and they can be plugged into any USB outlet- even the console in your car or rental car. This will help you stay powered while you’re on the road, or even in the backcountry. I use this setup for bike touring and it works really well.
These aren’t just for Fuji shooters, in fact, I have a list of USB chargers for most of the other cameras systems as well, including Nikon, Canon and Sony.
Gear Corner
Summer rebates are here!! A huge amount of photography gear is on sale right now.
Fujifilm is current offering rebates on nearly every single body and lens. The X-T1 body is $300 off; it’s only $999 right now, and you get a free vertical grip with the deal. The X-T10 is only $599. My favorite Fuji wide angle lens, the XF14mm f/2.8 is $400 off right now, which means it’s almost half price. Almost all of the other lenses are on sale too. You can see the full list of Fujifilm rebates here. If you’re thinking of buying a Fuji or upgrading to a new body or lens, now is the time.
Sony also has rebates of up to $200, so if you’re an Alpha user, you probably want to check out what’s on sale as well.
Here is a list of all of the current photography gear rebate and sale items, they include a wide variety of Canon and Nikon bodies and lenses, flashes, PocketWizards and other lighting gear, Tripods, printers, drones… you name it.
My Favorite Memory Card
There are a lot of cards out there, but my favorite during the past couple of years has been the Sandisk Extreme PRO 95MB/s. I feel it offers a very fast write speed for the price, even when shooting in continuous mode with newer cameras. I use these in my X-T1 and they perform great. They’re pretty affordable, so I highly recommend stocking up on a few of these cards as we head into summer. If you want the fastest card possible for the best performance, you should look at the Sandisk 280MB/s cards.
A Look at The Fujifilm XF100-400 lens
One area where Fujifilm has been lacking in the past couple years has been the lack of a long telephoto. This has meant that many wildlife shooters have avoided looking at the Fuji system. The wait is over, though. Earlier this year, they brought out the much anticipated XF100-400 f/4.5-5.6 WR lens, and it’s gotten very good reviews.
I’ve been using this lens quite a bit during the past two months, and I can attest, the hype is well deserved. Not only the 100-400 extremely sharp, it’s not all that heavy for how much focal length you get. In fact, it fits in my very small Lowepro Flipside Sport 10L pack, which is my favorite lightweight hiking camera pack. I’ve hiked all up mountains all day with it and barely noticed the weight, and this from someone who never owned anything longer than a 200, simply because I didn’t want to carry it.
So far, I’ve put the 100-400 through its paces with a wide range of subject matter and it’s performed quite well. I have to say, I’m very impressed. Even though it’s not a fast f/2.8 lens, it tracks well, focuses very quickly, produces beautiful high contrast imagery, and it’s weather sealed. Occasionally I pair it with the XF 1.4TC, which gets me even further out. Here are few sample images from the past month.
You can order the 100-400 from either B&H Photo or Amazon, or check it out at your local shop. With the current rebates, if you order this lens, you can get the 1.4TC for only an additional $100.
For non-Fuji shooters: Nikon has an 80-400 lens, and Canon has a 100-400. Olympus has a 70-300 lens, which gives a similar view. Tamron also has their popular and very affordable 150-600 f/5-6.3 lens.
While although I haven’t used any of these lenses, the functionality and price point are very similar to the Fuji 100-400. If you’ve ever thought about getting a long lens, these are relatively affordable solutions for shooting wildlife and other super telephoto friendly subjects.
Around the Web
One thing that can help you become a better photographer is to deconstruct specific images you like. This process of going behind the scenes allows you to build your photographic vocabulary by showing you the techniques that other people have used to create their images.
With that in mind, here’s a behind the scenes for one of my favorite mountain biking shots. If you’d like to dive in deeper with more outdoor photography behind the scenes info, check out my ebook, Behind The Action: Creating Adventure Imagery, Step by Step.
Veteran National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry found himself a little overexposed this week with news that he’d (badly) Photoshopped a few of him images throughout his career. Not a big deal… except for a dedicated journalist photographer. File that into the “what not to do when you’re a photojournalist.” That said, Steve is still a fantastic photographer. Here’s the story behind his famous Afghan girl portrait.
While we’re on the subject of National Geographic, check out this amazing collection of images in their Travel Photographer of The Year Contest.
A good background can easily make or break a photo. More often than not, you want something clean that either helps accentuate your main subject, or that helps add to the story of the image. Here’s a good post called Seven Tips for Better Photographic Backgrounds by Scott Bourne. Check it out.
Depth of field is one of the most powerful visual aspects of photography, and fast lenses allow you to utilize this effect with maximum results. Read Fast Glass: Tips for Working with Wide Aperture Lenses for some ideas on how to get some great shallow depth of field looks in your photos.
We’re just a few days away from June 6, the 72th anniversary of D-Day. As we head into the first week of June and go about our great lives, it’s hard to comprehend what it must have been like during that first week of June for the thousands of people who prepared for and participated in this massive offensive, let alone those who actually raided the beach.
Not only do most of us owe at least a little bit of mind space to those whose lives were wrapped up in this event back in 1944, we owe it to ourselves to look at some of the photos that were shot on that fateful day. It reminds us that photography has always played a tremendous role in the world. It’s easy to forget this when we’re out shooting bike races and landscapes and climbers and stuff. Just search D-Day photos in Google Images and see where your eyes and mind take you.
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I hope you enjoy the first week of June, wherever you find yourself. As always, have fun with your photography and you creative process, and keep in touch. I always love hearing from readers.
Best regards,
Dan
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