This week I thought I’d post some landscapes from my trip. For the most part, I used my 70-300 mm lens but once in a while I pulled out the Sigma 10-20 mm or my kit 18-55 mm kit lens to capture the vastness of space around us. On a safari we all want to get close, really close to our subject matter. We try everything we can to do this–2x teleconverter on a long zoom lens and then we ask the driver to position us in the closest possible vantage point. That’s how we’re able to get images like the one I posted on Friday (although I didn’t use a teleconverter).
Once you make up your mind to step back it can be quite challenging to get a good landscape image. You are shooting from a vehicle so sometimes you have nothing of interest in your foreground. On our safari we also had pressure to keep moving although I’m not sure why. From what I’ve seen, landscape photographers take their time to compose their images often waiting for the right light and there just wasn’t that opportunity on our game drives. And then there is the fact that most times you cannot get out of your vehicle leaving landscape shots taken from your camp or hotel as your only option.
What I’d like to do this week is get readers involved in sharing what they might do to improve my images given these constraints. Ideally it would have been great to have this input while I was there but sharing your thoughts will help others who may be going on a safari and also when I return to Africa (yes, I am already scheming on how to get back there). I took this image with my Sigma 10-20 mm lens from the vehicle while on the Maasai Mara Game Reserve. It has been processed in Photoshop with the usual levels, colour, saturation and contrast adjustments to the RAW file. There is no sharpening but I did clone out some dry patches of grass in the immediate foreground and use the healing tool to remove dust spots on my sensor. That’s all for the disclosures.
I look forward to your comments and suggestions!
Lack of time is the enemy of photography. It may only take 1/250th of a second for the shutter to expose all those pixels, but not just any 1/250th of a second will do.
Sometimes we see the shot unfold right in front of us and can simply stop and click, but far more often we need to be patient. We need to give ourselves time to feel, to think and to wait for the right 1/250th of a second. So I think that the first thing I’d do is tell the driver that I want to see less – much less – but for longer.
There is a fear of missing something, but the best chance of missing something is by trying to see too much and missing everything.
Wonderful shot Sabrina!