• All Phase One equipment will be provided if you don’t already own Phase One gear
• This trip is all about private airplanes, privacy and breathtaking landscapes
• This private flying safari covers fascinating attractions in Namibia while enjoying much of the stunning landscape from the air.
• We will fly to three amazing destinations in southern, central and northern Namibia: Sossusvlei, Serra Cafema and the deserted mining town of Kolmanskop.
• The Namib Desert may well be the world’s oldest desert. The apricot-colored dunes at Sossusvlei are some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. Herds of mountain zebra, gemsbok and springbok roam the area.
• In all the parks you will have the opportunity to spend quality photographic time.
• Finish on a high note in the magnificent northern landscapes along the Serra Cafema mountain range near Angola.

For more information, please visit my informational page about this trip

Namibia’s Remote Landscapes by Private Air

The Skeleton Coast from the air

Flying above the dunes near Sossusvlei

The deserted mining town of Kolmanskop

Camera Bags

• Gura Gear Kiboko 22L+
• Gura Gear Chobe 19-24L shoulder bag

 Camera Eqiupment

• Nikon D4 (rented from Borrowlenses.com)
• Nikon D800
• Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII
• Nikon 300mm f/2.8 VR (rented from Borrowlenses.com)
• Nikon 1.4x teleconverter

Camera Stabilization for Safari Vehicle and Video At Camp

• Really Right Stuff Safari Clamp kit (Safari Clamp, monopod with leveling base)
• Really Right Stuff TVC-24L carbon fiber tripod
• Really Right Stuff PG-02 FG gimbal head
• Really Right Stuff BH-40 ballhead
• Cinevate Atlast 10 FLT 26” slider
• Manfrotto 701HDV video head
• Kinesis Safari Sack, filled with buckwheat hulls

Video / Audio Accessories

• Sony UWP-V1 wireless lav microphone
• Tascam DR-40 audio recorder
• Klipsch X10i earphones

Power

• Sanyo Eneloop AA rechargeable batteries
• Nikon D800 charger
• Nikon D4 charger
• Nikon EN-EL15 extra batteries (2 extra) for D800
• Nikon EN-EL18 extra battery (1 extra) for D4
• South Africa travel adapters (a bunch, as my travelers sometimes don’t have enough)
• Wonpro 250V Universal Power Strip

Computer

• Apple Macbook Pro 13” with 250gb SSD
• Apple Macbook Pro charger
• Apple iPad and charger

Storage

• Compact Flash Cards. I have 32GBx4, 16GBx6 and a few smaller ones. I prefer Sandisk Extreme Pro cards, but not all of them are what I desire. :-(
• Seagate GoFlex 1.5TB external hard drives (2)

Cleaning and Repair 

• Gura Gear microfiber cloth (too many to count)
• Giottos Large Rocket Blower
• Really Right Stuff hex wrenches (many sizes)
• Jeweler’s screwdriver set
• Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly 724 Cleaning Kit

Miscellaneous Items, excluding clothing and toiletries

• Headlamp
• AMOD GPS logger
• Gaffer Tape - I cutt off 1-foot sections, roll each section up and put them in all pockets in my Kiboko bag. These help cover up VR/IS switches and other places where we don’t want a function to be turned on or off.
• Micro Leatherman
• USB cables / Firewire cables

Sparring Elephants

Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

Canon 1DsMk3, 500mm f/4, 1/800 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 500

I went outside in my backyard yesterday on this amazing Spring morning to shoot a quick video of our Gura Gear Kiboko 22L+ camera bag. Take a quick look!

Shooting from a Zodiac

Somewhere in the southern Ocean around Antarctica, December 2011

Leica S2, Summarit-S 35mm, 1/4000 @ f/4, ISO 320

We set up with our vehicles in one of the only places where we could have a clear shot of her, and luckily the light was in the best location possible. When I am photographing with water, rain, smog, fog or anything that fills the atmosphere I want to shot it off. The best way to do this is to place the light source, the sun, at an angle that puts the light coming towards the camera. This illuminates it in such a way that helps show it off, as opposed to hides it. I do prefer shooting into the sun anyway, as this helps define the edges of whatever I am shooting. Remember the adage “light illuminates and shadows define”. You don’t have definition without shadows, and without shadows you lose any sense of 3D to a scene.

We had just a few moments to set up, choose our best lens and camera settings and get the shot sequence. I set the camera to manual mode and selected a shutter speed that would freeze the splashing water and leopard, and whatever aperture did that would be fine with me. I took a quick exposure, looked at the histogram and made a quick change. I was more interested in getting the shape of the leopard than worries aboout blown highlights or ‘shadow detail’. Shadow detail is a term that drives me nuts, because it doesn’t reall mean anything and I hear about it all of the time in images that lack any contrast or soul. It all started when Photoshop introduced the Shadows & Highlights tool. But I digress. All shots taken with a Nikon D3x, 200-400mm f/4, 1/800 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 500.

Leopard and her dinner

Rhino in the Sabi Sands

 Interior of Singita Castleton

Outdoor dining on clear nights

I get asked many questions about my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom workflow, and I thought it would be a good exercise to jot the steps down, along with some random notes. This is a workflow that I use if I am out in the field and won’t be using my favorite plugins such as Nik Software’s Viveza 2 or Silver Efex Pro 2.

Library Module

Import

         Optional: metadata (copyright information goes into images)

         Optional: Preset development ‘recipe’

         Previews: standard

Develop Module

Crop (‘R’ keyboard shortcut)

Spot Removal

You can use either Clone or Heal. Just do whatever it takes to get what you want. Use the bracket keys ( [ and ] ) to increase/decrease size of the brush. Use Command and + or – to zoom in or out, and use the space bar to enable moving around within the frame.

Lens Corrections (If Available)

I rarely, if ever, do manual lens corrections. Perhaps I just don’t have the patience. J

Camera Calibration

Optional: camera profile, other than standard. You can create your own profile(s) with X-Rite ColorChecker Passport ($99)

White Balance

This is a creative tool, not a scientific tool. Just do what looks good. 5000 is mid-day light, and any movement of the slider to the right will warm up your image and to the left will be cooler.

Exposure

This sets the overall brightness. Unlike LR3, the Exposure slider does not set the white point. Hold down the ALT key when setting the Exposure to see what will be clipped or thrown away.

Contrast

This slider sets the overall contrast of your image. You will be able to fine tune the contrast with the next 4 sliders beneath it (Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks).

Highlights

Think of this slider as anything that is bright but not too close to white. You can use this slider to brighten up your brights, without affecting the color of white. See Whites below for more. This is the easiest way to create or preserve a presence in your images.

Shadows

“Poor Man’s Fill Flash’. Use this to a minimum if possible. Overuse will cause an image to lack contrast. I do prefer to use the Tone Curve to be more specific, but this is a great tool for a broad stroke type purpose.

Whites

This used to be called the Recovery slider in LR3 and before, but this time the slider affects more tones.

Blacks

This slider affects the darkest areas of the image. I use this to set my black point as an anchor to

Clarity

Don’t do it. It’s like riding a scooter. It may be fun, but you don’t want your friends to see you doing it.

Vibrance

Newer version of Saturation slider. Non-linear in nature. It will increase saturation of less saturated colors faster than the colors that are already saturated.

Saturation (if not using Vibrance)

I never use this, as it is a blunt tool that will make it easy to blow out your most vivid color in your scene.

Tone Curve

I start off by increasing Lights and decreasing Darks by opposite, but equal amounts. (ex: +10 and -10). I typically am more dramatic with the Lights and Darks and the Highlights and Shadows are closer to zero. When working with B&W images, all bets are off and I do whatever it takes to get contrast. I usually start off with a Medium Contrast curve, but sometimes do use the Linear or Strong ones. It just depends.

HSL (Hue / Saturation / Luminance)

Use the targeted adjustment tool. Click on the little circle to ‘undock’ the tool. Go to your image and click and drag up or down to affect the H / S or L values of all similar tones/colors in the image. Poor Man’s Polarizer = Increase saturation on sky and decrease Luminance on sky. Make sure you have a nice blue in the sky to begin with.

Split Toning

Used only for B&W images. I use nothing for Highlights and a range of 40-50 for Hue and Saturation of between 5 and 20 for the Shadows. This creates a nice split tone warm image, without dulling the highlights.

Sharpening

I usually only vary the Amount and Masking. To use the Mask, hold down the Option/Alt key to see what is going to be sharpened.

Noise Reduction

I only vary the Luminance slider, and rarely go beyond 15 or 20. If the image is underexposed by more than a stop, you may need to slide the Color slider to the right to eliminate stray pixels that are blue or red (easy to detect).

Post-Crop Vignetting

Use sparingly. Remember it is uniform around all edges, so it might be visible. I use something like a negative 5 to 10 for the amount, and the Feather of around 80 (less sharp gradient).

Grain

I sometimes have to add grain to a B&W image that I am printing really really big. The goal is to fill in the gaps and mask out some of the issues with a lower megapixel file.

Graduated Filter (M)

I use to darken skies. I only use Brightness, and never Exposure, as Exposure weakens the whites in clouds.

Click and drag from beginning of where you want to darken and end where you want to end. The longer the drag, the longer the gradient effect is. Hold down SHIFT key to make the gradient a 90 degree / straight line.

Adjustment Brush (K)

I use this brush for many purposes. I can:

• dodge and burn
• paint contrast into a small area like a face of a cat
• brighten eyes
• increase clarity on clouds
• local use of noise reduction
• warm up / cool down an area of the scene with the Temp slider

Hold down ALT key to remove areas that you didn’t mean to brush. Use bracket keys to increase/decrease brush size.

Keyboard Shortcuts

• R = crop
• G = grid view (Library module)
• E = Loupe view (Library module)
• D = Develop module
• Tab = toggles left/right panels
• F = different full frame views
• CTRL and ‘+’ = zooms in when using a tool that can be zoomed in
• ‘space bar’ = move around within an image
• O = Overlay view

Drinking Elephants

Near Lake Ndutu, southern Serengeti Plains, Tanzania. February 2012

Pentax 645D + 400mm f/5.6, 1/250 @ f/5.6, ISO 400

Cheetah and Her Cubs

Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. March 2012

Pentax 645D + 400mm f/5.6, 1/100 @ f/5.6, ISO 800

Sunrise and the Lion

Masai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya. March 2012

Pentax 645D + 300mm f/4, 1/125 sec @ f/8, ISO 200

Perfect Wildlife Photography and Post Editing with Adobe Lightroom 4 and Nik Software
Monday, April 30 from 4 to 6pm

Cheetah on a Termite Mound

Olare Orok Conservancy, Kenya. March 2012

Pentax 645D, 300mm f/4, 1/1000 @ f/5, ISO 200

After a 3-week absence, I am back home with my family here in Houston. I had two amazing safaris, as I split my time between Tanzania and Kenya for each. The first safari in Tanzania was a published departure with 12 travelers, and the second safari in Kenya was a private safari that was not published online. I am sorting through my limited set of raw files, and I think I have some real keepers that I will be proud of. I mostly shot video on these safaris, and so I only came home with about 1,000 files from a borrowed Pentax 645D medium format camera.

There is a story in here that I need to tell about medium format digital for wildlife photography, and the short story is that the technology works perfectly for my needs. In the past year I have been seeking out a way to be able to produce bigger prints with more detail, better color and overall image quality. I have borrowed a Leica S2 system for my Antarctica trip, a Pentax 645D for these past safaris, and I will be using Phase One gear for one or more of my trips to Botswana and Namibia last on this year. I suspect I know what I will end up with in the end, but it has been a fascinating process so far.

I have the luxury of not having to shoot for anybody else but me, which means I can take a new camera system that might only yield 1 usable photograph per few days of work. That’s ok with me, because I would like to have only a handful of portfolio additions each year. Any more and it would exceed my expectations, but my expectations are quite low as it is. I would rather have a few amazing images that I can reproduce at any size that is requested than to say that a particular image can only be printed up to 16x24.

Time to get cracking on some raw files, a trip report, video footage and some sleep time in my own bed.

2012 is going to be a very busy year for me, as I have 8 (yes, eight) safaris planned. A typical year for me is that I spend the early part of the year in Tanzania, and then I move down to southern Africa for the second half of the year. The reasoning has to do with rainfall and when the best months to be out on safari for each country are. So the second half of 2012 is when 6 of my safaris will happen, which is going to put some miles in my airline frequent flier account, for sure. Every now and then I wonder if I should just live in Africa full time, because the travel back and forth can be a bit of a burden. I will lose 8 to 10 days this year due to international travel alone. Oh well.

As far as my 2012 schedule goes, you will notice that most of my safaris are already booked up or only have 1 or 2 spaces left. I am in the process of planning my 2013 year, and I will have them listed on my web page in the coming month or so. I am honored to have safaris that are in high demand, and work tirelessly to exceed expectations that my travelers have of me and my services. If you are on the fence about a safari in your future, please know that my safaris do book up early, especially if you are looking for discounts for significant others. I offer 25% to 50% discounts on some of my safaris to those who wish to bring along their significant others and who are willing to share their row with him/her. These discounts are usually limited to certain Botswana safaris, due to how my cost structure works. So if you are thinking about a 2013 safari, take a look at my 2012 schedule to get an idea of what type of safari meets your luxury level and budget.

Laurie Rubin and I recently co-ran a webinar, featuring Nik Software products. Laurie and I processed some images from our safari together in Kenya last fall, and we had a few laughs during the 1-hour presentation. Take a peek and hopefully a few nuggets of information will be of use to you.

Take a Photo Adventure on the Wild Side - with Andy Biggs and Laurie Rubin

Remember that you can earn a 15% discount on all Nik Software products by using ABIGGS as your code when checking out.