What a journey! Is it still planet Earth or the 2200 miles I did brought me to the moon? The Southwest landscapes are truly breathtaking. Photographing them is a challenge since most of the places are already over-photographed and close to becoming cliché. However, with this kind of thinking you’re not doing much in life, so I decided to give it a try, keeping in mind to try something different each time. This trip will be divided into two different posts: the first will deal about Arizona and the second will take care of Utah. I will only post 4 pictures of each places I visited.
- The Grand Canyon South Rim [#1 to #4]: So big that you have trouble to really realize the distances. I went there for 1 sunrise and 1 sunset. The place is also surprisingly rich in wildlife.
- The Grand Canyon North Rim [#5 to #8]: Really a great place for wildlife and landscape. Much less crowded that the south rim and as good if not better in many ways. The curious squirrel is a “Kaibab squirrel”, which leaves only in the Grand Canyon North Rim area, so you’re not going to see anything like that anywhere else in the world. The Coyote in the snow at sunrise was the greatest wildlife experience of the trip.
- Upper Antelope Canyon [#9 to #12]: This canyon has to be visited with a guide. A very kind and funny Navajo was ours for about an hour. Let’s be frank, even if I knew what I as going to see, I was simply amazed by the beauty of the place. The only little problem are us, the people, we are just too numerous. We were about 50 in the canyon and the guide told me that in the summer they commonly have 300 people in it, so basically a line of people.
- Lower Antelope Canyon [#13 to #16]: Very different from its little brother. The cool thing about this one is that you don’t need any guide, you can basically stay in the canyon as long as you want (if it’s not crowded of course). At a certain point, I was alone in the Canyon! was a great experience. I talked to a young Navajo that was playing Guitar, we talked about the Navajo Nation, their president and how he felt about being Navajo in the US. I went there on an overcast day, a good opportunity to get different pictures since most of the picture from Antelope are a ray of light coming in it. So what I did is playing with the shade of color and with depth.
- Colorado River, the Horseshoe Bend [#17 to #20]: What a cliché! sure but how to resist? the view from above is staggering. I went there for sunrise. The pictures are from the Canyon and from the trail that leads there.
One thing to remember when you visit the Southwest in late October is your gloves. I didn’t have any in Bryce Canyon (Utah, next post) and I thought I was loosing a couple of fingers. The temperature was 25F, no sun (pre-dawn) and a lot of wind, I even had trouble to open the eyes. Beside of that and I’d say as usual in the U.S, everything is done to make your life easier, the trails are super clean, the roads in perfect shape and the visitor centers always open and glad to help.
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Nature, Photography, Travel, culture
I’ve been recently testing the video capabilities of the Canon 5D Mark II in the field. It is fascinating to see how a technology can impact your work. Video is my first love (short films) and it’s with a lot of excitement that I’m coming back to it. What I wanted to see here is the feasibility of shooting videos AND stills during the same day. It has been a lot of fun and in the same time a lot of work. I shot this in Full HD (1920*1080) at 30fps and edit it in Final Cut. The music I added is “Vers le Nord” from Bruno Coulais, used in the film “The Traveling Birds” (which I really recommend you if you haven’t already watched it). The lenses I used are the 17-40L, 70-200 f/4L, and the 500 f/4L. Here is some comments/advices on this short but intense experience:
- Shoot in Manual: Shooting in manual is definitely a must with the Mark II. Shooting in one of the automatic mode will more certainly make your footage to looks choppy because the camera is going to compensate on the shutter speed. Getting decent videos requires using a shutter speed of 1/60 or something around this. If you can’t achieve this because the scene is too bright, then use neutral grey filters, this is what real camcorders are using (built in).
- Don’t count on the audio: The audio coming out of the Mark II is quite terrible. Independent audio system is definitely the way to go (Zoom H4n/Rode NTG-2 is a great couple).
- Bring a spare battery: Shooting videos during a whole day completely used my 2 batteries whereas is never happened when I was just shooting stills, even when using Liveview extensively.
- Bring a lot of CF: 5 minutes = 4Gbs. It hurts mommy.
- White balance your shot: The 5D II is not shooting RAW videos (unlike the RED), so you’re not able to correct this afterward. Actually you can correct a colorcast in a Software like Color but this is a lossy correction. So have it right during the shooting by using something like a Grey Card.
- Focus: Focusing 100% right on a static shot is a must. What I do is that I’m usually zooming all the way, making the focus in liveview and zooming back to the focal I want.
- Invaluable IS: Some shots (like on windy days) are just impossible without IS, I found this feature incredibly useful. However, IS being pretty noisy (especially on the 500mm), you may not be able to use it in every situation (if the mic is close).
- Stabilize your shots: On some shots, I wasn’t able to setup the tripod to I tried to shoot without it (example: second crab in the video), but that of course doesn’t work.
- Well…dont’ count on the Mark II itself: Weird but true, at the end of the day, the Mark II went crazy. For some reasons the light meter was giving me non sense exposure. As of today, the problem is not solved and I have no idea how I’m going to shoot my Grand Canyon trip coming next week. Canon got the technology, Nikon got the reliability.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE VIDEO.
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I’m leaving the US pretty soon and this weekend was the last one to Point Reyes. This place brought a lot to me, it is really my main (nature) photographic source of inspiration and I hope it will stay just the way it is for many more years. I say Farewell but I think I should rather say Goodbye since I’m sure I’ll be back in 2 or 3 years to visit the places I didn’t get a chance to see. I’m going to miss this huge wilderness, the excitation of not knowing what’s going to show up in the next bend of the trail, a Coyote ? a Kite ? a Mountain Lion (who knows) ?
About this specific trip, I’ve been working quite extensively on the white kite. Too bad I had forgotten my blind (looks like that), so I’ve been basically running after them for several hours. I’m very happy with #11 because it shows how magnificent is Point Reyes, with its amazing birds and environments (colors).
#10 is also a surprise, it is a long-tailed weasel, the first I’ve ever seen in Point Reyes. This guy was REALLY curious about me, and came out of his hole several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
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