Photography is a never ending journey.
There are no one way roads and many exits to explore on your travels. There have been many changes since the first known photo and there will be many more. Be that change.
WHITE CHANGES EVERYTHING
I had a great run at Wildwood but something changed and it was harder to find things. It may have been that I didn't need anymore bird photos or it was time to get off the road and do some exploring. I had shot for two or so years, shot in the heat of summer and cold of winter. The cold never bothered me. Loved snow. You dress for success and up till now gloves were worn but never for fondling the small dials and buttons on a camera. I had to loose the gloves. Numbness sets in fast. A bigger problem is all the white and getting exposure without losing details. This is where manual settings excel, why you should learn to use your camera that way. A lot of white or black will confuse the camera. Snow isn't the only white. Many of the birds are white and very dark in spots. When I was using auto ISO I lost a lot of detail with Egrets and Eagles setting or in flight. I recall being told set your camera for what you want to shoot and not worry about getting everything. The example was shooting Eagles in flight when they are up in the air where it is bright and when they are going in catching fish on the darker water. Shoot for the water or for the flight after. Maybe a better example is shooting a Green Heron foraging along the bank and an Egret close by snatches up a frog and you turn quickly to shoot the white bird. This is another 10,000 click issue. I lost a lot of pictures that would have been great shots but I had a hot subject. By now I am getting closer to the experience needed to make faster adjustments without thinking. The fingers are a little more automatic. They did it in the film days when they had to wait to see how the film turned out. This photo is a good example of white and good exposure. I always use the spot meter on my camera to get the white right.
I generally shoot 1/2 or so stop hotter when shooting white to compensate for the camera wanting to see grey. That's my camera yours may be different. And remember the light changes fast in early morning and late afternoon so you may need to constantly change that setting.
REFLECTING ON 10,000 CLICKS
Back from Alaska and looking through pictures. WOW! Not for the great photos but for the 50% that were severely over cooked or undercooked. I did not do well at all and when looking at the file info I saw that I left the ISO on 1600 most of the time. I was not ready to shoot manual but I did and learned a lot of what not to do. I had to learn Photoshop and i will say this again and again; I should not be that good using Photoshop. I did get some good pictures and even have some hanging on the walls. Another saying is if you get a few good pictures you had a good day. I would think that doesn't apply to static things. If you are shooting action or moving things maybe. After this experience did I go back to shooting auto? No, on to Wildwood Park and I'm going to lick this mentality. I spent 265 days in 2007 wandering the paths and waterways around Wildwood Park shooting just about everything. They are somewhere on my hard drive, everyone of them. A good friend ask me what I was going to do with all those photos. At that moment I had no plans except to keep shooting. He does a lot of filming and gives presentations. He told me to think about doing something with them. After some thought I put a slide show together and gave a talk about my year at Wildwood at Wildwood as a featured lecturer. It was not about photography but about the amazing things I learned while looking at nature through the lens.
I now have of photos and well underway to the 10,000 clicks.
ON TO ALASKA AND MORE LESSONS
Getting to Alaska with all the gear you think you may need is a lesson in its self. I was still using a D200 at the time and added the 24 to 70 with the 200 to 400. Batteries, chargers, tripod, mono-pod etc. I was traveling with my brothers and nephew and had some help carrying the extra stuff. Alaska is huge and you spend a lot of time moving between destinations and a 3 month trip would not be enough. I had a week. Now I am in one of the greatest places on earth to do photography. Just another thing to factor in with the camera settings, zooming when framing a shot, depth of field, and lens choice. The above picture was taken at 200 mm when I could have been at 400mm. I wish I had those 10,000 clicks. Composing your subject for another time. On to Denali and the 11 hour bus ride through the park. You get on an old school bus and take a tour one way in and same way out. I had to shoot most photos from the bus window because when wildlife was around they didn't want you to interact. They would shut the bus off and set awhile to let you shoot. With 20 or so people moving to better position themselves you now introduce another camera factor, camera shake. How do you handle that? High shutter speed and in Nikon VR. It only goes so far. From Denali we went to Glacier Bay and stayed at the lodge in the park. I saw more wildlife in those two days. All the shooting was from a boat using a mono-pod. The whole motion of the ocean, the way light plays off water and going from rainy to sunny in minutes. I took hundreds of photos on my way to 10,000 clicks. Many of them were not worth the time it took to take them. Many under or over exposed because I couldn't remember to adapt to the light and make changes to the camera settings. The biggest thing I should have remembered was to set my camera back to an auto mode and practiced manual another time. Today I still use some auto when things change drastically especially in sports and family events that are located indoors and out. However, I am well on the way to 10,000.
TRIAL AND ERROR IS PART OF 10,000 CLICKS
Another thing I had to learn about was the effect of light. When I started to use manual settings I lost the auto adjustment in ISO to compensate when I was shooting low in a darker background and then focus in a tree causing the extra light to over expose beyond what everyone thinks Photoshop can fix. Practice and more practice but nowhere near 10,000 clicks. The excitement of being able to get a photo of a King Fisher, soaring Eagle or some creature that I didn't have a photo of yet was overwhelming when you added the manual adjustments as the light changed. Light changes fast early in the morning and then as the sun goes down. Most cameras have a meter that looks like a gas gauge with one side under and the other over for exposure purposes. This is not a perfect meter which I'll get into later. I don't know how long I went till I understood it was there. In auto mode it didn't matter. Then I spot metered to make sure the subject was exposed properly. I refer back to the concentration to get into position, make sure you have focus on a moving target, watch the meter and change the settings on the camera was a little much to get consistency. Set the camera to continuous focus, fast frame rate and spray and prey. I got a few that way. It was getting close to my Alaska trip and didn't realize I still didn't know enough to continue using manual mode. I could talk the talk but was shaky on the walk.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE AND READ THE MANUAL
As most first time photographers the learning curve is steep. To be proficient at anything you need to do something 10,000 times or so they say. I read the manual and only really understood about 1/4th of it. I decided shooting aperture priority because that's what I thought I should be doing. I had an expensive lens that was F4 and should be used that way. Set the shutter and let the ISO on auto. It worked at first but I couldn't figure out why things weren't in focus at F4. (DEPTH OF FIELD) Photographers in general are a friendly bunch and more than willing to help when ever possible. To date I have only met one jerk. I think he was compensating for total lack of skill. As I chased birds all over the place I met more and more photographers. At first You don't know what to ask. It shouldn't be what F stop or shutter are you shooting. Listening to others prompted questions especially on the definition on terms. I would run home and do a internet search because I didn't want to admit I didn't understand. If you want a first thing to learn after learning how to turn the camera on and off it would be shutter speed, F stop and ISO. Each one plays an important role and can not be dismissed as a minor player in correct exposure. You also have to understand that everyone has their own way and expensive equipment doesn't mean expert. I was getting decent pictures shooting the way I was so why change? I made friends with a fellow photog who took great pictures and shot in the film days when you had to know something about those three things that control exposure. He shot totally manual and convinced me it was the only way to shoot. I want to make something very clear.
Depending on the equipment there is no one way and sometimes auto settings are just fine. Especially when you are going on a trip of a lifetime and haven't taken 10,000 clicks.