I'm glad to hear your favorable comments. I am going to his course
in Washington, DC (actually Mclean, VA) this weekend.
--- W Shumaker <omlist@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I went to a one day seminar on nature photography with Rod Planck
> in
> Hartford CT. There were 200+ people at this one day seminar. Rod
> endeavored to give as much information as possible, with a very
> extensive handout that covers a lot. His approach is to do
> unmanipulated photography that gets everything right in the field,
> proper exposure, composition, sharpness, proper technique, etc. How
> to
> select lenses for various situations, macro, landscape, wildlife
> and
> composition control. Rod uses manual exposure about 600f the
> time. He
> likes using technology were it works, and for shooting wildlife
> with
> telephotos, tracking auto-focus really works. For everything else,
> except for those whose eyesight is not good, manual focus should be
> used. Like exposure, only the photographer knows what point should
> be
> focused on and what elements need to have the right exposure. He
> started out his career using a lot of flash, but now rarely uses
> flash,
> and only in the case where there is no other alternative (bad
> light).
> And if the light is bad, pick another day or time, unless it is the
> only chance you have. You can not reproduce natural light in the
> field
> like nature can. Flash tends to remove the mood of the photograph,
> and
> mood is now one of his main photographic passions. 20 years ago,
> getting some wildlife shots would be considered world class, but
> with
> today's equipment, such photos are a lot easier to get. Today,
> composition, form, tension, light, etc. all become more important
> in
> order to get that top photo.
>
> There was a Nikon representative there with some of the latest
> Nikon
> gear. I handled a Nikon F100 with the new 70-200 VR lens. The
> autofocus
> was very fast and the VR was impressive. If wildlife, action or
> handheld telephoto work was one of my main forms of photography, I
> could not live without this technology. However, for everything
> else
> (in nature photography), manual focus and exposure control still
> rules.
> One thing I noticed was, with the Nikon 70-200 lens set on 70mm,
> the
> display look the same through the viewfinder as the actual scene,
> while
> a 50mm on the OM would be the same. Clearly to get the higher eye
> relief the Nikon viewfinder has less magnification than an OM. If
> one
> is doing manual focus, I think the OM has the advantage for
> critical
> focus control. And for macro work, where even f32 has a narrow
> depth of
> field, focus selection is part of the compositional art.
>
> Wayne
>
=====
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