(By the way, if you prefer to listen, there’s an audio player at the bottom of the post.)

It’s been almost two months since we got back from the 2010 Hokkaido Photography Tour and Workshop, and although I know that many of you have been waiting for a nice long travelogue style group of episodes on the tour, I’m actually going to try to go through this somewhat briefly. Much of what we did was the same as the 2009 tour, with the exception that we spend an extra day in Tsurui, the first town that we stop in, in Hokkaido, to photograph the Red-Crowned Cranes. If you want a real blow by blow recollection of what we did on each day, including some tips and techniques on what we bore in mind while shooting, then you might want to look up the five episodes 178, 179, then 182 through 184.

I also covered my first reconnaissance trip to the Snow Monkeys last year, in episode 187, and again a few weeks ago from this year’s workshop, in Episode 233. So check those out too if you are looking for information on what we do, or are just interested in following along with our adventures. Note too that I uploaded 60 images to Flickr and to my online gallery from this year’s Hokkaido workshop. I’ve selected just 11 images to talk about today, which was even tougher than narrowing down my original selection to just 60 images. These images can be seen in iTunes or on your iPhone if you subscribe to the Enhanced Podcast, but as you are already reading my blog, just scroll down to check them out, and remember that you can also listen rather than read, with the audio player at the bottom of this post. I do suggest you subscribe in iTunes though, as the best way to get my Podcast delivered directly to your door each week.

So, we have 6 days and 11 images to get through in the next 30 minutes or so, so let’s get started. We’d have a day and a half in Tokyo, having gotten back from Nagano and the Snow Monkeys early Saturday evening. It was nice to have a break, and many of the participants that were joining both tours did some sightseeing or caught up on their photo selection etc. but all in all, this didn’t go down so well, and people were stressed about getting over to Haneda airport on the Monday morning, so I arranged for two minibuses to pick up all the people that were staying in the hotel that I’d suggested for the weekend, and we headed off for Haneda. In the 2011 tours that I just announced, I’ve cut this out. We will now go straight to Haneda from the Snow Monkeys and spend the night in a hotel airport, then head off to Hokkaido the following morning. This will make things easier for everyone, including me. Although I won’t get to spend the weekend at home, I won’t have to get up as early as I would if I was heading out to the airport from home, which will make a nice change.

After arriving at Kushiro airport from Haneda we have a 40 minute drive to the Akan International Crane Center where we spent until just after 2PM photographing the beautiful, majestic Red-Crowned cranes. I’ve shared better pictures of these cranes with you in the past, so I’ll skip that today, but wanted to share image 2452 (below) with you, which I shot at the end of this first day, over at the Kikuchi Farm, which is where we go after the cranes have been fed at the Crane Center. Here I’d capture three cranes flying close to the setting sun, with the trees as a backdrop. Unlike one of my previous shots similar to this where I’d enhanced and colored the uneventful sky in Lightroom, these colors are how the camera captured them, with my slight saturation boost, from my Landscape Picture Style emulation. I like the way the two outside cranes here have their wings up, with the center crane, probably the youngster, with its wings down. Also, this looks great in a print, because the cranes are not total silhouettes. There is just a little bit of detail still in the birds, which adds depth when viewed large.

Sunset Flight of the Cranes

On the second morning we went to the river where we shot from the Otowa Bridge, where I’d shot one of my favorite images of all time, Distant Dance (below), on our first Hokkaido workshop in 2008, but the conditions weren’t right. We got our gear out and shot a few frames, but it was too warm for the mist and no chance of frost on the trees on this first day. It has to be at least minus 15 degrees Celsius or 5 degrees Fahrenheit, with no wind for the mist to make a showing and it just wasn’t happening. I don’t recall exactly, but I think it was about -12 Celsius or 10 Fahrenheit on the first morning.

Also, although it was about 4:30AM when we left the hotel for the bridge, a bus full of photographers that had passed us on the road in front of the hotel as we came out, had all put their tripods in place on the bridge by the time we got there. So, I had our bus driver do a little bit of espionage, and talk with the bus driver of the other group, and find out what time they were scheduled to leave the following day, and we left the hotel 10 minutes before that to get the better positions on the following day. I met their guide later actually and agreed that we’d share the best spots next time if we ended up here on the same day again. We all had a laugh about it, so there were no hard feelings or anything.

Distant Dance

Later on the second day though, we went back to the Akan International Crane Center and shot the cranes again. The conditions were great, but I didn’t really get anything brilliant of the cranes. I’m after a really spectacular shot of just two cranes doing a mating dance and honking, with their steamy breath visible, but it didn’t happen again this year. For first time visitors though, most of the participants got some very nice shots. The highlight of the day when photographing the cranes at Akan though is actually when they feed the cranes, and you get White Tailed Eagles like the one we see in image number 2464 (below) that come in to steal the fish. This is one of my favorite eagle shots from this year, because there’s just so much detail in there and the focus is perfect. The great thing about this location is that the field full of snow below the birds acts as a huge reflector, reflecting the sun back up into the underside of the birds, so you don’t have to deal with much contrast, and you get beautifully list subjects. I shot with with the 1Ds Mark III and the 600mm F4 lens at 1/2500 of a second at ISO 200.

Eagle Eye

The following morning did see a little mist on the river, as it was about -18 Celcius or 0 Fahrenheit as the sun rose, but I didn’t really like many of my shots. The trees were not frosty, so although again, this was a good opportunity for first time visitors, David Lee for example said that he could go home a happy man right at that point, but I didn’t improve on any of the images that I already have. One that I did like, although it doesn’t contain a whole lot of mist, is image number 2465. This was an eight second exposure with the 300mm F2.8 lens and the 1.4X Extender fitted. I was at ISO 400 as well, so you can tell that this is still before there was a lot of available light, but the warm morning sun reflecting in the river really popped out on this one when I did a white balance based on the snow in Lightroom. Again, when viewed large, the silky surface of the water is nice here. One thing to note here too is that the bridge which is crowded with photographers each morning actually shudders with the movement of the photographers, so long exposures is actually not a great idea. You have to do a number of them and just hope that you can time it when people aren’t moving around, to get one that is sharp like this.

Sleeping Cranes

Later in the day, we had time to head over to Lake Mashuu, which is famous for being cloaked in fog, and people not actually being able to see the lake. I heard a rumour that the lake was clear though, and there were some really nice clouds in the sky, so we made an unplanned excursion. I went wide to capture the great sky along with the mountains surrounding the lake that we can see in image number 2467 (below). This is a Nik Software Silver Efex Pro black and white conversion, with a slight blue tone, which I really like at the moment. Toning like this just helps to bring out a little more detail in my option, and it’s great fun to play with.

Lake Mashuu

On the afternoon of the 3rd of February, we headed to Kussharo Lake where we were to photograph the Whooper Swans. Again, local information from my friend and photographer Yoshiaki Kobayashi, who I’d bumped into at the Otowa Bridge that morning, told me that the usual photography spot at the lake was not frozen, but a small corner of the lake called Kotan was, so I again adjusted our plans and headed over to Kotan. There were far more swans here, as we can see in image 2470 (below). I went wide again, using my 16-35mm lens wide open at 16mm, to capture lots of the birds, as well as the large tree to the left and that big sky. I had my tripod in the lake with all of the legs contracted, and basically framed the shot, then sat back on a rock with my cable release, and waited for a swan to spread their wings, as we can see one did in the middle of the group just to the left of the reflection of the sun here. I hung on for another shot that I really wanted where the swan was right in front of the sun, which is also uploaded, but all round, I prefer this shot for its composition and multiple points of interest. I also shot some video here, which I will get around to editing and sharing some time very soon.

Spreading Wings

The following morning was incredibly cold. It was minus 30 degrees Celsius which is negative 22 degrees Fahrenheit. As I was getting ready to leave my hotel room, the bus driver called to tell me that the bus wouldn’t start, because it was so cold. We had the hotel people try their bus, in the hope that we could borrow that, but that wouldn’t start either. It was obviously colder than even these people were use to. The driver kept trying though, and after about 20 minutes and an almost flat battery, he finally go our bus started. We used a further 10 minutes to get it warmed up, and then set off, maybe 40 minutes or so late for Bihoro Pass. This is a mountain pass that has a 10 minute climb from the car park to a vantage point overlooking the Kussharo Lake, where we’d photographed the swans on the previous day.

Boy was it cold up the top, but I, with my happy little hunter’s or fisherman’s response, that keeps my hands warm in cold conditions, was having a ball. It was so cold that even my 1Ds Mark IIIs battery ran flat from fully charged in about an hour, and that is unheard of with these modern batteries. I was singing and messing around though and at one point turned to the participants that were left, with most of the older crew now back on the bus, and I said “it’s not that cold really”. I knew I’d said something weird when they all just looked back at me without saying a word. A few uncomfortable moments later, and we were all laughing our heads off.

Around this time we noticed that a sun pillar was forming over the island in the center of the lake, as we can see in image number 2479 (below). This is basically a phenomenon that only happens when it’s extremely cold, and it’s caused by the water particles in the air freezing, and reflecting the sun’s light. It appears below the sun, at an angle relative to the height of the sun in the sky. As the sun got higher, the pillar got closer to us. Another incredible thing about this image is that the top of the line of clouds are actually rainbow colored. You can only just make this out in the Web sized version, but without any manipulation, that line of clouds is reflecting a whole spectrum of colors at us.

Sun Pillar and Rainbow Clouds

Already very late to get back for breakfast, as we drove down back towards the lake, along which we’d traverse to get back to the hotel, we noticed the sun pillar again, now much closer, so we stopped the bus for another ten minutes or so and I captured image number 2482 (below). You can see more here how the water crystals suspended in the air are glistening in the light of the sun. Again, I have video of this which I’ll share at some point, but it really was an amazing sight, like a beautiful and relaxing, swirling pillar of light. This is now another one of those things that happens so rarely that it’s unlikely, but I really hope it will happen again for the participants of future workshops.

Kussharo Lake Sun Pillar

We actually arrived back at the hotel at 9AM, which was the time that the breakfast buffet was due to stop, but they allowed us another 20 minutes or so to grab breakfast before we broke camp to drive over to the Shiretoko Peninsula and the town of Rausu, where we were hoping for sea ice, or ice floe, on which the Steller’s Sea Eagles and White Tailed Eagles would perch and pose for our cameras, the following morning. As you can see from image 2487 (below) though, there was like one tiny piece of ice in the entire Nemuro Straights, between Far Eastern Japan, and Kunashiri Island, the first of the Kuril Islands that Japan is still trying to get Russia to give back. I like the way the four Steller’s Sea Eagles seem to be admiring the sun, as it rises over what is essentially still Far East Russia.

Russian Sunrise

We had chartered the boat, and the skipper was trying really hard to find a substantial amount of sea ice for us to drop some fish onto to attract more eagles, but after three and a half hours, we had to give up. It was a beautiful sunrise, and we even saw a pod of Baird’s Beaked Whales in the channel, as we can see in image number 2492 (below), but the Eagle shoot that was such a highlight of the 2009 workshop, now seemed like a distant memory. The day before we were here, and the day after were actually very good apparently, with plenty of ice, so I was pretty disappointed. For the 2011 workshops I have moved the whole schedule out by two weeks, and we are now going to have two consecutive days here in Rausu on the 12 day tour. We are also going to be in the area in a better time on the 5 day tour too, so I’m much more confident that we’ll get ice next year, especially on the 12 day tour, but hopefully on the five day tour too. At the end of the day though, it’s all in the hands of Mother Nature, and what she decides to dish up for us. Nothing is guaranteed when you are dealing with nature.

You Scratch My Back...

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Later in the day, we drove around to Utoro, another harbor town on the other side of the Shiretoko Peninsula, where we headed into the Shiretoko National Park. We got some nice deer shots, and I also photographed a fox, but I didn’t upload it to my gallery, as it wasn’t any better than the fox shots I already have uploaded. We went back into the Park the following day, and one of the first things I heard was the Great Spotted Woodpecker that we can see in image 2493 (right). I put my 1.4X extender on my 300mm F2.8, as I didn’t have my 600mm F4 with so and this is about as close as I could get. Every time I took a few paces towards this guy he flew to a tree further back, deeper into the woods. I like the overall light airy feel to this shot though, and the contrast of the black and white bird, with the red splash of color against the light brown and beige colors of the background. There was also a nuthatch that I photographed, but I couldn’t get a really clean shot of it. There was always a twig overlapping its tail or something, so I didn’t upload any of these shots either.

We walked deep into the park, and the group quickly became dispersed. I was toying with the idea of buying some digital walkie-talkies for this year’s trip, but I reckon I’ll pull the trigger on that for next year. This will make it easier for people to stay in touch when the group breaks up. These would be good for the Antarctica expedition in November too, so I think I’m going to really look into this now. It would also enable people that find something interesting to alert the other groups as well, to increase our chances of capturing things like the Woodpecker that only a few of us were able to photograph.

Deer are nice, but I really like to find the bucks, but their huge antlers. I came across this really laid back guy, that we see in image number 2494 (below right), just sitting in the snow and chewing on what was probably a strip of bark from a tree. Although he’s quite young, he reminded me of an old cowboy chewing on some chewing tobacco. I shot this with the 300mm F2.8 lens, and this is exactly how it was framed in camera. Note how I positioned the horns so that they were not intersecting with the brown of the exposed trees in the background. The one on the left side comes close, but the horns are actually surrounded by at least a thin line of white snow, to maintain the separation that I was after.

We actually said goodbye to two of the participants a few hours after shooting these last images, as two of them had only signed up for the first 6 days. There would be just ten of the twelve participants that went on to the central part of Hokkaido for the Landscape leg. I have to admit though, this year, the landscape leg was not as exciting as last year, by far. The weather fell apart on us to a degree, and we fought through heavy snow to get from Utoro on the Shiretoko peninsula to the Memanbetsu Airport where the two that would leave us were to fly from. Actually the plane that they left on was one of the only planes that were able to fly that day. We were incredibly lucky to be able to get them out of Hokkaido.

Laid Back Ezo Deer

The weather also slowed us down for much of the landscape leg, and so we seemed to spend a lot more time on the bus than last year, which led to a little bit of frustration among some of the participants, and although we got very lucky with places like Mount Asahi, where it cleared for us to shoot for a few minutes, the general feeling was that it was not worth the amount of traveling that it cost us.

These concerns and the fact that I have scheduled a separate short five day workshop in addition to the more relaxed twelve day workshop, is the reason that I have stopped splitting the longer workshop up into optional sections. Another piece of valuable feedback was that people wanted to spend more than one night in hotels when possible, and spend more time in each location, so that’s exactly what I’ve planned for 2011.

I’ve named this episode part #1, and I will probably go on to share some of the images from the Landscape leg with you in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s leave Hokkaido there, and start looking towards the 2011 trip. If you are listening to this considering joining the 2011, note that the images that we looked at today are just a small example of what we shoot, but the locations are all the same. We will also spend one day at a place called Odaito, where there is a small but definite chance of photographing a sunrise where the sun itself is not round, but square, or even wine glass shaped, so that’s something to look forward to in addition to the locations we looked at today.

Also, if you are considering joining us, please book soon. I announced the workshops to my mailing list last night, and we already have four bookings and one tentative, so I don’t think the places will be open very long this year. If we should be fully booked by the time you find out about this, but you would like to come, drop me a line using the contact form, and I’ll put you on our cancellation list. Also don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the tours and workshops, after you’ve checked out the details on the www.mbpworkshops.com web site.

Once again, I really just wanted to scoot through a few example images today, to give you an idea of what we got up to on our Hokkaido Photography Tour and Workshop 2010. If you want to follow through in more detail, had not yet listened to last year’s Podcast episodes, do take a listen to episodes 178, 179, then 182, 183 and 184, that I mentioned earlier, as well as my brief report from the 2010 Snow Monkey workshop, that we talked about in Episode 233.

This link shows all Hokkaido 2010 images: http://bit.ly/mbph2010

Check out the details of the 2011 Workshops here: http://www.mbpworkshops.com/

Music from Music Alley: http://www.musicalley.com/

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

Click a thumbnail to view the images from this post with limited shooting info. Once the image has opened, you can navigate back and forth by clicking the image.

I would like to remind you before we start that these tests take a lot of time and effort, so if you intend to buy this lens and you shop with B&H, please use the link at the bottom of the post, which although does not affect the amount you pay in any way, will send a little commission my way, to help offset the costs of doing these reviews and Web site fees etc. In fact, if you buy anything from B&H, clicking through from the tile here on my blog or in the Photography Forum or Podcasts page, will get me a little commission. It’s a great way to help out without digging into your own pockets. If do you want to help out, but don’t shop at B&H, although I rarely mention this, there are donation buttons to the right here on my blog and on my Podcasts page. This Podcast and Blog will essentially always be free, but people have asked for donation buttons in the past, so I made them available. Note too that I add the name of people that are kind enough to make donations to my Thanks page.

ISO 12233 Resolution Test Chart

So, I was really pleased that I was reminded to test the new Version II 70-200mm lens, before I sold it on, as I used to use mine with the 1.4X Extender regularly, with my old 5D. It was partly because I could use the old 70-200 with the 1.4X Extender that I sold my old 100-400mm lens. I’d not taken both out with me since 2006. I stopped using the 70-200mm with the Extender though, once I upgraded to the 1Ds Mark III and the 5D Mark II at 21MP, they basically out-resolved the old 70-200mm F2.8 lens even without the Extender, so it goes without saying that images using the 1.4X Extender were just not usable. It was because of this that I’d failed to think of this combination when I did my original tests, but I was pleasantly surprised by the results I found on Saturday morning.

Again, I used the ISO 12233 Resolution Test Chart that I downloaded from Cornell University’s Web site. I tested both the 1.4X Extender and the 2.0X Extender, but I only tested at 200mm with the 2.0X Extender. This was partly because of time, but also because it’s safe to assume that people probably have both Extenders, or just the 1.4X and would only use the 2.0X Extender when you really need the extra reach. I know that if I didn’t need to get out to 400mm, or just short of it, I would probably reach for the 1.4X Extender.

Again, I created some animated GIF files to show you the difference between the two lenses. The first one here shows the center of images shot at 70mm, or 98mm with the 1.4X magnification, 115mm or 160mm with the Extender and 200mm, which of course becomes 280mm with the Extender fitted. All of the images here were shot wide open, at F4, which is the widest aperture available when using the 1.4X Extender.

Also note that I moved back a little when shooting at each of the focal lengths, to fill the frame with the chart, but could only move back so far because of my kitchen wall, so the resulting images are not an accurate representation of the relative magnification of the Extenders.

70-200mm Version I and II - All Focal Lengths @ F4

You can see that there is a big difference between the old version and the new version of this lens, when shooting with the 1.4X Extender fitted. At the extremes of the focal length, 98mm to 280mm, the lens is still extremely sharp, even with the 1.4X Extender fitted, and the lens wide open at F4. The interesting thing here, as with my findings last week without the extenders, is that the middle focal length of 115mm is actually the weakest. It’s still sharper than the version I 70-200, and very usable in my opinion, but it’s not quite tack sharp, as are the extreme focal lengths.

Although the new version of the 70-200 is sharp wide open at the extremes, usually, lenses get a little sharper with Extenders when you stop the lenses aperture down a little, so next we have six comparisons of the three focal lengths through the entire aperture range, from F4 to F32, in full stops. First is the old version I lens, at 70mm or 98mm with magnification, and you can see that it does sharpen up just a tad at F5.6, to an almost acceptable amount. F8 and F11 are also quite good. F16 and F22 start to lose contrast as well as soften up again, and F32 is pretty much unusable. It’s very soft with little contrast.

70-200mm Version I with 1.4X Extender - All Apertures @ 70mm

Here are the results from the Version II 70-200mm lens, again at 70mm (98mm) through the entire aperture range. Even at F4 the results are very good. If anything, it gains a little contrast when you stop down to F5.6, and perhaps just a tad sharper. F8 and F11 are still good, but perhaps a little less sharp and lower contrast than F5.6, so the old advice of stopping down to F8 when using the Extender may no longer be valid. F16 through F22 start to lose more contrast and sharpness, though probably still usable, and F32 is perhaps usable at a stretch, but probably best avoided. I’m sure you’ll agree this is a huge improvement over the Version I lens though.

70-200mm Version II with 1.4X Extender - All Apertures @ 70mm

Next we see the Version I 70-200mm F2.8 lens again cycling through the entire aperture range, in full stops at 115mm or 160mm with the magnification calculated in.

70-200mm Version I with 1.4X Extender - All Apertures @ 115mm

In contrast to the new version, the old version I lens is best in the middle focal length, being relatively sharp at F4, sharper still at F5.6 and F8, then slowly tapering off again from F11 through F22, then dropping considerably at F32. This range with this lens  is actually pretty close to the new version of this lens, with the exception that the Version II lens is considerably sharper at F4. This is good news for me, as I shoot wide open most of the time, but if you stop down a lot, especially when using an Extender, remember that the old version is pretty good in the middle focal length range, but weak at the extremes.

70-200mm Version II with 1.4X Extender - All Apertures @ 115mm

OK, so next let’s look at the pair of animations from the two lenses at 200mm or 280mm. First from the Version I lens, we can see that although it gives a poor show wide open at F4, it improves slightly through F5.6 and F8, but then really sharpens up quite a lot at F11 and even F16, though it does start to lose contrast from F16, up through to F32. If you own the first version of this lens though, and use it with the 1.4X Extender, note that F11 is pretty usable when zoomed out fully to 200mm, for an effective 280mm focal length.

70-200mm Version I with 1.4X Extender - All Apertures @ 200mm

We can see from the next animation though, that at 200mm, or an effective 280mm, the Version II lens gives excellent results again. F4 through to F8 are excellent, F11 drops in contrast slightly, with F16 and F22 a little worse, then F32 pretty low in contrast, with sharpness also gradually dropping off through F16 to F32. Still though, this is very usable, and when you consider that you’ll usually be using an extender to get that extra reach, this result on the long end is very encouraging.

70-200mm Version II with 1.4X Extender - All Apertures @ 200mm

All in all, despite the middle focal length being a little disappointing, I think it’s safe to say that the 70-200mm F2.8L Version II lens can be used with a 1.4X extender with little concern of image quality dropping too much.

So what about the 2X Extender? Below, first we have an animation showing the difference between Versions I and II of this lens, with the 2X Extender fitted, shooting wide open at F5.6, which is the maximum aperture when using this Extender. Here you can see that the original Version I lens gives a pretty poor show with the 2X Extender. Most lenses do actually. The only lens I own that I can comfortably use the 2X Extender with is the 300mm F2.8L lens. It produces slightly hard, contrasty edges, but is certainly sharp enough to be usable, especially when I need 600mm but don’t have the big-guns with me. It’s hand-holdable too, if you can get a fast enough shutter speed.

Anyway, we can see here that the Version II lens is absolutely acceptably sharp with the 2X Extender fitted, zoomed out fully, for an effective focal length of 400mm.

70-200mm Version I and II with 2X Extender - F5.6 @ 200mm (400mm)

The next animation shows you the old Version I lens at 400mm, cycling through all apertures from F5.6 to F32, in full stops. Although it does start to sharpen up a little as you stop the lens down, even as much as F32, the contrast starts to drop off too much, and I personally think this combination is just not usable, even in a push, and certainly not hand-held. By the time you get an image even anything remotely resembling sharp, you are stopped down so far that you’d need a multi-second exposure even in good sunlight.

70-200mm Version I with 2X Extender - All Apertures @ 200mm (400mm)

This last animation shows the Version II lens with the 2X Extender stopping down from F5.6 to F32. As I mentioned earlier, F5.6 is very usable, and F8 is perhaps a little better, and F11 is similar to F5.6, then it starts to drop at F16 and F22 is a pretty soft with low contrast. F32 is a little too soft and lacks too much contrast for comfort. Otherwise though, I’d say this is a pretty usable combination.

70-200mm Version II with 2X Extender - All Apertures @ 200mm (400mm)

I will try using both Extenders in the field in the coming weeks as well, and will certainly report my findings back later based on some real-world examples, especially if I find that field use doesn’t quite match what my tests here have shown. In general though I’d say that these tests confirm that the old 70-200mm F2.8L lens was not really usable with Extenders, although it did perform pretty well in the mid focal length range. It also shows us that the Version II 70-200mm F2.8L lens is very usable with the 1.4X Extender and looking pretty good with the 2X Extender as well, which is great for when you just don’t want to take out the longer glass. It is also a viable alternative to the 100-400mm lens in my opinion, which I was not happy with after the days that I used it with my 20D, at 8 mega pixels, which it could just about cope with. There are sharp spots with the 100-400mm, and the slight amount of sharpness is certainly offset by the versatility of the lens, but I won’t miss mine, until Canon decide to release a version II of the 100-400mm as well. That would get me thinking.

Buying this lens from B&H? Use this link and support this Web site (does not affect the cost of the lens): http://bit.ly/mbp70-200

You can get the 1.4X Extender and the 2X Extender from B&H as well. (http://bit.ly/mbp1_4X and http://bit.ly/mbp2X)

Cornell University’s Resolution Test Chart: http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/res-chart.html

View all of my 70-200mm F2.8L IS II USM Lens images: http://bit.ly/70-200VII

Music from Music Alley: http://www.musicalley.com/

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

Click a thumbnail to view the images from this post with limited shooting info. Once the image has opened, you can navigate back and forth by clicking the image.

I’ve been waiting for this update to the 70-200mm F2.8L IS lens for over two years. It was my workhorse lens since I bought my version one copy in 2006, and I was very happy with my results from it when I was using a 5D as my main camera. As soon as I upgraded to the 1Ds Mark III and then also shooting with the 5D Mark II, it became obvious that this camera was not resolving images quite enough to produce sharp shots when used wide open at F2.8 on these 21 megapixel cameras.

To compound the problem, at about the same time as I bought the 1Ds Mark III, I also bought a 300mm F2.8 L lens, which is as sharp as tacks, even when used wide open at F2.8. This is not an apples to apples comparison of course, as it is rare that a zoom lens will be as sharp as a prime lens, and the 300mm F2.8 is an exceptionally sharp prime lens. Still though, the timing of the purchase certainly affected how I felt about my old 70-200mm, and I found myself reaching for this lens less and less over the two years or so that followed.

Although I would usually part exchange my old lens when I buy a new one like this, I decided to keep my old 70-200 until I’d run some tests, so that’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the last three days. I thought it would be great if I could not only review the new version, but also I really wanted to compare it with the old one, to see if there really was a difference. This will also help those of you that current own a version one 70-200, and want to know if it’s worth upgrading or not. The definitive answer of course is, “it depends”. What I will say at this point is if you are already happy with the results you are getting with your current lens then don’t sweat it. There’s no need to upgrade if you are getting the results you want. The following review will just give you some additional information to help you make a comparison and weigh up the benefits against the cost if you are thinking about an upgrade.

What’s in the box?

The lens comes with a nice strong case, not the usual gray pouches that most lenses come with, which is nice for when you just want to throw it over your shoulder for more casual shooting about town for example. One word of advice about the case though, is attach an old camera strap and not the centimeter wide strap that comes with it, as that thing will cut your arm off from the shoulder if you walk around with it all day.

What's in the box?

You’ll also find the usual lens cap, rear dust cap, instructions manual, warranty card and a nice newly designed lens hood, as well as the lens itself of course. The box itself is considerable bigger than the original 70-200s box, as you can see below.

New Box is Much Larger

Newly Designed Lens Hood

As I said, the lens hood design has been changed, and there’s now a little button that you have to press before you can turn the lens to take it off the lens, both when it’s attached backwards for storage, or attached in the normal shooting position. This is actually a great improvement in my opinion. I found that the old lens hood turned too easily, especially after a little wear, so it could either drop off, or turn slightly while you are shooting, and because of the shape of the hood, if it turned, it could theoretically give rise to vignetting. Although this never happened to me with the old hood, I have noticed it in a rotated position in the past after walking with the lens dangling by my side, and had to straighten it up before shooting.

New Hood Release Button

The new hood is also a matte finish, rather than the glossy plastic that the original hood had. The inside of the hood has a felt-like material on it, the same as the original one, but the matte plastic on the outside will make handling the hood better, compared to the glossy plastic old hood, which could be a little slippy to handle, especially with dry hands.

Comparison with Hoods

Wider Focusing Ring

Minor changes are that the new 70-200mm F2.8L IS II USM lens is about 2mm longer than the original, and has some smoother curves in places, and a lower profile switch panel. Externally the other obvious change and another improvement is the larger focusing ring. The new versions focusing ring is about 1.5 times wider than the original, which means you won’t have to search for the ring to manually focus while shooting. This is another one of those things that I didn’t realize was a problem until they fixed it, but I do seem to recall fumbling for this ring in the past. I manually tweak focus quite a lot, especially when shooting with LiveView, and I found it was just there for my hand when I reached for it, but I didn’t notice that the ring was bigger until I lined the two lenses up side by side to photograph them to illustrate this Podcast episode.

Comparison of Old and New

Internal Updates

Internally, the new version now has 1 fluorite and 5 UD elements, compared to 4 UD elements and no fluorite lenses in the old version. The 70-200mm F4 lens also has a fluorite element, and has historically been much sharper than the F2.8 lens, even at F4, so the fluorite element is a welcome addition to the new 70-200mm F2.8 lens.

Of course, the other nice changes is an additional stop of Image Stabilization. The original lens had 3 stop IS, and the new one is purported to have 4 stops of IS. This I guess and the other changes mean that the already somewhat heavy 70-200mm F2.8 lens, at 1470g is now 20g heavier in this version II incarnation, at 1490g. Either lens will start to take its toll on your arms and shoulders if used hand-held for any length of time, but once you are used to that, it’s definitely a hand-holdable lens, especially with it’s now 4 stop Image Stabilization.

Shorter Minimum Focus Distance

One other improvement that I should note that I’m very happy to see is that the new version now has a shorter minimum focus distance, which means you can get closer to your subject than you could before. Now, the specifications for this lens differ from the Japan site and the US Canon Web site. On the Japan site, and on the lens barrel itself I should note, it says that the minimum focus distance for the old version is 140cm, but on the US site, it says 1.3m or 130cm. Assuming that what it says on the lens itself if correct, the version II now gives us 20cm shorter minimal focus distance, which is actually very important when shooting flowers for example, or even portraits say, when you really want to fill the frame with the subjects face.

Focus Test Chart? Check!

Auto-Focus Tests

So, I did a number of tests with charts etc. and I did a lot of real-world shooting as well, which we’ll get to later. First, let’s take a look at how the lens fairs under some relatively strict but by no means scientific tests. The first thing I did, and I advice anyone to do when you buy a new lens, is to download and print out a lens test chart and do some tests. I used Tim Jackson’s Focus Test Chart, but you can also buy something like one of the Lens Align Pro Focus Calibration products, which I think I’m going to pick up at some point. Auto-focus accuracy can vary per copy, and although Canon manufacturing and quality assurance standards are very high, occasionally a bad copy gets through the production line, and you usually only have a week or two to check if yours is OK, and still be able to return it to the shop from which you bought it. Because of this, I test all of my new lenses for this as soon as I buy them.

I’ve included a photo of the chart that I shot wide open at F2.8 for your reference, but because the lens performed exactly as I’d expect, with the focus spot on after laying the test chart on the table, then shooting it from a 45° angle, and the using the auto focus to focus on the center line, I’m not going to share the full details of the test. Basically I shot the chart at 70mm, 115mm and 200mm, and worked my way through the apertures from F2.8, F3.2, F4, F5.6, F8, F11, F16, F22 and F32. The lens focused right on the line, and the results were fine.

Resolution Tests

I did want to see how sharp the lens was, both as a stand-alone test, to see if it lives up to my expectations, and in comparison to the original 70-200mm F2.8 lens, so I also photographed an ISO 12233 Resolution Test Chart, that I downloaded from Cornell University’s Web site.

ISO 12233 Resolution Test Chart

The results were very favorable for the new version of the 70-200mm lens. I created a few animated GIF files that we’ll look at below to illustrate the difference in the resolving power between the two lenses. This first animation shows a comparison of the center of the chart shot with both lenses wide open at F2.8, at 70mm, 115mm and 200mm. We can see from this that the version II lens is just so much sharper than the old version at both extremes of its focal length, and in the middle. I start with the old version of the lens, and then switch to the version II image for each focal length, and you can just see the focus snap in as I switch to the version II image each time. This is very impressive to me.

Wide Open F2.8 @ 70mm, 115mm and 200mm Comparisons

Note that these animations are 100% crops of the original RAW files, and I ran only the default sharpening that Lightroom applies to all RAW files, unless you change the settings. There’s nothing else done to these images

The next animation shows the center of the chart, shot at 115mm focal length, and I rotate through all main apertures from F2.8 right down to the smallest aperture at F32. Although lenses generally get pretty soft due to diffraction when you stop them down through F16 and smaller, I shot F22 and F32 images as well, so that we could see just how much diffraction affects this lens, and again, I was very pleased with the results. As we cycle through the apertures, the first thing that you’ll notice is that the lens is sharp wide open at F2.8, and doesn’t really change through to F11, and then starts to get very slightly softer at F16, but even at F22 is suffers very little from diffraction, and even F32 is usable if you really needed the additional depth-of-field that this smallest aperture will provide, if you can accept a slightly soft image. Note too that at F32, to my eye, the lens is still sharper than the original version of this lens at F2.8, so again, I’m very happy with these results.

100% Crop Full Aperture Range @ 115mm

So far we’ve looked at the center of the chart, which I shot obviously with the center of the lens. As you know though, most lenses are less sharp around the edges than they are in the center, so I’ve also created an animation to show the top right corner of both lenses at F2.8. We can see that the old version of this lens is a mess at the edges at F2.8. (Note here though that the results are slightly skewed, because I was shooting up at the target by a centimeter or so. It was the only place on my wall that I could stick the target!) The results do get slightly better as you stop the lens down of course, but as I like to use lenses wide open, to capture scenes with flowers for example over at the edges, this has been a real pain for me with this lens. Because the chart, even printed out on 13×19″ paper, didn’t fill the frame at 70mm, this animation only shows the corners when shot at 115mm and 200mm. You can see here that even the version II is much softer in the top corner when used wide open that it is in the center, but within acceptable limits in my option. We can also see that it performs better at 200mm than it does at 115mm.

100% Crop of Top Right Corner @ 115mm and 200mm

Real-World Examples

These tests are all well and good, but I know you also want to see how the lens fairs in the field. Again, I like to shoot the lens wide open, and as that’s usually the weakest aperture for most lenses, especially zoom lenses, I shot many of these examples wide open at F2.8. This first example photo, of a field of oilseed rape flowers, has the main subject along the right third, with the flower head close to the top of the frame.

Oilseed Rape with 70-200mm F2.8 Version II

I’m only going to include the 70-200mm F2.8 version II image here, as at the Web size, you really can’t see the difference between this and the version I image. But here are two 100% crops, first of from the Version I lens, and then from the version II lens.

100% Crop - Oilseed Rape with 70-200mm F2.8 Version I

100% Crop - Oilseed Rape with 70-200mm F2.8 Version II

You can see that the Version II lens has produced a much sharper image, even though the subject that I cropped out here is close to the edge of the lens, albeit not the very corner. Note that if you want to get a very quick comparison without scrolling, you can click the thumbnails at the bottom of this post, and navigate back and forth by clicking on the left and right side of the images.

I should note too that the original lens, although certainly softer, has produced a very nice image. If you are happy with that amount of sharpness, then you certainly won’t need to run out and buy the updated version. Let’s continue to look at some examples though, before you fully make up your mind.

I know that many people also use this lens as a portrait lens, so I paid a visit to my friendly Barber again, and asked him to pose for a few shots, again using both lenses for comparison.

My Barber - Ishioka-san

Below again are two 100% crops of images from both the old and new version of this lens for comparison.

100% Crop with Version I of the 70-200mm F2.8L Lens

Again, very acceptable sharpness, but here’s a 100% crop from the version II lens.

100% Crop with Version II of the 70-200mm F2.8L Lens

So again, although the old version has produced a nice image, even wide open, the new version is sharper. I should also note here that if you think I’m being cruel by showing you a 100% crop of my barbers wrinkles, note that he’s over sixty years old. My eyes are more wrinkled than this and I’m 20 years younger than him!

Next I made a trip to a local temple called Daienji, and tried out the new four stop Image Stabilization. I have to say that I was not totally impressed with this. Not unimpressed with the IS in general, but I did not get great results as often as I’d hoped. I did get some usable shots though, and have in fact uploaded these last few images to my online gallery, so you can jump to them with their number that I’ll call out as I usually do as we look at these last few real-world example images.

First up is image number 2517, of some Jizou statues at the temple. I shot wide open at F2.8, and focused on the nearest eye, as I would a portrait shot. I noticed the lens searched quite a lot here, but it was very dark. The sun had already very low in the sky, and behind buildings. The temple grounds are walled in too, so there was little available light. I found though that the lens search less when I zoomed in, and got rid of some lighter patches in the background. It didn’t feel great, but this only happened with this subject, so I’m not going to panic about this just yet. I’ll update you later though if I see more of this searching. Let’s also bear in mind that this exposure required 1/30th of a second at ISO 200, so you can appreciate that there was not a lot of light.

Daienji Temple Jizou @ F2.8 1/30 ISO 200

In the next image, number 2519, I was shooting at 125mm which means if you use the rule of thumb of using the focal length as the minimum shutter speed, i.e. 1/125th of a second, we can calculate that four stops below that is 1/6th of a second with ISO 100.

Potchari Jizou @ F2.8 1/6 ISO 100

Here I was testing that the new four stop Image Stabilization was as good as I’d hoped. I was kneeling in a similar position to my MBP Kneeling Man logo, but cranked over to one side a little to avoid an obstacle, so it wasn’t the most stable pose to shoot from, but I ended up shooting around 20 frames of this subject, and only about three were sharp. The others ranged from slightly soft to totally blurry.

Kareshi no Shashin F11 1/6400 ISO 100

I’d focused between the eye and the nose, to get some definition in the shape of the nose, and get the inside of the eye sharp, kind of juggling priorities to still get an overall well focused image, without increasing my depth-of-field. I use all sorts of tricks to keep my lenses wide open.

I actually uploaded six images shot with the new version II 70-200mm at this temple to Flickr and my Web site, but I’ll skip them here for the sake of time. I will put a link into the show-note though that will list all images shot with this lens in my online gallery, if you want to take a look.

As I was walking out of the Showa Memorial Park on Saturday afternoon, the sun was low in the sky, and there were lots of people still on the boating lake, and I shot one last image that I’d like to leave you with today, and that is number 2516 (right).

I shot this with an aperture of F11, and a shutter speed of 1/6400 of a second, because the sun was very bright reflecting off the water. I didn’t mind this as I didn’t particularly need a shallow depth-of-field here, and I didn’t really want to take the time to fit an ND filter, as there were a lot of people on the lake, and chances like this, with just one boat in the frame were not going to come along so often. I really like this image though, with the well defined silhouette figures of the young couple enjoying a later afternoon row on the lake. There’s even a little bonus duck paddling along the top of the frame.

I just wanted to share this with you as a last example of the quality of this lens though, especially as I haven’t shown you any real-world examples with the lens stopped down below F2.8 yet.

Here though is a 100% crop (below) of the young woman and half of the guy in the boat. I’m sure you’ll agree that the sharpness of these silhouettes is incredible. Also the way the lens handled the specula highlights is pretty impressive too. There’s nowhere that these highlights are overly bleeding into the silhouette of the couple. At least when I zoomed in to look at this one, I had one of those hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-my-head moments.

100% Crop - Kareshi no Shashin

So there you have my initial thoughts about the new EF 70-200F2.8L IS II USM Lens from Canon. if you currently own a version one lens and are using it with a high resolution camera like the 5D Mark II or 1Ds Mark III, and if you are happy with your results, then you have nothing to worry about. I personally think the upgrade is worth it to get images this sharp wide-open. Even stopped down, the version is not as sharp as the new version, because it is simply out-resolved by the 21 megapixel sensors. As I say though, if you are happy with your current results, don’t sweat it.

I though am very pleased that I now have my workhorse 70-200 F2.8 lens back. Wild-horses couldn’t have kept me from digging deep for this one, and now that I’ve tested it out, I’m very pleased that I took the plunge.

http://blog.martinbaileyphotography.com/2010/03/29/podcast-236-the-ef-70-200mm-f2-8l-is-ii-usm-lens-with-extenders/

Buying this lens from B&H? Use this link and support this Web site: http://bit.ly/mbp70-200

Lens Align Pro Focus Calibration: http://bit.ly/mbplap

Tim Jackson’s Focus Test Chart: http://focustestchart.com/chart.html

Cornell University’s Resolution Test Chart: http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/res-chart.html

View all of my 70-200mm F2.8L IS II USM Lens images: http://bit.ly/70-200VII

Music from Music Alley: http://www.musicalley.com/

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

Click a thumbnail to view the images from this post with limited shooting info. Once the image has opened, you can navigate back and forth by clicking the image.

Prefer to listen? There’s an audio player at the bottom of the post.

To give us the most possible time shooting on this first day, we parked up and headed straight for the Monkey Park, which is about a 40 minute walk from the car park when the track is snow covered. For me as the organizer, this walk was the first hurdle, as we’d got some more senior participants with us this year, and I was a little worried that they’d all make it OK, but they were great, and although some of them took their time, we got into the park at Jigokudani, which basically translates as Hell Valley, including the few flights of stone steps up the mountain at the end, which can be pretty tiring.

It wasn’t that cold, probably around minus 2 degrees Celsius, or 28 degrees Fahrenheit. When you are dressed for standing around in the cold though, a 40 minute walk along an icy mountain track can generate quite a lot of heat, so most people were loosening their clothing on the way out. We arrived at the park just after 1PM, and the group started shooting straight away. Some of us shot the white balance card on the X-Rite Color Passport, to set a custom white balance on our cameras. Color balance and nailing exposure is something that I spend some time on, on the trip, especially as there is snow in many scenes, which makes exposure a little more challenging.

Here’s a photo of half of my group, around the hot spring pool in which the Snow Monkeys congregate. You can see just how close we get to the monkeys here. They are totally accustomed to us humans being right next to them as they warm themselves in the pool.

The Group

You can also see the wires strung across the side of the valley, across from the pool, and you can see how patchy the snow was, adding a little more challenge to the shooting, trying to get some nice backgrounds. I shot a few wide shots, but because the surrounding weren’t that attractive again this year, I didn’t share anything other than portraits of the monkeys.

In this next image of another member of our group photographing a monkey with a 17-40mm wide angle lens, and here you can see positive indifference in the monkey’s expression. You can also see that around the pool there is no settled snow. This is of course because the pool warms the rocks, so it doesn’t settle much here. Also, although the river banks, that you can also shoot the monkeys on is usually under snow, there was hardly any this year. We were lucky to get a few shots early on the second and third days with snow on the monkeys. We’ll look at some of these later.

Michael In Action

Let’s start looking through some of my images in the order that I shot them now. There’s a lot to look through, so I won’t talk about all the shooting details of each image, to save time. First up is image 2426 (below). One of the things that I try to do while shooting the Snow Monkeys is to capture expressions or actions other than the norm. I shot this expression through the steam from the hot water, so there’s a bit of a lack of contrast, but I was able to salvage enough of an image to share, and I really wanted to do so because I love this expression. It looks to me like a forced smile, or a “Cheese!” for the photographer. You can also think of this as being like exaggerated chattering teeth, as the monkey shivers in the cold. Either way, it was a great moment to capture.

Smile Please!

That is the only image I want to look at from the first afternoon. I uploaded others, and you can see all of the images in my gallery. I’ll put a link to list all shots in the show-notes.

The next is image is number 2431 (below), from the morning of the 29th. We were lucky enough to have some snow on the second day, so I was excited about the possibility of the group getting some shots of the monkeys with snow on their hair. These are getting more difficult to capture as the snow levels in the valley drop. There are two I want to look at here, and wanted to talk about not being able to see the eyes in this first shot. Normally, I wouldn’t include an image of an animal without being able to see the eyes, or at least closed eyes, as in some of my favorite Snow Monkey shots from last year.

Looking at Hands

Here though, I was happy to include this image, because we have such a strong visual clue as to what the eyes are doing. This monkey seems to be staring pensively at his hands, so although the eyes are not visible here, we can imagine them looking at the hands. You could even argue that the photo is stronger for the lack of the eyes, making us think about what the monkey is looking at more. With these monkeys being so much like us humans, we often want them to be highly intelligent, and they are, without doubt. On this occasion though, the monkey was sifting through the snow for seeds, and rather than looking at his hands, he was just checking the snow for seeds to eat. As an image, it still works, but a little background information on this occasion takes the potency out of the image to a degree.

Snowy Hands

In the next image, 2432 (left), shot about five minutes later, we see the monkey, again with an interesting gesture. This time his hands are together with fingers locked, in another pose that I for one consider to show thoughtfulness. It’s poses like this that I look for when shooting these guys. It’s not always that I see the pose, and then raise the camera. I might already have my camera trained on the subject, but then when they do something like this, I’ll make the exposure.

The other thing to note here, as I mentioned earlier, is that the snow will mess with your exposure metering here. The background around the head of the monkey here is slightly blown out. If I had left my camera in Aperture Priority mode, I’d have had to do exposure compensation to make sure the face of the monkey was not too dark in the shadows here. I could of course use spot metering, and meter on the fur, but I personally prefer to just use Manual mode, and take full control. As I set my exposure, I can see that the snow is blowing out slightly, but I can chose to ignore that, to get a good exposure on the monkey. If you allow the background to blow out too much, it can start to bleed into the detail on the edges of the main subject, or that fine fluffy fur around the edge of the monkey here, but the amount I overexposed required 12 points of Recovery in Lightroom to bring under control, so it really isn’t a problem. You can actually see as well that the light wispy hair actually protect the white snow directly behind it, stopping it from blowing out. The only parts that showed as blow out are pure white, a short distance away from the monkey.

Next we see another gesture in image 2433 (below), as this cute little monkey sticks his tongue out. I was actually standing above the pool, not on the lower level that we saw some participants standing on earlier. I was looking down to see if everyone was alright, having just been talking with some of the group members on the higher level. I turned and saw this little guy, and noticed his tongue sticking out, as I crouched to photograph him.

Tongue Out

Hurumph!

One thing that I should mention, although it’s pretty obvious, is that you really need to make sure that the eyes are sharp, when shooting animals. Especially when shooting with a wide aperture it can be difficult to get the focus right on the eyes. If you are shooting across the subject, as I am here, it can sometimes be a good idea to stop down a little, to get both eyes sharp, as I have here, stopping down to F5.6. I will sometimes stay wide when shooting across the subject like this, especially if I’m a little further away, but when I do, I always try to make sure the nearest eye is sharp. If the furthest eye is sharp it can look pretty weird or just like sloppy focusing.

I’ve photographed the distinguished macaque in image 2438 (right) a number of times, and just love doing tight portraits like this one of him. I uploaded a few others as well. Some of them where we can see his teeth as he chews on some grain or grass, but I like this particular image because of his slanted mouth, again, making him somewhat human with a dissatisfied look on his face. I used the 70-200mm F2.8 lens for this, leaning back to achieve the minimum focus distance for this lens. I can’t wait to take the new 70-200mm out here, as it has a few inches shorter minimal focus distance, which will make it perfect for this location with limited space to shoot from.

I couldn’t help including image 2439 (bel0w), in which we see four monkeys totally relaxed in their hot tub. It’s nice to get a group like this, all with their eyes closed, and with no other distractions in the frame. One thing to note here is that it can be difficult to get a group like this without cutting off their hands on one side of the frame. It can also be easy for someone with less experience to forget about the edges of the frame too, and only realize that they cut the hands on when they look at the shot on the PC later. It’s always helpful to scan the edges of the frame to ensure that all of the important elements are in the frame, and equally importantly, that nothing distracting is entering the edges of the frame. Another thing to pay attention to at this location is that people with bright clothing standing above the pool can sometimes reflect in the water, ruining a good shot. If you look at the water in the top right of this image, you can see the shape of someone standing on the edge of the pool, but luckily their clothing didn’t make them too noticeable. I did point this possibility out to the participants and some had not thought of or noticed this, so it was a good thing to pay attention to.

Hot Tubbers 2010

In image 2440 (below), again I’ve shot at the moment the macaque to the right looked directly at me. She was being groomed and pretty relaxed, but for some reason turned to look at me as I started to photograph the two of them. Maybe I moved quickly, or the sound of my shutter caught her attention. They are very used to us being there, but sometimes I think we catch their attention, and that worked out OK for me on this occasion.

Huh!?

The baby monkeys can be incredibly cute, as we can see in image 2444 (below). This little guy was chewing on something, and so I got that scrunched up nose, as he looked back at something to his side. In addition to being a cute little monkey photograph though, I wanted to mention that I expanded the white snow in the background with the clone tool for this shot, as there was a large dark patch to the right of the monkey as we view the image. The lack of snow can cause problems, and although I rarely clone to this extent, as it was a large expanse of out of focus background, I figured I’d go for it on this one, so that I could still use a relatively cute shot.

Crumpled Nose

Almost done, this second to last shot, number 2445 (below), was a bit of a grab shot, but I was pretty pleased with it. We’d been shooting down by the river, and a few of us were about to head up the path that we can see this monkey sitting on, and head in to eat lunch, if I recall. Something about the way the monkey was just sitting and staring out across the valley struck me, so I fired off a frame or two. You can also see here that although there has been a lot of snow, it’s melted off in many places. We really were lucky to be able to get the images with snow on the monkeys that we looked at earlier.

Surveying the Valley

Cold Feet

And finally, I wanted to look at image 2449 (left), from the last morning, before we headed back to Tokyo. It was a Saturday morning, and the ledge around the hot spring pool was packed with local tourists. I was really happy that I’d avoided the weekend for our main day, and we spend a few hours shooting around the river and paths, and this was one of my last shots, as the last few participants finished up their shooting. Again, I was just looking for something other than a straight shot, so when this monkey lifted his foot, as if to protect it from the cold snow for a brief time, I made my exposure.

We left at lunch time, and headed back to Tokyo. On the way, I used some of the time on the bus to share my digital workflow with some of the participants, crowded around my laptop screen. This was good to do, as you will often learn something from seeing other’s work-flows, and I’m pretty happy with mine, so I thought I’d share it and it seemed to go down well.

To finish, although I played this in a quick update Podcast before we went to Hokkaido, here’s some quick comments from some of the participants that I recorded on the bus as we drove back to Tokyo on the Saturday afternoon!

<Playing Recording – Only available in the audio>

So, that’s it. We did have a great time over these first three days. I can’t wait to take another group out there again next year. Note that I am still finalizing the plans for next year, and will be releasing information on the www.mbpworkshops.com Web site in the very near future. If you would like me to mail you to let you know when any details are announced, please mail me using the contact form. Note too that I am thinking of not making the Snow Monkey tour a solo option next year. There will be a shorter Hokkaido tour, and then the following week we’ll do the Snow Monkey tour, and then go straight to Hokkaido as one group. If there is enough demand to do a second Snow Monkey tour separate of the one integrated with the Hokkaido trip, then I’ll consider adding a second. If you absolutely, certainly, definitely are only interested in a Snow Monkeys trip and do not want to join us in Hokkaido, please state that when you drop me a line. I’ll keep that in mind as I finalize the plans.

I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour with the Snow Monkeys. They are amazing, that’s for sure.

View all images: http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/thumbnails.php?album=search&search=Jigokudani_Jan2010

Workshops Web site: http://www.mbpworkshops.com

WebSpy giveaway: http://www.webspy.com.au/blogs/index.php/new-webspy-soho-giveaway/

Music from Music Alley: http://www.musicalley.com/

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

Click a thumbnail to view the images from this post with limited shooting info. Once the image has opened, you can navigate back and forth by clicking the image.

David Burren

I’ve teamed up with professional Australian nature photographer David Burren to host a photography expedition to South Georgia and Antarctica from November 8th to 26th this year.

Today it gives me great pleasure to welcome David to the Martin Bailey Photography Podcast to answer questions on the expedition.

Note that David and I aiming to take a group of around 20 people. We’re already getting people signing up, and places are limited, so if you want to come, you’ll need to book SOON. The booking form is available at antarctica2010.com. Once we are fully booked, there will be a wait-list.

There is no transcript for this episode, so you’ll need to listen with the audio player below, or via iTunes or your favourite MP3 player. Links to all formats are at the bottom of this post.

You can see details of the Antarctica 2010 Photo Odyssey at antarctica2010.com.

Zodiac in front of Iceberg (© Copyright - David Burren)

In the Zodiac (© Copyright - David Burren)

© Copyright - David Burren

Antarctica 2010 : A Photo Odyssey: http://antarctica2010.com/

More on David Burren: http://www.davidburren.com/

WebSpy giveaway: http://www.webspy.com.au/blogs/index.php/new-webspy-soho-giveaway/

Music from Music Alley: http://www.musicalley.com/

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

Prefer to listen? There’s an audio player at the bottom of the post.

In third place, we have Super Digital Girl, real name Leslie, with a superb photograph, “Ballerina” (below). Leslie sent me a little information on this photograph, as follows:

This past year I have been working on more documentary style photography so I decided to take a workshop in Connecticut with Elizabeth Opalenik to get in touch with my creative side again. The focus of the workshop was using long exposures and movement to create an impressionistic image. It was a great experience. The dancers were wonderful teenage students from the ballet studio that we shot in.

Ballerina (© Copyright 2010 - Leslie Granda-Hill)

Well Leslie, I can tell that it was a great experience and you came away with some amazing images. The two bars that run through the lower third of the image form a nice divide, and the third horizontal line separate the floor from the wall. The floor being a slightly darker tone helps to anchor the image too. The obvious star of the shot is the ballerina, placed perfectly in the bottom right corner, and blurred from motion, as she dances. You can almost sense the movement here, despite this being a still photograph. I see from the EXIF data that this was a 1/5 of a second exposure, which turned out excellent. If the exposure was much longer, the subject would be too blurred, and if it was much shorter, the movement would be lost. The lighting and black and white processing you chose here, with a warm yet subtle sepia tone is masterful too. This really is one of the best photographs I’ve seen for a while. Well done indeed Leslie!

In second place, we have Allen Oneal, with the image “Layered Earth” (below). Again Allen has sent us a great back-story, as follows:

We have many names for it here. Sometimes we call it “The Soup”, “Tule (two-lee) Fog”, or “The Dark Blanket”, but whatever you call it, dense fog is a fact of life for those of us living in the Central Valley of California. Although I always welcome the winter months (my favorite season), I dread the fog that comes with it.

Fortunately, there is an escape. Traveling up into the local Sierra Nevada Mountains quickly displaces you from “The Soup”. One of my favorite places to visit in winter is the iconic Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park. This massive granite dome offers incredible views of the Great Western Divide mountain range and the Central Valley below.

Layered Earth (© Copyright 2010 - Allen Oneal)

Recently, myself and two friends made our way out to Moro rock for a quick winter adventure to take in the beauty and to grab a few shots. Once we arrived at Moro Rock, we could immediately see the valley below us and the layers of mountains piercing through the sea of low lying fog. Actually, this is a very typical sight in the winter from here and depending on the time of day and lighting conditions, the view can be very dramatic. At certain times, it almost appears as if you are looking out onto the ocean. This image represents more of an average view.

When I took this shot, I hadn’t planned on using it for the square crop assignment but it was originally post-processed with a square crop from the beginning. Although most people seem to dislike square crops, I am a fan and I like to use them from time to time. Once I found out what the January assignment was, I knew of just the shot to use. This was the only square crop image I had made in January and that made it an easy choice.

I shot this image at 200mm using a 70-200mm zoom in order to isolate the layers and really make them fill the frame. Contrast and white balance were adjusted as well as saturation and clarity in Lightroom. Even though the exposure was centered very well, the sky was just a little too harsh for my taste so I used a graduated ND filter in Lightroom to bring it closer to what I wanted. The only other thing that was added was a slight vignette to bring the viewers attention into the layers.

One thing I remember well from this trip was the drive home. As we were making our way down the mountain the lighting had changed quite a bit and the layer effect became extremely contrasty. When we came around a corner and saw how much more intense it had become we all got really quiet. It was an incredible view! I started to look for a place to pull over, but there were none to be found. Every turnout was full and I was running late to get home.

I wish I had turned around that day to find a spot to park but I figured that this view happens so often that we will just get some pictures the next time we come up. Well, even though I didn’t capture that amazing view on the drive home, the view from earlier in the day was good enough to earn a second place and I couldn’t be happier with that!

To everyone in the always friendly MBP community, a big “Thank You”. Your votes are always deeply appreciated! Also, congratulations to Super Digital Girl with the beautiful ballerina image and to Dennis on the winning image. That image of the plant Dennis is just amazing and it got my 1st place vote right away.

Well Allen, I don’t know if the image that got away would have been better, but I do know that I really like this one. You made a wonderful image here. Not only was your initial capture awesome, the work that you did to enhance it as we just heard really paid off. This is very similar to what I’m finding myself doing sometimes these days too. I bit of a neutral density graduated filter in Lightroom to balance out the sky and the foreground, and a subtle vignette to keep the viewers eyes focused in the frame. It’s amazing how we pay all this money for good glass that doesn’t vignette, and then add it back in post! I do like to have that option though of course.

Anyway, it really is a great image. The tones and the warm colors in the sky, and the contrast between the foreground mountain and then each consecutive mountain as we move further back into the scene is beautiful. Well done indeed on a well earned second place Allen.

Finally, in first place, we have a truly classically beautiful image from Dennis Brennan, called “Becoming” (below). Here’s Dennis’ back-story.

I had been at work since just before 2:00 a.m. that day for a software release. By about 10:00 a.m. things were stable and I was free for the day. Time to head to a favorite spot to do some shooting. I’m lucky enough to live within a few miles of Longwood Gardens, which is a fairly large botanical gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania in the United States. On recent trips there, I’ve spent a good bit of time in the Silver Garden – also known as the Desert Room. The room is packed with a large variety of succulents and other desert growth. None of which are native to where I live.

Becoming (© Copyright 2010 - Dennis Brennan)

It was about mid day by the time I got there and started setting up to shoot. I let my eyes wander for a bit and then noticed a small patch of succulents with nice light from an adjacent window. On closer inspection, I noticed one very beautiful isolated sprout of what I believe is a type of Haworthia. What a specimen. The spiraling growth pattern, different shades of green transition from deep dark on the outside to a pale green on the inside, with lighter almost white specs and warts all over – I knew I had found my subject. Looking at it straight on, the light, patterns and tonal transitions were all working really well. Darker shadowy areas below the sprout would fade to black and isolate the subject nicely in the final image. I already had the 100mm macro mounted, so I locked in the tripod with the sprout dead center (I thought). I made sure to leave enough room on both sides for a square crop. After stopping down to f/13 to get the tips and center in focus, I underexposed about 1/2 stop to keep the deep green tones and not blow out any of the detail in the lighter areas inside. I bracketed the exposures by about a third to make sure I nailed it. The final image is a single exposure, but I like to bracket by small amounts sometimes with darker subjects just to make sure I have it nailed. I finished the image in Silver Efex Pro, then cropped and output with lightroom and mogrify.

When I was finished with the image it looked nice, but there was a problem. The original shot was slightly skewed as I missed lining up the lens parallel with the tips of the sprout. Subtle, but enough to annoy me. I knew I could do better. Luckily the weekend was coming and I had some time to get back there. I headed back that Sunday at about the same time hoping for equal or better light. Would it be there? I entered the room and smiled. Got it!

It’s always fun to participate and see what others come up with in the assignments. To place in the top three is a real honor for me. This is especially true last month with so many great images submitted. Thanks very much to everyone that threw a vote my way. And as always, a huge thanks to Martin for hosting the assignments, galleries, forums and putting together such a great podcast and surrounding community for all of us to enjoy.

You’re more than welcome on setting this stuff up Dennis. I thank you for taking the time to participate and enter such amazing photographs. I also thank you and the others for a great back-story. I’m really enjoying hearing how you make your images. Dennis also provided a flickr set with some more images from the Desert Room.

The winning image itself really is a beautiful photograph. The handling of the exposure is perfect, holding all detail in the lighter areas, and allowing the background to fall into darkness, while maintaining the darker greens, which were of course rendered in beautiful sepia tones with Silver Efex Pro. I really like the tones used in the conversion. I’m finding myself using these warm gold tones, or blue tones a lot in Silver Efex conversions and I’m really enjoying them. The texture and detail in each of these succulent leaves though is simply breathtaking! The little white spots outlining all the edges really make this for me. It’s simply masterful. Of course, the placement of the subject, in the dead center of the frame is also very important here. Whereas Leslie chose to great effect, to place her ballerina in the bottom right third, this subject simply demands to be centered, and I’m really pleased that you did so Dennis. It’s a wonderful example of when bulls-eye composition just works. Congratulations indeed on a very, very well earned first place.

A quick reminder before we finish that this was the second of a six month batch of assignments from which we will accumulate all votes to find five winners that will receive prizes made available by our kind sponsors WebSpy. The first prize is an amazing HyperDrive COLORSPACE UDMA portable storage unit. I actually just bought one of these myself, and found it to be very reliable and easy to use during my Hokkaido workshop recently. The second prize is once again, a Lensbaby Composer, and then the following three winners will each receive an X-Rite ColorChecker Passport, which I reviewed in episode 227 of this Podcast. I released a blog post with details of these prizes too, which I’ll link to in the show-notes, so check that out too for more details.

Don’t forget that the current assignment, the third in the six month series has a theme of “Free-for-all”. For details of that check the assignment forum. Note that you are only allowed to enter one image per assignment, and that image must have been shot during the month of the assignment. You will have until the end of February to upload your entry to the mbpgalleries.com Web site, and then voting will start for a further two weeks to decide the winners.

Thanks to all that got involved in the January assignment, thanks to WebSpy for enabling us to offer these great prizes, and good luck to everyone taking part in the February assignment too.

Ending Notes

If you don’t follow me on Twitter or in the MBP Forums, you may not have heard that I have teamed up with Australian photographer David Burren to take a party of photographers on a photographic expedition to South Georgia and Antarctica from November the 8th to the 26th this year. I’m really excited about this, and I’m planning to get David on the show in the coming weeks to explain more of the details, as David is the location expert for this trip. In the meantime, if you are interested in joining us, you can see full details and download the booking form from antarctica2010.com.

Also, I finally managed to get through my images from my Hokkaido workshop, and uploaded 60 favorites to flickr and my own online gallery yesterday, for those that want to take a look.

See the assignment scores and images here: http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/scores2010_1.php

Here’s the blog post with details of the current MBP/WebSpy six month assignment prizes: http://bit.ly/61LAXU

For a preview of my Hokkaido 2010 images: http://bit.ly/hokkaido2010

And on flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_bailey/sets/72157623361538837/

Music created and produced by UniqueTracks.

Download the Enhanced Podcast M4A files directly.

Click a thumbnail to view the images from this post with limited shooting info. Once the image has opened, you can navigate back and forth by clicking the image.