Camera Bodies

I use almost everything that’s manufactured. When I photograph wildlife, I use Canon cameras and autofocus lenses that I sometimes use on autofocus, sometimes not. Autofocus is something I’m constantly turning off and on.

I don’t use the camera on automatic unless I’m in a situation that’s changing so fast that I can’t set the exposure. Principally, I use my instincts, because color balances and my tolerances are so critical. I use a handheld light meter and the meter in the camera and I’ll come up with an exposure that I think is right. All my cameras auto-bracket, so if I take a photograph, I push the button three times and it brackets the exposure. The problem with bracketing is that means two of my pictures are not the right expsoure, and they may be the right moment in time. But I have a friend that shoots for the Geographic and he doesn’t bracket, and I think he’s crazy. Films don’t come out the same — even Kodachrome 64, sometimes it’s a little faster, sometimes it’s a little slower.

I don’t generally use fast motor drives on my cameras, because it makes them so heavy. But if I’m sitting in a hide, then I don’t care about the weight and I can have real fast motors, and that helps. You can have a little faster rewind.

I’ve always used Canon. Canon about five years ago really hit the state of the art as far as technology, and they’re still doing that, so basically I’ve been loyal to the company. They’re very good for what I do, and they stay up with technology, and they’re rugged enough. Nikon focuses in a different way completely than Canon, but as far as I’m concerned there’s no difference between Nikon and Canon. It’s what you like.

But when I do black and white, or really sensitive people stuff, like when I work with Pygmies that are afraid of cameras, I want to have a camera that doesn’t draw a lot of attention to me. I use a Leica rangefinder. It’s so much less obstrusive. A Leica is like an ancient point and shoot. But it lets me control the moment of exposure — unfortunately, most point and shoots have a delay in them: when I push the button, that’s not when it actually takes the picture. And that millisecond can really make a difference in what you see.

What’s cool about a range finder like a Leica is that I’m seeing my picture when I take it. When I take a picture with an SLR, a camera with a mirror, I never see the moment that the picture’s taken because it’s blocked by the mirror. I’ve learned that really affects my timing. I’m much better with timing with a Leica. Also, with a Leica, I see the periphery, because the finder shows more than what’s being captured on the frame. So I see things as they’re coming in. But there’s no question, I can’t do wildlife photography with a Leica, or I would.

And then to further complicate that, all my camera trap stuff is done with Nikons, because our shop at the Geographic is better trained for working with Nikons, and they can be opened up and modified more easily than the Canons.

Lenses

I usually take a whole complement of lenses, that go from 17mm all the way up to 600.

For wildlife photography, if it’s an elusive animal that’s afraid of me, then I’m sitting in a hide with a big tripod — and I mean big. I use a Wimberley head, which does a good job of balancing my 600mm lens that weighs well over 15 pounds. And I often attach a 2x converter. So I’m shooting at f/8 with shutter speeds down to a half second or more. The lens has a stabilizer built in, which helps with the movement. And the 2x is designed for that lens, so the color balances are all good, and it’s not like the old days when there was a lot of falloff when you went to a converter.

If we’re creeping around, sometimes I’ll have an assistant carry the 600 lens on a tripod, but it’s a bitch. Usually I’ll use the Canon lenses that are more maneuverable (like the 500mm f/4 or the 300mm f/4). At that point maneuverability is more important than magnification, and you’ve just got to creep closer to the animal.

The problem is that I don’t want to use a telephoto so much that everything I do is a portrait. Trying to do complicated, interesting compositions with a telephoto is the biggest challenge of using telephoto.

Light

More and more I’m using just natural light. If I use a strobe, then it draws attention to me if I’m hiding.

If I’ve seen that the animals don’t care, or if it’s daylight and they can’t tell a flash is going off, then we set up a big strobe. It’s big by field standards, but not studio photography standards. I use a Quantum Q flash with a heavy-duty battery, bulb extension, and a parabolic reflector that throws the flash about twice as far as normal. I match that up with the big lens and do a lot of stuff with flash. A lot of things happen with wildlife at dawn and dusk, so using flash can be real handy.

My flash isn’t mounted on the camera, generally, unless it’s a fast-moving subject, in which case I mount it right on the Wimberley head. But that’s very flat lighting. I use radio links to fire the strobes, and I try to have my assistant creep off at a 45-degree angle. We’re connected by walkie-talkies. But it requires a huge amount of coordination because the parabolic reflect doesn’t work well on auto, so we’ve got our exposures worked out by distance that we figure out beforehand on sheets of paper. And I’ve gotten better at it, because those flashes are really hot, and for a long time they were burning up the pictures.

I’m really known for mixing flash and available light. I like movement and I like the edge that it can give me, but the environments I photograph in require it, too. When I started in the 70s, it was new, but everybody’s doing it now. But I still use it because it’s a tool, it’s not a trick. It’s part of the way I see. That edge is something I really like, because it creates a tension.

Strobes are now pretty accurate on automatic. And you can dial them down to get the mix that you like. I let the ambient exposure generally drive what I’m doing, unless the ambient is just background and the subject is totally silhouette.

But it’s so easy now that you can literally just put your camera on automatic, and put your strobe on, dial it down one stop, and you’re off to the races.

That’s part of the problem for me, that I’m known for using flash. So people come to my workshops and want to learn flash. I say, wait a minute, it’s an aesthetic that we’re trying to learn. And, by the way, flash can be really ugly. Flash can just ruin pictures. If you don’t know how to use it, you’re much better off not using it.

But if you do, you want to have a simple method. Dial it down so it’s very weak but it gives you some flash. Put a little warming gel over the strobe. And don’t flash straight into a reflective subject, or you’ll get this hot light back. If you want to get quick experience, you can use your friends at parties.

That’s how Dave Harvey does it — he doesn’t know anything about flash, neither does Bill Allard. If they dial their flashes down so they’re really weak, then they don’t spoil the colors that are already there.

Film

When I started as a photographer, we all used Kodachrome 64. Now there have been so many changes. Principally I use Kodak film — I have no aversion to Fuji, but I try to be loyal like I am with Canon. And as long as Kodak’s not putting out an inferior product, I try to use them because they’ve been supportive of professional photographers and they gave me film for one of my early gorilla projects. I use 100 speed primarily, their SW film, which is a warming film. A lot of people don’t like it, but it’s worked well for me. What I’m most critical of is a film with high contrast, so I’m looking for something with more latitude. I try not to get stuck on a film, though, because technology’s moving so fast.

There’s a 200 speed Ektachrome that can be pushed well to 400 or 800. And a lot of times with gorillas in the forest I need the 800 speed just be able to get a 1/15th second exposure. So I need a pushable film, but even at 800 the film’s Dmax (densities) are not very good.

High speed film is not the solution because it doesn’t give you good colors and tightness. I think working with 100 speed is what you’ve got to do. So mixing flash with available light is very important. To get the quality that we need at Geographic, I’ve got to shoot 90% of my stuff at 100 ASA.

With my black-and-white stuff, I tried 3200, but it just wasn’t tight enough. So I went to Tmax 400 and I’ve been really happy with that. Maybe I should be using Tri-X, because it’s got more character, but I’m not.

Gear

All told, I probably take 20 cases of equipment on an assignment. But that’s not to say we go out with all of that every day. If we’re using a vehicle, then I’ll put a lot of stuff in the vehicle. But if we’re walking, then I’ve got to decide exactly what I need for that excursion, what we can carry. So then I shift from hard cases, the Pelican-type dry boxes, to backpacks that you can carry cameras in. All this is measured against how noisy it is in the forest, and how much I’m scaring away things, and if the weight I’m carrying is so exhausting that I don’t have any energy left to take pictures when I get there.

There’s a lot of stuff you add on afterwards because you find out it’s not working for the animal. I have to wrap my cameras in towels and stuff because they make too much noise. Then on top of that, I’ve got to have binoculars, gas stoves, the highest quality tents, I’m just a gear freak because all of that makes my life easier in the bush.

There are incredible humidity problems in the jungle. Every night I put my equipment in dry boxes with silica gel. Everything I carry is waterproof. I always have a big golfing umbrella — not a raincoat or a poncho, because that doesn’t keep water off your camera. A big golfing umbrella. That’s another reason why Canon has been so good for me: their new cameras are practically waterproof.