In At The Deep End…

Or… changing camera systems in the year of a global pandemic!

2020 has certainly been a year like no other – but then I don’t need to tell you that. For me it has been a year of change for my entire camera system as well as a year of uncertainty and a tiny amount of chaos with my professional photography work and my duties as Whale and Dolphin Conservation field officer. I have used Canon professional equipment for the best part of 25 years and many people recognise me from a distance either standing with or carrying over a shoulder the big Gitzo carbon tripod and normally a 500mm or 600mm white Canon super telephoto lens and pro body attached. I do my land based (and sometimes boat based) research photography work with the resident population of Bottlenose dolphins here near Inverness on a beach at Chanonry Point, Fortrose and this involves trudging along the shingle beach not only with the big lens and tripod but also a backup body and smaller zoom lens – it’s pretty heavy and the trek from the car park to the beach really takes it out of you some days. For the 2020 season I had made a profound decision – I had to use lighter and more portable kit as my knee and ankle joints on one leg are crumbling away and can be very painful. Those lovely people at Olympus UK via my local camera dealers Ffordes of Beauly had already given me a taster of their camera bodies and lenses a few seasons ago when I was very impressed with the robust build quality and excellent JPEG’s that came out of the camera so after a couple phone calls in February 2020 a big camera bag full of lovely loan kit was winging it’s way to me. Included in the equipment was the E-M1X flagship body, a M.Zuiko 300f4 Pro lens, a 40-150 f2.8 Pro lens and a MC-14 teleconverter. I was smitten right away and changed over all my camera equipment. Then Covid-19 lockdown happened. Great timing.

Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter on Gitzo 1530 carbon tripod and fluid gimbal at Chanonry Point near Inverness, Scotland. This set up is about half the weight of my Canon gear – SO much easier on arthritic joints !

At the end of May it was deemed safe to return to work and I could actually start taking photos with my shiny new kit…

ID#240 “Porridge” (we use the natural marks on the dorsal fin to identify individuals) with her young calf at Chanonry – Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter, 420mm (840mm equiv) pretty much my first frame back at work after lock-down with the new Olympus kit. Fine detail is important as is a crisp, well focussed shot of the dolphin/s.

The work I do falls into a few different categories… Photo Identification, which is recording the naturally occurring bite and scratch marks on the dolphins dorsal fin…

ID#1129 “Foo” taken from a boat with the Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 100-400 lens at 186mm (372mm equiv) showing nicks and scratches.

Hunting and foraging behaviour which includes the capture by the dolphin of seasonally available fish…

ID#748 “Scoopy” hurling a huge salmon out of the water – Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter, 420mm (840mm equiv) – this sort of action needs fast shutter speeds, I use around 1/1600th second for this type of shot.

ID#31 “Rainbow” manipulating a captured salmon just a few metres off the beach – Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter, 420mm (840mm equiv)

An adult male Bottlenose dolphin explodes from the water with a salmon firmly clamped in his jaws, Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter, 420mm (840mm equiv)

Watchers on the beach at Chanonry Point with a dolphin around 20 metres away throwing a salmon – this shows the flexibility of the zoom lens, Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 100-400 lens at 100mm (200mm equiv) – these images tell great stories and tourist boards and magazines love this type of work.

Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 100-400 lens at 100mm (200mm equiv) again – nice for getting “story” type shots.

And energetic action/behavioural types of shots like this mother and young calf together in perfect harmony breaching from the shiny water at Chanonry Point.

Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300f4 lens – sometimes you have to grab action when it happens, I didn’t think I managed any of this sequence of ID#744 “Bonnie” and her calf that was useable but the AF performance and focus speed saved the day.

ID# 10141 “Indigo” at a distance – Olympus E-M1X & M.Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter on a dull, grey day. Higher ISO’s are needed on days like this but the E-M1X handles 2000+ ISO in it’s stride.

What I really need in my equipment as well as reliability is to be robust and not be afraid of a little rain shower or dusty conditions and thankfully all my Olympus kit is very well weatherproofed and solidly built – the E-M1X bodies, like my past Canon EOS 1 series bodies feel as if they are made from granite. Working in a mixture of environments my cameras can get dropped and knocked about in sand/gravel or get splashed either with rain or sometimes salt water or getting thumped about in a research boat but I am careful with my gear and don’t abuse it. The only thing that has happened fault wise this season is that the 300f4 lens started to behave a little strangely and wasn’t as sharp as it should be so it was sent back to Olympus under warranty, they inspected it and promptly replaced the lens for a brand new one – these guys know how to look after professional photographers – no mucking about !

A dolphin shows its tail as it dives at sunrise – Olympus E-M1X & Zuiko 300 f4 + MC-14 teleconverter, 420mm (840mm equiv)

I’m really looking forward to doing a proper, full season of work with these dolphins in 2021 (all being safe and well of course) and maybe even getting my hands on the new, upcoming Olympus M.Zuiko ED 150-400mm f4.5 TC1.25x IS Pro Lens which sounds fantastic – let’s see what happens. Keep well and safe everybody – you can keep in touch with me and my adventures through the social media links below. Best Wishes from Inverness, Scotland.

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Me onboard wildlife tour boat “Dolphin Mischief” earlier this year – hopefully next year no masks will be needed.

Booky Things…

Well…that was a nice start to March ! My publishers, Ness Publishing, let me know at the end of February that some great news was forthcoming about my book on the resident Bottlenose dolphins “On A Rising Tide” that was launched in late October 2015. Every two years, the Scottish Nature Photography Awards (who crowned me with their “Photographer of The Year” accolade in 2012) gather together the best literary offerings about nature and wildlife in and around Scotland and choose a winner. It seems that my book had made it onto the shortlist and then, hey-presto, it was announced soon after as the winning book. To say that I was gobsmacked is a bit of an understatement as the sheer quality of the photography in the other shortlisted book was epic in some cases (Laurie Campbell, Colin Prior, Richard Shucksmith, and so the list goes on…) and not just that, this was my first book – all photographed and written by yours truly, so I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

It is certainly a lovely way to get my 2017 dolphin season under way and it won’t do the second year of sales and the second print run of the book any harm at all – plus the recent publicity in the local and national press and media will hopefully bring some more visitors to North Kessock (and our wee Art & Craft Studio comprising of “Aurorabearealis” & “Charlie Phillips Images“) and the rest of the Black Isle. “Aurorabearealis” in the Main Street of North Kessock is now on the NorthCoast500 route as a business member and hopefully we will feel the economic benefit, not only of the books success, but also get a spin off (no pun intended) from the phenomenal rise in profile of the North Coast 500 route – a real draw for visitors worldwide.

Dolphins & Weathery Stuff…

At this time of year I’m really busy with my Bottlenose dolphin work for Whale and Dolphin Conservation – the marine charity that I am the Field Officer for up here in the Highlands of Scotland. The old saying “It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it” only conveys part of, what to most people would be a dream job – photographing dolphins for a living. Weather plays a great part in what you can and cannot do when you are either photographing or filming dolphins and this goes for land based work as well as from boats.

Recently the weather has been slightly “changeable” to say the least and I have had to be working out at sea as well as being on dry land as the sightings of the resident dolphins around Chanonry Point has slowed down a little. Luckily I get on very well with all of our local tour boat operators and as well as giving me regular sightings of dolphins when they out and about with passengers – they take pity on me sometimes and let me jump on-board to take a spin out to see what and who is about. On a recent trip with Gwyn Tanner of Dolphin Trips Avoch  the weather was, shall we say – wet, but eventually the skies cleared a little and as we were passing Chanonry Point, I was able to get a snap of dolphin watchers at Chanonry with ID#866 “Zephyr” and her young son keeping the watchers amused.

A little later we encountered Zephyrs young son as he popped up beside us on the boat to check us out – thrilling for the passengers and the sea is a nice blue instead of slate grey as it had been about ten minutes earlier.

The next day I was out on a trip with Sarah Pern on-board the Ecoventures RIB from Cromarty and we had just been called up by Barbara Cheney from the Aberdeen University Lighthouse Field Station at Cromarty who was out on their research boat and told us about a group of dolphins heading our way from further down the coast – great news and sure enough before we knew it we were being “shot-gunned” with dolphins on either side of the boat – happy passengers and I was even happier as at least two of the WDC Adoption dolphins were right beside us – Moonlight, who was chomping a big fish…

And Rainbow who was coming to check us out after bow-riding with a ship entering the Cromarty Firth…

So at least the weather stayed reasonable for us out on the water, where waterproof outfits and camera spray covers are the norm – its only the middle of July…roll on the summer ! Grateful thanks as ever to Gwyn and Sarah for the trips out and to Barbara for the heads up 😉

 

Rise Of The Super Zooms…

Up until just recently when we poor, hard working photographers thought of zoom lenses we were usually thinking in terms of 24-70 mm, 70-200 mm or even 100-400 mm in focal length but in the last few years, much, much longer focal lengths have been creeping in to the zoom lens line-up… lenses that I have termed the “Super Zoom”.

Sigma Imaging brought out the 300-800 mm “Sigmonster” a while ago but at £5,500 retail price it was out of reach for many enthusiast photographers, never mind professionals but seeing a gap in the market, Sigma have been bringing out very reasonably priced large zoom length lenses such as the excellent Pro build quality 150-600mm F5-6.3 “Sport” DG OS HSM which Sigma UK were very kind to send me to try through my friends at Ffordes Photographic of Beauly for a much more reasonable £1,200 rrp with the even more affordable “Contemporary” version of this lens for around £750 or so. Sigma describe these lenses as “hyper-telephoto zooms” and I certainly won’t argue with them.

Carole Pearce on a recent camera tuition day with me learning how to photograph Bottlenose dolphins using the “Sport” version of the 150-600 mm Sigma lens coupled to a Canon 7D MKII camera body.

Now although a confirmed Canon prime lens man through and through, every now and again you sometimes need a specific lens for a project and I must admit, two years ago I ordered up the Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 DG OS HSM Lens along with the matching Sigma 1.4x  Teleconverter as I was needing to be able to compose shots a bit more for some jobs in low light than with the prime lenses that I normally work with. I was amazed at both the optical quality (with & without teleconverter) and the build quality of this chunky little beast so was expecting good news when I unpacked the 150-600. I wasn’t disappointed. Build quality is definitely up there at pro level with water resistant switches that have a nice positive feel to them – very little chance of knocking one to the off or on position accidentally. A rubber gasket at the camera/lens coupling for rain shower resistance and a front element coating that sheds dust, rain and grease completes the pro-level attention to detail. Everything just feels “right” with nothing wobbly or lacking in engineering integrity – even the lens collar has a lovely robust feel to it with 90 degree indent stops. A well engineered, solid lens hood completes the lineup and you are good to go in most weather conditions.

Bottlenose dolphins at Chanonry Point, Scotland. Harsh back-light didn’t phase the 150-600 mm Sport – Canon EOS 7D MKII 1600th sec at F6.3 200 ISO +2/3rds stop+ EC, Focal length 320 mm  

The shape, size and natural markings of the dorsal fin of a Bottlenose dolphin – part of the science of studying dolphins is to be able to tell them apart – this is how we do it. Canon EOS 7D MKII 1600th sec at F6.3 320 ISO +2/3rds stop+ EC, Focal length 560 mm

Without having much time for doing any sort of auto-focus micro-adjustment before the demo day at Chanonry Point I simply connected the 150-600 to my Canon 7D MKII and started taking shots of the dolphins that I study in a variety of light conditions ranging from dull and grey to hard, bright sunshine and was very pleased with the auto-focus reaction speed and the Optical Stabilisation operation, much like what I remember with the Sport 120-300 F2.8. I managed some good frames of dolphins being dynamic right away, with sharp images that had good contrast and nice colours and when you are photographing fast moving dolphins for a living then that is a pretty good start! Setting up the lens on a tripod and gimbal, you will maybe find that you need to spend time re-adjusting the balance point when you have extended the lens right out at 600 mm as it does affect the balance a fair bit but once you get it set up properly it feels fine, with a good amount of friction on the zoom plus a handy built in zoom lock too. It is a chunky lens, no getting away from it, with 24 high quality glass elements inside this beast it couldn’t be anything else really but at just over 2.8 kilos without a camera attached it is not too much to carry around for a days wildlife shoot – and that’s the beauty of it – it can be used for a whole range of subjects from near (2.6 metre minimum focus distance) to far, far away – even better if you couple it up to the dedicated 1.4 extender, the TC- 1401 for even more reach at 840 mm all day, every day.

All said, this is a great value for money, general purpose wildlife lens that will delight with its optical quality and sheer quality of build. A wise move is to purchase the USB docking device that allows you to adjust the AF and OS parameters to your own liking and set them through your computer – Canon and Nikon take note… this is a very useful tool to have !

My thanks to Sigma UK and Ffordes Photographic for letting me have this lens to try for a short period – these new generation of Sigma lenses are fantastic and I have no hesitation in highly recommending any of them for either enthusiast or even professional use in virtually any weather conditions.

Charlie with the 150-600mm Sigma Sport DG OS USM “Hyper-telephoto” zoom lens coupled to a Canon EOS 7DMKII DSLR body – photo by Alister Bowie of Ffordes Photographic.

 

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Charlies new highly acclaimed hard backed book “On A Rising Tide” recalls over 20 years studying and photographing the resident Bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth. Available from book shops and his own website www.charliephillipsimages.co.uk priced at £19.50 +p&p

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minox Marvels…

Some time ago now the manager of the local family run camera shop near me Ffordes of Beauly and I were chatting about optical equipment such as binoculars and scopes and the conversation inevitably headed for the subject of German optical quality and how superb it is, but generally the “problem” with it having a stratospheric price tag attached to boot. Alister, the manager of Ffordes happened to mention that the company more famous to most people for its tiny “spy” cameras, Minox, were looking to make inroads into the UK market with a great range of binoculars and telescopes.

It was suggested that the company might be looking to supply loan equipment to a few lucky recipients for evaluation so when the sales manager and area sales adviser were visiting Ffordes, I popped in and introduced myself. I’m glad to say that we got on very well and a few weeks later I was unpacking boxes of loan equipment – my Christmas and Birthday had come all at once – the Minox gear had arrived. The company had very kindly asked me what they could supply to make my Field Officer working life a bit easier so I had asked for two sets of binoculars to use – one set for long range observing and another set of waterproof marine type of units for use on the research boat. I also said if they had any spare small telescopes then one would be very handy. As I was gently unpacking everything I realised that the equipment that they had sent me wasn’t just good quality – it was absolutely superb…the finish and firmness of construction and the way that they felt in your hand – reassuringly solid but not too heavy and ergonomically brilliant.

When I am trying to find the dolphins that I photograph and study on behalf of the marine charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation, there are two different sets of  search”rules” that I follow…for high season and for low season. High season means that dolphins are going to be in their usual haunts like Chanonry Point, the Kessock Channel or the entrance to the Cromarty Firth and on a rising tide, will be relatively easy to find even with the naked eye. In the low season however the dolphins tend to be much more difficult to find and this is where the magical Minox BL 15 x 56 binoculars really help me out – the sheer clarity and range that you get with these big, but not huge or heavy units is simply astonishing.

I can regularly spot not only a dolphins dorsal fin at maybe a mile or so but because of the sheer sharpness and clarity of the image – I can identify which dolphin I’m actually looking at. I don’t have any images of myself using these brilliant units – I must get round to that !  I have to confess that the best way of using these fantastic binoculars for me is to settle them on my big telephoto lens beanbag that fits over the lowered car window and then everything is rock steady and you can really get accurate focussing. Wonderfully clear and sharp, the sheer detail that I can see never fails to bring a smile to my face.

ID#105 “Sundance”

When out at sea during the high season and using the wonderful white rubber coated 7 x 50 Marine DCM units (with their advanced active LED display for the like of compass bearing, altitude, atmospheric pressure and time) I can rest assured that if there is anything out on the wide blue yonder with a dorsal fin then these brilliant units with their very bright, clear and very sharp image, will find it. I’ve had them with me on full day research surveys and everyone (scientists, boat skippers and crew) that I have let have a shot of them have raved about them and it’s been difficult sometimes getting them back again !

Me out on the Aberdeen University research boat looking for dolphins with the 7X50 DCM binoculars – absolute wonders of clarity and sharpness.

One of my marine charity colleagues “borrowing” the wonderful BN 7X50 DCM units

Last but not least is the lovely, compact but sturdy spotting scope that Minox have sent – the MD 50 with its 15-30 zoom and good clear image with a useful zoom range makes an ideal companion wherever you might go. Small and light enough to put in a jacket pocket but still has a tripod mount and really packs a punch.

Its been a while now since I opened that big box full of Minox goodies and gazed lovingly at them and wondered just how often that I would get to use them… it turns out that these are pieces of precision  equipment that I use EVERY day and to be quite honest I wonder just how I managed without them. The sales manager at the time asked me what Minox could supply to make my job “easier” and the simple answer is – all that you sent me and thank you SO much Minox.com for your generosity. Please visit their website, look at the range and decide whether you would like a bit of Minox loveliness in your life and either buy from their online shop or visit the Ffordes website – you will thank me if you do !

Almost Time For Dinner…

The migratory salmon are almost running in big enough enough numbers to get the attention of the local dolphin population around the Inner Moray Firth near Inverness. Famous salmon rivers such as the Tay and Spey are recording good runs now so with a bit of luck I will soon be seeing and photographing prey manipulation by dolphins like young “Yoda” here, grappling with a nice fish as the salmon track their way to their home rivers – the Ness and Beauly.The migratory salmon are almost running in big enough enough numbers to get the attention of the local dolphin population around the Inner Moray Firth near Inverness. Famous salmon rivers such as the Tay and Spey are recording good runs now so with a bit of luck I will soon be seeing and photographing prey manipulation by dolphins like young “Yoda” here, grappling with a nice fish as the salmon track their way to their home rivers – the Ness and Beauly.