Kenyan Adventure – Day 4 and 5

Today will be our last day in Samburu. We are out at 6:15 am as usual ready for another day of animal sightings.

Almost immediately we find two cheetahs. They are almost certainly the same two that we saw yesterday. Today, however, they have successfully made a kill and are in the process of eating it when we find them. We can’t tell for sure but it looks like it may have been a dik dik. Not much of a meal for two cheetahs. Eventually they finish their breakfast and we get some good photos.

We next come upon a group of male impala. Such a group of young males is known as “the losers club” since they have not been successful in having their own harem of females. We watch as a couple of the males joust with each other. They are beautiful animals. We then note that the impala have come to alert, suggesting the presence of some other predator.

After a bit of hunting we find a lioness nearby. However, she seem much more interested in finding a nice shady resting spot than anything else. It is amazing how unaffected the lions are by the presence of our Range Rovers.

As we begin our afternoon game drive we almost immediately come upon a large troop of baboons. We know that the baboons were around because we can hear them howling at night near our camp. We stopped and observed the troop. Several of the animals were busy grooming each other. We also saw multiple mothers toting their babies.
As we moved on we came across one large male baboon sitting on a rock by the roadside. He was perfectly content to let us take all of the photos of him we wanted. A handsome devil he was.
We also saw a number of colorful birds that afternoon. The first was the “Little Bee Eater”. They are only about 6 inches long but have extremely colorful plumage. The other bird that we saw was the “Eurasian Roller”. The Roller is also a small bird but quite common in the acacia woodlands of Samburu.

Another unique animal that we observed was the gerenuk, also know as the giraffe antelope. According to Wikipedia:

“Gerenuks eat food from higher places than most other gazelles and antelopes. They do this by standing up on their hind legs, and stretching out their long necks to get food off of tall bushes or small trees. Most of their diet is made up of leaves and shoots of shrubs and trees, but also includes buds, flowers, fruit, and herbaceous plants . Gerenuks do not appear to drink water; they get enough water from the plants they eat. Because of this, they can survive in very dry habitats.”

Day 5 arrived and it was time to depart Samburu and head south to the Lewa Conservancy. As we departed Samburu we passed through the community of Archers Post. This is where the reality of economic life in Kenya became obvious to us. The community was composed of a variety of small Samburu huts, buildings and shacks. This was my first real experience in seeing a 3rd world country close up. The contrast with our luxury camp at the Samburu Intrepids was obvious.

gerenuk

Archers Post

The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (also known as Lewa Downs) was formed in 1995. It is a wildlife sanctuary incorporating the Ngare Ndare Forest and covering over 62,000 acres. The Conservancy is home to a wide variety of wildlife including the rare and endangered black rhino, Grevy’s zebra and sitatunga. It also includes the big five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and African buffalo). Lewa holds over 12% of Kenya’s black rhino population and the largest single population of Grevy’s zebras in the world (approximately 350 individuals).

As we arrived in Lewa we immediately observed some new fauna and flora. We saw our first yellow bark acacia trees. Unlike the acacias that we observed in Samburu the yellow bark acacias had a characteristic, almost luminous, lime green to greenish-yellow bark. We also observed bird specimens of the sacred ibis and crowned crane.

After arriving and settling in we headed out for our first game drive of the afternoon. We almost immediately came across some elephants, helmeted guinea fowl as well as black headed heron. However, our target for the afternoon was to find rhinoceros. Lewa is well know for having both white and the rare black rhinoceros. And it wasn’t long before we found them. We came across a trio of whites composed of a large male and a mother with a young rhinoceros. The male was huge. The white rhino is normally docile and is a grazing animal. We observed them for quite some time. However, the male became agitated at one point and charged one of our Range Rovers. It came within 5-10 ft before Henry could get them out of there!

White Rhino

We then spotted a black rhino and followed it for a bit. The black rhino is smaller and is a browser, eating tree branches and shoots primarily. The names black and white have nothing to do with the animal’s color. According to Wikipedia:

Black Rhino

“These common names are misleading, as those two species are not really distinguishable by color. The word white in the name "White Rhinoceros" is a mistranslation of the Dutch word wijd for wide, referring to its square upper lip, as opposed to the pointed or hooked lip of the Black Rhinoceros. These species are now sometimes referred to as the Square-lipped (for White) or Hook-lipped (for Black) Rhinoceros.”

Come back tomorrow for more explorations of Lewa.

In Praise of Local Guides

Since 2007, Cathy and I have taken 4 major photo treks sponsored by professional photographers or photographic organizations. We have enjoyed all of them immensely. When we first started out, we saw these trips as a way to combine learning our craft from a professional photographer as well as experiencing some incredible parts of the world. Without question, we have learned a lot about wildlife and landscape photography. However, we have come to realize something even more important – the value to experienced, local guides.

In each of our major photo treks our drivers/guides were hired locally. The advantage of this is that they know the terrain, the wildlife, animal behaviors, best view points, animal gathering points, etc. While it may be possible to learn some of this from guide books and through internet research, there is no substitute for local expertise. For example, most fishermen who are going to a new area for the first time will hire a local fishing guide for a day to two to learn where the hot spots are. The same is true for photographers. If you are not familiar with the area you will be much more successful if you have a local guide to assist you.

For our Kenya trip we had some of the best guides around. All of the guides from Origins Safaris hold a certificate from National Museum of Kenya & Nature Kenya Fundamentals of Ornithology, have completed a course with the US based National Association of Interpreters in Interpretive Guiding, and are full members of the Kenya Professional Safari Guides Association (KPSGA) and hold Bronze or Silver level qualifications. Their knowledge of the wildlife, geography and culture was astonishing.

Peter Liech Adede, Henry Miwani and Felix Wambugu

Felix Wambugu was the spiritual, if not the actual head, of our four guides. Felix worked for a time for a French astronomer and then as a park ranger. He has many interesting stories from those days, including his experiences with poachers. He eventually moved into the tourism industry and obtained specialized training. He is an excellent guide with good people skills, a sense of humor and a deep knowledge of the bush, the wildlife, the culture and the different eco-systems.

Joshua Sonkoyo is from the Maasai tribe. His upbringing and education give him unique insights into the wildlife and animal behaviors in the area. He routinely anticipated the animals intent and put us in the right place at the right time. He also tells great stories. If you ever meet Joshua, ask about the baboon story.

Henry Miwani was our third guide. A nicer, friendlier man has never existed. Henry is an elder in his Maasai tribe and still goes home, when not acting as a guide, to farm. Henry arranged for us to come visit his village on our last day in Masai Mara. We had a wonderful time learning about the Maasai culture from him.

Our fourth guide was Peter Liech Adede. Peter was the youngest of the guides but his intelligence and experience made up for the fewer number of years. In addition to his work as a guide he spends large amounts of time working with the Kenya Self-Help Project / Nyashep Education Trust. More than half of all children in Kendu Bay fail to complete a primary education due to extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS-related parental deaths. The dropout rate is highest among girls; more than 70% do not finish grade eight. Peter is working to improve this situation.

It is because of the efforts of people like Felix, Joshua, Henry and Peter that our photo treks have been so successful. Cathy and I highly encourage you to consider one of the may photo treks that are available that use talented local guides to introduce you to their world.

And finally, I can’t leave you without a photo for the day. One of the more unique animals that we saw was the bat-eared fox. They are cute as all get out.

Until tomorrow, enjoy…

Kenyan Adventure – Day 2 and 3

We arose early on the morning of January 14th to catch our East African Air Charter flight to Samburu Game Reserve. We flew in a 13 passenger Cessna Caravan. The game reserve is 217 miles north of Nairobi in the very center of Kenya and covers 64 square miles. Along the way we would fly past Mount Kenya, the second highest peak in Africa at 17,000 ft. The reserve was established in 1985 as part of Kenya’s ongoing attempt to protect it’s natural wildlife resources. It is also one of the two areas in which conservationists George and Joy Adamson raised Elsa the Lioness made famous in the best selling book and award winning movie Born Free.

We landed on a small gravel airstrip south of the reserve. Unfortunately, recent rains had washed out the bridge across the Ewaso Ng'iro river turning what is normally a short drive to our camp into a 2 hour trek. Fortunately we saw lots of wildlife along the way.

We finally arrived at the Samburu Intrepids camp. The Intrepids company operate a series of luxury camps in Africa and ours was no exception. We would spend the next 3 nights in our beautiful tent cabins. The camp sported all the comforts one could ask for. The only drawback was that the water was not potable. All drinking water, including that used for brushing your teeth needed to come from bottled water.

At 4 pm that afternoon we had our first game drive. Our group of 13 people had 4 Range Rovers with drivers. This provided us with lots of room for our photography gear and to move around.

The roads in Samburu are little more than deeply rutted tracks. Whenever you were moving you were constantly tossed about. It was a very tiring and bruising experience. Fortunately the discomfort was offset by the magnificent wildlife. An magnificent barely begins to describe what we saw.

One the drive from the airstrip to the camp we had seen gazelle, impala, zebra, giraffe, crocodile, gerenuk, Egyptian geese and more. Inside the reserve was more of the same. What really surprised us was the incredible bird life. We saw birds that I had never even heard of before.

Martial Eagle

The highlight of our first day was the sighting of two cheetahs. Cheetahs were number one on my list of animals I wanted to see and here I was getting to see them on our first outing! They are the most beautiful animals, although these two looked like they could have used a good meal. None the less it was quite a thrill to see them up close in the wild.
Our schedule for the rest of our time in Kenya would be roughly the same. Every morning at 5:15 am we would get our wake up call. Porters brought freshly brewed coffee and cookies to our tent. By 6:15 we were out for our first game drive of the day. And our second day would be among the most spectacular. The list of animals for this, our first full day, included: Impala, Elephants, Martial Eagle, Giraffe, Lions, a Kori Bustard (the heaviest bird in the world still capable of flight), Ostrich, Vervet monkeys and an Easter Pale Chanting Goshawk. At one point we found ourselves in a herd of over 25 elephants. For the most part the animals ignored our Range Rover. However, one small elephant seemed determined to show us who was boss.

The highlight of the day was watching two Ostriches mate. The male and female tracked each other across a huge field, their intent obvious. The male puffed out his neck and called to the female. Upon coming together the male performed his mating dance and consummated the act. Awesome.



The lions we saw were pretty laid back. But we would see many more later in the trip.

Kori Bustard

Vervet Monkey

Eastern Pale Chanting Goshawk

Kenyan Adventure

It’s Friday morning, January 13th. Still recovering from jet lag Cathy and I wake up in Nairobi ready to begin our African adventure. We arrived in Nairobi last night, via London, and were met at the airport by a representative from Origins Safari’s and taken to the Fairmont Norfolk where we met up with professional photographer Daniel Cox and his wife Tanya. We joined the rest of the group in the bar for a nightcap before turning in.

This first day was pretty laid back to allow everyone a chance to recover from the long flights. After an excellent breakfast we headed out to the Giraffe Center in Nairobi. The following is from the Giraffe Center website:

The African Fund for Endangered Wildlife Kenya (A.F.E.W Kenya Ltd) also known as the Giraffe Centre is a non profit making organisation, which was founded by the late Betty and Jock Lesilie Melville in 1979. The late Betty, Jock's American born wife, had earlier discovered the sad plight of the Rothschild giraffe and there were only 120 left on an 18,000 acre ranch in Western Kenya that was scheduled for sub-division and settlement.

We got to meet the giraffes, up close and personal! Then one of the associates talked to us about the status of giraffes in Africa and the mission of the center. It was very intriguing.

From the Giraffe Center we headed to the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. Some of you may have heard of this place as it was featured in the September 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. Located just outside Kenya’s Nairobi National Park the Nairobi nursery of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is the world's most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation center. The nursery takes in orphan elephants from all over Kenya, many victims of poaching or human-wildlife conflict, and raises them until they are no longer milk dependent. Once healed and stabilized at the nursery, they are moved more than a hundred miles southeast to two holding centers in Tsavo National Park. There, at their own pace, which can be up to eight to ten years, they gradually make the transition back into the wild. We watched as the trainers fed and exercised the elephants. The dedication and concern shown by the trainers was obvious. They even sleep with the elephants at night!

After eating, the elephants cavorted in mud holes and generally had a great time, as did we. But then it was time to head back to the hotel.

Nairobi is a bustling city. Traffic is like nothing I had ever experienced before. It is bumper to bumper traffic most of the day. Unemployment is 40 to 50%. It is not the place for inexperienced tourists to explore on their own. Car doors are locked and windows rolled up no matter what the weather. And yet every Kenyan that we met on our trip was most pleasant.

Tomorrow begins the adventure for real. We fly to Samburu Game Reserve to begin photographing the wildlife of Kenya. Stay tuned…

For more information:
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/orphan-elephants/siebert-text
http://www.giraffecenter.org/
http://www.originsafaris.info/
http://www.naturalexposures.com/

Garden Gallery

Remember those old movies starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland from the 30’s where they get together and decide to put on a show?  Well something similar to that happened to a small group of us a couple of months ago.  Artists FRO Butler, Kurt Vorheis and I were talking and somehow we decided to put on our own Art Show.  Our idea was to have a small, by invitation only, show to make contact with local artists, curators, gallery owners etc.

We were probably crazy to attempt this in just two months but we did it anyway.  The show was titled “Garden Gallery” and scheduled it for Sunday October 23rd.  Invitations were emailed, budgets prepared and additional artists identified.  The final program included:

Kurt Vorheis – Stainless Steel Sculpture
Mark and Cathy Pemberton – Photography
FROgard Butler – Watercolors and Oils
Nancy Robinson – Acrylics
Ann Vestal – Ceramics
Walter Crew – Acrylics and Scratchboard

After much preparation we successfully launched the show yesterday.  While we have no official headcount there was a steady stream of people all day long.  We had lots of snacks, punch and maybe a bit of wine to keep our visitors happy while visiting with the artists.  The energy level was very high and several of the artists made significant sales.  It was an extremely successful outing.

Many thanks to the artists who participated and to Kay Vorheis who kept the food table supplied.  During the show Cathy took a lot of photos which we’ve put together into a short video.

Enjoy, and wait until next year…
Photos by Cathy Pemberton

The Polar Bears of Churchill - Presentation at REI

Cathy and I will be giving a presentation on "The Polar Bears of Churchill" at the Concord REI store on November 2nd at 7 pm. If you have not been to one of our previous talks, and would like to learn more about these fabulous animals, please join us. There is no charge but REI requests that you register in advance due to limited seating. Click the REI link below to register.

November 2
7 to 8:30 pm
REI Concord
Willows Shopping Center
Concord REI — Polar Bears of Churchill, Manitoba

November 3
7 to 8:30 pm
REI Brentwood
2475 Sand Creek Road
Brentwood, CA 94513
Brentwood REI - Polar Bears of Churchill, Manitoba

Why You Can’t Believe Your Histogram
Mark Pemberton
The Digital Curmudgeon

I love digital. I love everything about it. That’s why it is so disappointing when you discover that all is not perfect with your true “love”.

However, before I get to the problem with my “love” I’d like to quickly discuss a very important aspect of digital photography and histograms. A typical histogram from an image containing a full range of tones will look something like the example shown below:

However, sometimes the subject matter does not contain the full range of tones from black to white. A histogram from that image might look like this:

Many people are familiar with the concept of “exposing to the right” (ETTR). If you aren’t, it is the practice of exposing the image such that the histogram is forced to the right hand side, but without actually touching the “wall”. This can be accomplished by dialing in positive exposure compensation if you are using Auto Exposure (AE) or by opening up your aperture if exposing manually. That histogram should look as follows:

Why would you want to do this? The amount of information carried by light is proportional to the quantity of light. Every time we reduce the amount of light striking the sensor by 1 f-stop we cut the amount of light, and thus the amount of information in half. A 12 bit RAW image can theoretically produce 4096 (2¹²) different tones. Those tones are not evenly divided across the typical 5 f-stop range of the histogram. The 4096 tones are actually arrayed as shown:

It is entirely to our benefit to shift the histogram as much to the right as possible to take advantage of the greater number of tones available there. This is also why it is critically important not to under-expose your images in digital photography.

So what does this have to do with my alleged disillusion with digital photography? The other day, Cathy and I were shooting close-ups of flowers. Everything was perfect. The lighting was good. We carefully metered the light and checked our histograms and then began to shoot. After a while we took the images and loaded them up to Lightroom. To our surprise, the petals were blown out, completely lacking detail. Yet the camera’s histogram was perfect and there were no “blinkies” on the highlight display.

The answer was completely obvious in Lightroom. Lightroom’s histogram is a true RGB histogram, showing all three color channels independently. It was clear that the green channel was “blown out” and the red channel was just about to start “climbing the wall.”

Why did this happen? The answer lies in the fact that the basic histogram displayed by virtually all digital cameras is a “Luminance” histogram. It displays only the brightness data. The Luminance histogram can differ significantly from a true RGB histogram. Our problem was exacerbated by the fact that we were shooting close-ups of flowers with just a single color predominating.

To document this effect further I went back into the yard and took a few more photos of a yellow-orange rose. These are shown below. Below each photo I have included the associated histograms. The top histogram is a luminance histogram, similar to that found on the camera. The lower three histograms are for each of the RGB channels.

Figure 1

The first image was shot with a normal, metered exposure. Note the significant difference in each of the three RGB channels and how the red channel extends much farther to the right than the Luminance histogram.

I then over-exposed the flower by one f-stop to move the Luminance histogram to the right. (Remember ETTR?) This was probably the perfect exposure for this situation. Note that none of the histograms is touching the right-hand side.

I took a final exposure at + 2 f-stops. Even at +2 stops the luminance histogram was not touching the right-hand side. However, the green channel is now “climbing the wall” and the red channel is about to start. This is the situation that Cathy and I experienced earlier that lead to the blown out petals.

So the camera’s histogram failed to alert us that there was a problem. But what about the “blinkies”? The following two images were shot from the back of the camera.

Figure 2

The first image is a typical view of the Highlights display on the back of our camera. The “blinkies” are based upon the combined RGB luminance data. No “blinkies” are visible. Our Nikon D300, however, allows you to monitor the individual RGB channels for “blinkies”. When I changed from RGB to the Red channel the screen lit up with “blinkies”, indicating gross over-exposure.

This is all academically interesting but is it really important to obtaining good images?

To test this out I took the two over-exposed RAW images from Figure 1 and adjusted the exposure down in Lightroom and compared them to the correctly exposed image. I also took a 2 f-stop over-exposed JPEG image and corrected it in Lightroom.

Figure 3

A – Correctly exposed RAW image
B – 1 stop over-exposed RAW image corrected in Lightroom
C – 2 stop over-exposed RAW image corrected in Lightroom
D – 2 stop over-exposed JPEG image corrected in Lightroom

These results show that even though the Green channel was blown out in image C, I was able to recover the image in Lightroom with no sign of significant loss in detail. However, the JPEG image did not fare so well. Although I was able to produce an adequate result in Lightroom the loss of the data from the Green channel was significant, causing the color to shift from a light orange to yellow. There is also some loss of detail in the upper petals.

Conclusions

This was a fun set of simple experiments. However, it reinforces certain concepts.

1. Always shoot RAW. It has more flexibility and latitude.

2. If your camera has the capability, turn on your RGB histogram display, AND LOOK AT IT! My camera is set to display all three channels. Unfortunately, when we set up Cathy’s camera, we forgot to turn that feature on. It’s on now.

3. Go ahead and expose to the right. Just keep an eye on those RGB histograms.

Further Reading

Not surprisingly, this topic has been covered by others. There are a number of good articles on Luminous Landscape and other sites on this and related subjects.

http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/exposing-for-raw.html

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

JAZZ MUSICIAN

Glenn Howell is the Director of the Contra Costa County Animal Services Department. He is also a fabulous bass player. The following video is from a photo shoot at my studio last Monday.



Please check out my website at: http://pembertonphoto.com/
or our fine art website at: http://mcfineartphoto.com/

MOONLIT NIGHT AT BADWATER

During our recent visit to Death Valley, Cathy and I continued our exploration of night photography. On our first night out we went up to Zabriskie Point. The moon had not yet risen and we obtained some wonderful images.

A few nights later I realized that we would have a waxing crescent moon. That day we had been to Badwater and marveled at the immense salt flats and polygon salt formations. Thinking back upon our experiences at Arches National Park I realized that we could perhaps use the moon light to illuminate the salt pan while still getting a beautiful sky full of stars.

We got down to Badwater at about 9 pm and set up our equipment. After a few test shots to establish the proper exposure we got to work. The following shot was the result.

Exposure for this shot was 20 seconds, f 2.8, ISO 3200 using a 17 mm lens mounted on a Nikon D700. I turned on long term noise reduction to reduce the amount of noise in the sky. The salt pan was brightened somewhat in post production to improve the image.

Give it a try.
Mark

SOMETHING NEW

Many of our faithful followers are familiar with our Digital Abstractions. These are photographs that we modify in Photoshop to produce artistic images that have abstract and or impressionistic character. If you haven't seen this work before please check out some examples at:

http://www.mcfineartphoto.com/digital_abstractions/

Many people have asked us how we create these images but it is very difficult to answer because each image is different. There is no filter or button that you can press in Photoshop to accomplish this. Each image is the result of hours of work

Recently we have started working with the blending brush and other filters and have come up with what we hope is a unique look. In the example below I started with a photo of a cluster of white flowers and came up with the following image. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

Cathy and I would greatly appreciate your comments on this new addition to our Digital Abstracts, especially from those of you with fine arts backgrounds.

Thanks for your help.
Mark