It seems that folks want a camera to take a few pictures.  And then once they get a camera, they want a BETTER camera to take BETTER pictures.  Camera lust has drawn many, many photographers down the path of knowing and understanding more about technology than they have ever wanted to know before!

In a lot of my presentations, seminars and workshops, I talk about the fact that we don’t really “need” all that new gear to create images.  I talk about the fact that I regularly use a couple of old, manual-focus lenses.  Sure, new gear with better high ISO capability, larger sensors, vibration reduction and more makes creating images easier in many cases, but it often isn’t something we HAVE to have to create an image.

I had an afternoon and an evening meeting one day last week. I took my cameras inside the day before to download cards and recharge batteries.  Since I knew that I wouldn’t have a chance to take any pictures, I purposefully left them when I went to the meeting. Well, suddenly I had an extra hour before my meeting – just enough time to go home and turn around and come back OR just enough time to take a few pictures (except for the not having a camera part). So, I found a nice parking lot to catch up on some e-mails in (I did have my laptop and WiFi card). I looked over and saw a large flock of roosting black skimmers and mentally kicked myself many times over for not having put my cameras in the truck.

I mentally went through my camera bags and realized that I had Annika’s camera with me!  Now, Annika’s camera is a Nikon D70 that I owned before she was born!  I almost didn’t get it out, but I thought about how often I’ve said that you don’t have to have the latest and greatest to get a decent shot, so I dug out the D70 and the longest lens I had with me (a 200 mm lens).

So with an old DSLR and a very slow-focusing lens, I attempted to take some bird pictures, and I ended up with a few that I kept.

One of these is not like the rest! (Lone juvenile laughing gull resting with a flock of black skimmers) Nikon D70, Nikkor 200 mm, f/5.6, 1/1600th second, ISO 320, handheld, existing light, slight crop.

I was feeling rather happy with myself as I went into my meetings.  After I got out of my last meeting, I was ready for food.  I agreed to meet a colleague at The Reef – a relatively new seafood restaurant on the beach in Biloxi.  I’ve enjoyed watching a much larger than life-size marine mural on the side of the restaurant come to life as it is created by marine artist, Marty Wilson – http://www.martywilson.com/.  I’d watched the sketches appear, and then the color begin to appear, but I’d never seen Marty at work.  As I pulled into the restaurant parking lot late that evening to see the scissorlift and lights, it hit me that he needed the same calm wind conditions that are needed for foliar herbicide application.  Again, I wished that I had a camera with me.  I mean, a Nikon D70 is not exactly renowned for it’s low-light capability.  I thought about trying to return another night to get a shot, but decided that I’d better go ahead and shoot with what I had.

So, I dug out the D70 and that wonderfully light-weight, plastic y 28-80 kit lens that is Annika’s main lens and put it on a tripod to see what I could come up with.  The irony of my old tripod legs costing about what the camera body and lens sell for now wasn’t lost on me…nor the real irony that the tripod head cost about two times the amount it would take to buy the tripod legs, camera body and lens!

I took a couple of shots, checked the back of the camera, put it away, and ate a shrimp po-boy.  When I downloaded that card several days later, I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the image quality was in my quick grab shot of Marty Wilson working his magic and making the ocean come alive on the side of a building (it did make me wish that I’d spent a little more time setting up the shot and getting a better angle & composition though…).

Marty Wilson, marine muralist, working his magic
Nikon D70, Nikkor 28-80 @ 28mm, f/5.6, ½ second, ISO 320, tripod, existing light, slight crop.

So, the next time you think that you can’t get the shot because you don’t have the latest and greatest camera gear, shoot it anyway!

I know it’s going to sound repetitious, and it is repetitious because I keep repeating it.  When I’m photographing something, even something as simple as a fallen acorn, it’s all about the light.  A simple and inexpensive change in lighting can make a big difference in the way an image looks.

As I was getting in my truck this past weekend, I noticed that the white oak acorns were dropping.  And I noticed that there was one particularly nice looking acorn laying on a recognizable white oak leaf on a bed of moss near the base of the oak tree that I presumed had dropped the acorn.  Knowing that I often talk about acorns in a number of different contexts – fruit of a tree, natural reproduction of a hardwood forest, as hard mast (fruit eaten by animals), mast quality (red oak vs white oak), squirrel/deer/turkey management, and more, I decided that I would photograph this simple acorn.

So, I took out my camera and a macro lens and laid down next to the tree and took a shot or three.

White Oak Acorn In Existing Light
Nikon D3, 105 mm macro, f/16, 1/25th second, ISO 1250, handheld, slight crop

The shot looked fine to me, but it didn’t show the detail & potential vitality of this little gem that I wanted to show.  I knew that adding some soft, golden light should make this image look different (hopefully better), so I dug out my gold reflector and got my lovely, helpful wife to hold it for me (which saved me from having to dig out a tripod & clamps!).  And then I shot the same shot again…

White Oak Acorn with Gold Reflector
Nikon D3, 105 mm macro, f/16, 1/80th second, ISO 1250, handheld, slight crop

The shot with the gold reflector looks more “alive” to me.  The angled light shows more detail in the cup, the shadows are not as dark, and my shutter speed increased a couple of stops making a handheld shot much easier.

Neither shot is “right” or “wrong” but that little bit of reflected sunlight improved the shot slightly for most of the reasons that I would use it.  I’m sure that I could have done something similar in Photoshop, but the details wouldn’t have been revealed as nicely, the shadows wouldn’t have been filled as naturally, and it sure wouldn’t have increased my shutter speed towards something reasonable for hand-holding.  This “manual Photoshop” basically replicated the light a few hours earlier that morning or a several hours later that day – that “golden hour” of rising & setting sun…

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the two shots…

White Oak Acorn
Existing Light on Right
Gold Reflector on Left

I find the relatively small expense & light weight of a reflector in my camera bag to be worthwhile for situations like this.

Of course, if you can catch “good” natural light, then you don’t need the reflector.  Later that afternoon, I found a chinkapin loaded with fruit.  I went back in late afternoon when the natural light quality was good and photographed yet another hard mast species without needing to use a reflector to get the light quality that I wanted.

Chinkapine fruit (a chestnut relative whose populations have been decimated by chestnut blight).
Nikon D3, 105 mm macro, f/8, 1/80th second, ISO 360, handheld, existing light

If you read much about photography and get heavily “into” photography, you quickly “learn” that using your flash on the camera is “bad” and that using your flash at full power without some kind of light modifier is “bad”.  And a lot of times, the image quality is better if you DO move the flash off the line of axis of the lens and if you use some sort of flash compensation and flash modifier (diffuser/reflector/something).

I thought I’d share an example of where I preferred on-camera flash at near full power.  Our family went out looking for fossils recently – during the middle of the day.  I left my camera in the truck when we first went looking for fossils, but after I made a trip back to the truck, I brought my camera and single lens with me.  As I changed lenses and took the flash bracket off the camera, I stuffed the flash in my pocket – just in case I wanted to use it.  I left the flash bracket and flash cord in the truck (and since I took the Nikon D3 body, I didn’t have a pop-up flash to use as a master so that my SB-800 could be used in slave mode).

As my wife & daughter sifted a shovel full of material in the creek, I thought I’d take a picture.  Now, it’s 10:30 in the morning on a sunny day.  The light is VERY dappled looking down the creekbed – some areas of shadow and some areas of bright sun – unfortunately, one of the area s of bright sun was on the whitish limestone parent material of the creek bank making up a large portion of the background.

The first 3 shots below were shot in RAW, optimized in my normal image workflow, and were taken from the same position within an 8 second time frame.  The only real difference in the 3 shots is the use of flash.

I took a test shot, and saw that matrix metering was working fairly well – no significant “blinkies” or over-exposure, but my family in the shade was pretty well hidden.  I might have been  able to add some more light by using exposure compensation or lengthening the time the shutter was open, but doing that would result in overexposing the background.

Natural Light

Nikon D3, Nikkor 28-85 @ 50 mm, f/4, 1/100^th second, ISO 200, handheld, existing light, slight crop.

I realized then that I needed a little fill light, so I turned on my flash, set the flash compensation to around minus 2, flipped the built-in diffuser down, and shot again.

Diffused Fill Flash

Nikon D3, Nikkor 28-85 @ 50 mm, f/4, 1/125^th second, ISO 200, handheld, on-camera fill flash at -2 with diffuser, slight crop.

I liked that shot a little better, I could see more detail in their faces and the sifting pan.  There were no areas that were overexposed, but I still wanted more light.  Looking at the scene, I realized that I needed to treat this situation like they were backlit by the sun (even though it was overhead & to the right), so I flipped the built-in diffuse back up, and dialed exposure compensation to either 0 or -1/3 and shot again.  I liked that shot best of all.  There was much more color & detail in my subjects, and better colors in their surroundings as well.  So, in this case, a flash right on top of the camera at near full power gave me not only the shot that I liked best, but also the shot that took the least amount of time to optimize.  Just goes to show, that the “rules” of photography are often guidelines.  Look at the lighting of the situation you are trying to shoot, and figure out how you can use things at your disposal (flashes, diffusers, reflectors, etc.) to create the shot you want.

On Camera Flash at Near Full Power

Nikon D3, Nikkor 28-85 @ 50 mm, f/4, 1/125^th second, ISO 200, handheld, on-camera flash at – 1/3, slight crop.

*In addition to looking at the colors of their clothing, look at the color that was revealed in the sycamore leaf floating in the creek on the left-hand vertical one-third line.

Just to make this blog post complete, I thought I’d share a few shots of the fossils we collected; these shots were all taken on black velvet with a ring flash for light.

Hamulus worm castings

The Hamulus worm would have lived in the hollow in the center of these castings on the sea floor.

Shark Tooth

The shark teeth were, of course, the favorite finds of the morning.

Extinct Oyster

Extinct oyster (this shell is about 9” long and weighs about 2 pounds).

It seems that I’ve been focused on the small world lately.  I’ve taken many more close-up images of invertebrates than I usually do.  All the shots shared in the post were taken recently with one of my macro lenses that allow me to focus on things close to the lens.  And all of these shots, except one, are insects.  I thought it would be interesting to share my lens and lighting choices for these shots.

Many times when I shoot insects, flowers or other small objects, my go-to macro lens is my 105 mm lens.  It is short enough that I can reach into the scene and move grass blades, leaves, etc. out of the way (which doesn’t work most of the time with wild invertebrates like most of those shared here); but it is also long enough that my tripod legs don’t usually bump the plant and scare the bug or shake the dew off the leaves and petals.

For some large, flying bugs that are easily frightened, like some butterflies and dragonflies, I’ve started using a 200 mm macro lens on a crop factor body (for a 300 mm lens equivalent).  It can be a little slow to focus, and I can be so far from the subject that there is a great chance for grass and limbs to be between me and the subject, and I’m so far away that I have to move from behind the camera to bend them to the side.

And, I’ve started using my 60 mm macro more.  It gives me more depth of field IF the subject will allow me approach close enough to fill the frame (and lots of bugs will not do that).  I have to be so close though, that I have to take great care not to accidentally move the plant that my subject is on.

And most of the time when shooting close-up subjects, I choose to use an off-camera flash with a diffuser or reflector of some sort – and if I’m shooting with a friend, we’ll often add a gold reflector for some warmth.  In most of these shots, I used off-camera fill flash, but on one shot I used a ring flash and another was shot in natural light.

The other piece of equipment that I usually use with close-up shots is a tripod.  Once I get so close to your subject, I have to really stop down my aperture, which means my shutter speeds slow down.  So, for all but one of these images, I was using one of my tripods.

So, with that introduction, here are some invertebrate shots from the last several weeks.

The first is a male Halloween pennant dragonfly perched on an old aster seed head in a transmission line right-of-way beside my office.  I noticed several fall flowers that I wanted to photograph as well as several skittish dragonflies, so I spent part of an afternoon and part of a morning out photographing them.  This shot was taken in warm afternoon light, and I was able to maneuver so the light was over my shoulder, so I shot it in natural light.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 200 mm (300 mm equivalent), f/10, 1/640th second, ISO 900, tripod, existing light, slight crop.

A few days later, I heard a familiar voice out in the vestibule of my office.  Kiss my foot, if my friend Chris Funk (check out some of his great work at: http://www.feral-onephotography.com/) had not accidentally walked into the building where my office is at!  I knew he was coming into the area for a day or three, but we had not touched base yet, and he accidentally found me!  I pointed him in the direction of a few cool dragonflies, but could not join him in the field that afternoon.  The next thing that I know, he is posting pictures of seaside dragonlets, one of the dragonflies that has been on my “want list” for over a year.  He said the boat ramp at the end of the road was swarming with them.  So, I made  a chance a few mornings later to spend some time near the boat ramp at the end of the road, and got a seaside dragonlet shot.  Now, these dragonflies are called dragonlets for a reason – they are SMALL!  This little girl was a delicate 1 and ¼ inches long!  (But oh so colorful!)

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 200 mm (300 mm equivalent), f/13, 1/80th second, ISO 1000, diffused off-camera fill flash at -1 1/3, tripod, slight crop.

As I was maneuvering to photograph the seaside dragonlet, a little bit of nothing floated off a piece of grass.  That little bit of nothing turns out to be the smallest known damselfly – a citrine forktail.  This cute little thing is less than ¾ of an inch long and has a body diameter about the size of a #2 pencil lead!

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 200mm (300 mm equivalent) at near minimum focus distance, f/11, 1/100th second, ISO 360, diffused off-camera fill flash around -2, tripod, cropped to about 2/3 of frame.

As I was photographing the Halloween pennant, there were some small wasps flying around.  Some of those wasps were true paper wasps, and some of them were small dragonflies (though small Odonates would be re-defined by the seaside dragonlet and citrine forktail).  But at the time, I thought eastern amberwings were small.  I got some cool shots of eastern amberwings while I was shooting the Halloween pennants.  But a few weeks later, I got more chances at eastern amberwings, and got to photograph them doing a pretty cool behavior.  This eastern amberwing is perched in an obelisk posture.  This shot was taken on a warm (okay HOT) Mississippi afternoon.  So this dragonfly was adjusting the shape of its body to minimize solar absorption and maximize cooling as it perched on top of a smartweed inflorescence (note that some bug had been feeding on this particularly tall inflorescence to the point that it wasn’t attractive at all).  I couldn’t move to where the sun was at my back, so I had to photograph this dragonfly while it was backlit by the sun.  To counter that lighting, I did not dim my flash very far so that I could almost match the brightness of the background.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 200 mm (300 mm equivalent), f/8, 1/800th second, ISO 250, diffused off-camera flash at -1/3, tripod, full frame.

Not too far away, there were flies that looked like little bees (which is to their advantage if a predator thinks they can sting, then they MAY get left alone) feeding on smartweed and partridge pea blossoms.  I photographed a few of them.  This little fly was just under ½” long, which underscores the tiny blossoms on the smartweed spike.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 200 mm (300 mm equivalent), f/7.1, 1/500th second, ISO 200, diffused off-camera fill flash at -2 1/3, tripod, slight crop.

It turns out that looking like you can sting is no deterrent to robber flies.  These cool aerial predators were snagging bee mimics left and right (I photographed 2 different ones eating bee mimics in less than 20 minutes).  This robber fly had taken his bee mimic to a partridge pea so that it could pierce the abdomen and suck all the good nutrients out.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 200 mm (300 mm equivalent), f/5.6, 1/400th second, ISO 200, diffused off-camera fill flash at -2 1/3, tripod, slight crop.

I was working around the cabin one day, and a particularly colorful eastern lubber grasshopper was crawling along in some crepe myrtle and pear leaves that had dropped because of the lack of rain.  I figured that he would let me get pretty close, so I chose my short macro lens to allow me to get more depth of field easy.  Even with the size of eastern lubber grasshoppers (this guy was 2 ½” long) and my tripods that go to ground level, it is hard to get eye-level with a grasshopper on the ground – so I chose not to use my tripod (depending on fast shutter speed to give me a sharp picture) though I did make sure to brace very carefully and actually put the bottom of the camera lens plate on the ground for this shot.

Nikon D3, Nikkor 60 mm, f/8, 1/160th second, ISO 500, diffused off-camera fill flash at -2 1/3, handheld though braced on ground really well, slight crop.

And for the non-insect shot, I’ve got a polychaete (worm).  Actually, I’ve got the tube the worm used to live in.  And it was the tube the worm used to live in a LOOOOOONG time ago.  This worm lived in the bottom of the warm, shallow ocean during the Cretaceous, when that ocean was up around Starkville and Columbus, Mississippi.  This is a fossil Hamalus worm casting that my daughter collected recently, and I photographed.  This worm casting is about ¾” inch long.  The worm lived in the round part in the center.  I photographed this casting on black velvet.

Nikon D3, Lester A. Dine 105 mm, f/32, 1/125th second, ISO 200, old ring flash at minimum power, tripod, slight crop.

So, for close-up shots, my normal “go to” is to use my 105 mm macro, use a tripod, and use fill flash… except when I do not.  And in the past little while, I’ve not done my “normal” thing several times – but always for a good reason, and I’m pleased with the result./13, 1/80th second, ISO 1000, flash at -1 1/3, tripod, slight crop./13, 1/80th second, ISO 1000, flash at -1 1/3, tripod, slight crop.

Photographing RS-25 Rocket Engine Test as part of a NASA Social Media Event: My Perspective

I enjoy photographing wildlife, whether it is a deer, a bird, a frog or an invertebrate.  I photograph flowers, especially cool native flowers.  I photograph a landscape here and there.  At one time, I’d have described myself as a nature photographer, but since “hand of man” is eschewed by many nature photography groups, I’ve gone up-periscope to a broader descriptive term of “outdoor photographer”, especially as I’ve started photographing more and more people doing outdoor pursuits.

Most of my photography has been solo or in very small groups, though workshops that I either attend or lead can be much larger.  And, because I’m a “dad with a camera”, I’ve photographed birthday parties, school events, sports matches and more.  I’ve also done a good bit of event photography, but mostly outdoor-related events like retrieving dog trials, sporting weekends, field tours and such.  Recently, I applied to attend a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Social Media event at their John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi where they were testing the RS-25 rocket engine that will be used to power the Space Launch System to Mars and beyond.

#NASASocial

So photographing a rocket engine test and related background presentations that NASA had prepared for us is a little outside of the kinds of things that I normally photograph.  That said, it is directly related to the biological work that I’ve done in the past and some of the things that I’m doing now.  Many, many years ago, when the John C. Stennis Space Center was called National Space Technology Laboratory, I worked there doing floral and faunal inventories (especially of rarer species) and acidic deposition  studies.  Now, I work with two large groups based out of Stennis and work with large landowners in the adjacent sound buffer zone.  And I often go out with photographic groups to photograph things that aren’t “nature” or “outdoors”; for example, I’ve learned a lot about how I can use my flash with flowers and birds by going on product photography meet-ups or going to photograph models.  So, photographing a NASA rocket engine test is outside of what I normally photograph, but it is associated with what I do and that sort of event photography helps me continue to hone my photographic skills.

The first thing that I had to decide was what gear that I wanted to take.  Now anybody who knows me knows that I like to have all my gear available so that I can choose what I need when I need it.  For this social media event, we would be meeting at a Visitor’s Center in the buffer zone and getting onto a bus with our gear.  That means that I would not have access to all the gear that I would normally have in my truck, and that I needed to be able to easily carry my gear onto a bus (that luckily had overhead compartments).  Knowing that I would not have easy access to my gear and knowing that gear breaks at the most inopportune time, I thought carefully about the gear that I would carry and tried to make sure that I had some sort of back-up plan.

Once we got a detailed agenda of our NASA Social Media event, I could start planning what gear to carry.  It looked like our tour would involve indoor and outdoor briefings and an opportunity to photograph a large barge.  It helped that I had been on the site many times in the past, though never specifically to photograph things.  I also hoped for a chance to photograph some of the static exhibits around the Stennis Space Center.  We were also scheduled for a relatively up-close view of a test stand and the actual rocket test where we’d be some distance away.  I figured that the rocket engine test would be where I would need my longest focal length lens.

I e-mailed John Yembrick, NASA’s Social Media Manager and my contact for this experience, and asked him how long of a lens he would recommend for the engine test.  He checked with an unidentified photographer based out of Stennis who said that a 200 mm lens would be sufficient.  That was a big help, because that means that I could leave the “big guns” at home and not have to carry around that extra weight.

John Yembrick, NASA Office of Communication Social Media Manager, provided great information to help me prepare to photograph the event.

I started, of course, with my main “walking around” gear, a full-framed camera body and a short telephoto lens.  In my case, that is a Nikon D3 and a Nikkor 28-85 mm lens.  I used that combination a good bit.  Being photographically-inclined, I also took a back-up camera body; in my case a crop-factor D300s that I initially paired a Nikon 80-400 mm lens.   I also used that combination a good bit.  Having those two bodies and lenses basically gave me fairly full coverage from 28 mm to 600 mm (1/2-x to 12x magnification).    Having those two lenses pre-mounted on a body kept me from opening my camera body up in potentially dusty environments and getting dust spots on my sensor – though I did change lenses in buildings and on the bus a time or ten.

I also expected some tight spaces and small rooms, so I packed a Sigma 15-30 wide angle lens as well which came in very handy.  I also wanted to be prepared to photograph small items on displays (or a cool bug or frog or lizard), so I packed a 60 mm macro lens as well.  I think that I made less than a half dozen exposures with that lens during the day, though in hindsight, I missed a few more shots that I could have made using that lens.

I also expected some of the areas to be dark, which would result in slow shutter speeds, so I packed a sturdy tripod with a Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead.  I used an OpTech tripod strap to enable me to carry my tripod like I do one of my hunting rifles.  The tripod got used a LOT!

I also carried my flash, flash cord, and an off-camera flash bracket.  I figured that many of the inside shots, some of the brightly lit outside shots, and any close-up shots would likely benefit from an ability to change the light a bit.  While I did not expect much of an opportunity for action photography, I thought there might be times when I’d want to use the flash again quickly, so I packed my (heavy) Quantum Turbo external flash battery back.  I also carried a gold/silver circular polarizer, spare camera battery, circular polarizer, notebook, bottle of water.

So, then the question became, “How do I carry all this gear?”  In my mind, I had two options, I could use a photo backpack or I could use a big waist pack.  I opted for an older LowePro waist pack with a shoulder strap.  I could put one body/lens combination and my flash and smaller gear in the main compartment and the front pocket.  I could put a spare lens in one side compartment and a bottle of water in the other side compartment.  I added a couple of more lens cases to the belt for an additional lens and other small gear and clipped my Quantum Turbo battery to the waist belt.   My walking around camera went on a strap around my neck, and the tripod was slung across a shoulder.

When the weights were totaled up for the gear, I was carrying just a hair over 29 pounds of gear for the day.  What would I leave at home next time?  The Quantum turbo flash battery!  (I’d carry  5 AA batteries in case my flash battery died instead and not worry about how quick my flash recycled).  Other than that, I think I’d carry exactly what I carried for this NASA Social media event.

What would I have added to my load or done differently?  I think that I might have added my point-and-shoot to shoot video with (or shot video with the D300s).  In hindsight, I wished that I’d put one camera on a tripod with the shutter intervalometer set so that I captured a time lapse sequence of the entire rocket engine test.

When I went to check in for the NASA Social media event, I noticed that most of the other participants were not carrying quite as much gear as I was.  Since it was a social media crowd going to an event heavy on technology and engineering, I expected more photo nerds to be present in the group (and I’m using nerds in a very kindly and appreciative manner since I are one).  Many of the social media posters were very capably using cell phones or tablets for photographs and videos.  A few were using GoPro type cameras and a few were using (mostly entry-level) digital single lens reflex cameras with short telephoto lenses.  In the group of approximately 40 participants, I think I saw 4 tripods, and those were generally the relatively inexpensive, wobbly tripods that folks often buy as their first tripod.  I felt a little concerned and out-of-place.  When the bus load of traditional media folks joined us with their larger cameras (DSLR and video) and larger tripods, I felt much more comfortable.

As a person whose social media posts focus mainly on biology and post-processed photography, I was definitely in the minority.  Judging by the questions that other participants asked, they follow NASA’s policies, plans, specifications, announcements and rumors as avidly as I follow biology and land management information.  It was interesting too at the rapidity information was shared during the social media event.  Most of the attendees shared information as texts, videos and photos in real time.  While I shared 4 photos during the event, other folks shared 50 or more!  As soon as a speaker finished speaking or we got back on the bus, I could look around and see 2 or 3 other heads looking around, everybody else was busy Tweeting, Facebooking, Googling, blogging or otherwise posting a live update.

As the speakers spoke, the NASA Social media attendees videoed, photographed, Tweeted, Facebooked, Instagramed, blogged and more…

I was really, really surprised when only one other social media attendee went to take shots of the Space Shuttle rides in the kiddie area next to the bus parking – especially since most of them were much younger (and assumably much hipper) than me. I thank the other hip Social media attendee for photographing me piloting the Space Shuttle!

As expected, I had to shoot under a wide variety of conditions; and, as noted above, I was glad that I brought the gear that I did.  Lighting varied from dimly lit rooms to super bright sunlight.  Having a flash (I only noticed one other photographer use a flash), really, really helped with a few shots.  I did try to NOT use my flash overly much out of respect for the presenters and the folks shooting video.

When I photographed most of the presenters, I did so from the back of the room where I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way with a long lens.  I often used the 80-400 at maximum extension on a crop factor body, which meant that I was shooting at a 600 mm equivalent.  That meant high ISOs and SLOW shutter speeds; the slow shutter speeds then meant that I needed a rock solid tripod and good long lens technique.

Shooting from the back of the room with a long lens worked, but the flash when I used it wasn’t quite reaching the subject and my shutter speeds were slow enough that I really needed to pick times when the subject (in this case NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps) was being still.
Nikon D300s, Nikkor 80-400 @ 195 mm, f/5.3, 1/20th second, ISO 3200, no flash.

For this shot of NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps, I was able to get closer and use a shorter lens and fill flash, I got better color and more detail – but my shutter speeds were still slow enough that I got some blurring as the subjects moved.
Nikon D3, Nikkor 28-85 @ 85 mm, f/4.5, 1/60th second, ISO 500, bounced flash as main light.

Camera-subject distances ranged widely too – from about 8 inches to about ¼ mile.  I only had to use the close focus ability of the macro lens one time, but I’m glad that I had it.  Of course I could have shot this particular shot any time.  There were a few other displays and such that I wish that I’d made time to shoot with a macro lens.

This was the only shot that I really used the close-focusing ability of my macro lens. I could have done without it (or carried an extension tube). But there were other opportunities to use the macro lens that I should have taken.

RS-25 rocket engine running in test stand A-1 at Stennis Space Center; we were about 1/4 mile away behind a rope line.

There were photographers, videographers and observers VERY close to me on all 3 sides; getting to the rope line early was very important if you wanted to get pictures of the engine test without people in the foreground.

I was also constantly constrained by time and the presence of other people.  I had to either work hard to get a shot without other attendees in it or include them as a part of the shot.  Many times, I had to use a wide angle lens, when I’d have preferred to back up and use a longer lens.  I often had to select a spot in advance of knowing exactly what was going to happen.  Many times once you were in a spot, you were there for some time with a limited opportunity to change positions – especially at the engine test itself.

The B-2 rocket engine test stand; I had to get up at the front of the group and use my wide angle at 15 mm to barely get the whole test stand in the image. This resulted in a lot of distortion that I had to adjust in post-processing (and I had to add a little water and concrete to the lower image left).

Alternatively, I could go towards the back of the group and get a shot of the social media attendees learning about the test stands.

So, how did I do?  I reckon you’ll have to be the judge of that.  There is a short overview here:  http://photobiologist.com/rs-25-rocket-engine-test-at-nasas-john-c-stennis-space-center  I shot 632 shots in just under 9 hours.  I kept around 500 of them and worked up 61 of them; many were duplicates or horizontal vs. vertical or slight variations.

To get an opportunity like this yourself, follow one of NASA’s 500+ social media accounts and keep an eye out here:   http://www.nasa.gov/connect/social/index.html   If you attend one of these events, don’t be shy.  Introduce yourself to the NASA hosts and the other attendees and have a great time!  I hope my perspective helps a future NASA Social Media attendee with a photographic bent have a great experience.  Different events will be different, and even another rocket engine test at Stennis Space Center might well be different (especially if different test stands and different viewing locations are used).

#NASASocial  #SLSFiredUp