We have solved two issues in the past couple of weeks.
A. Producing large prints
Up until now we have used an old Epson 1270 for printing on up to A3+ sized paper (and the Canon PIXMA 8500 for up to A4). This was generally fine until one of our clients asked for something larger than A3+ for his office. Given that the Epson was about six years old we decided it was time to replace it. The recent Mac show at Earls Court was a good time to examine a range of machines and strike a deal. In the end we opted for the HP Designjet Z3100. This is a floor standing 12 ink printer with the ability to print up to A0 size. That is massive, the paper is 24 inches wide. The printer is big, but is a really clever piece of kit. Putting it together, setting it up, calibrating the printer and then calibrating the monitor on our big Mac took an afternoon. But once set up, printing is really easy.
Use of this printer is on open offer to all out clients who want to print out a special photograph in a much larger format, perhaps on some of the very specialised papers available - we can walk you through these but for instance canvas is an option.
B. Printing in the field
While looking at photographs at camp on the screen of our Mac is fine, we want the ability for our clients to be able to print some of their photographs, either 4x6 say, or up to A4 while with us out on an expedition. Adam had been out in Iraq on business a couple of years ago and had used a small Canon printer in fairly crude conditions. The quality was good, it was portable and relatively light so for our ShutterspeedTravel where we needed an upgrade, we opted to go for its replacement. So... we have acquired the Canon iP90v. The only obvious downside of this is the ink cartridges are quite small. We will be trialling this printer out in the field on our expedition to the Congo over the Christmas holidays; once we sort out our visas that is... we shall tell you more about this next time. Hopefully the printer will trial well, in which case our clients on our Uganda and Rwanda Gorilla and Chimps trip in February 2008 will be the first to benefit from printing and checking some of their shots each day.
Subject to weight allowances, we will be bringing this printer on our future expeditions for all our clients to have a go. It will be great also to give photos to our guides, children and anyone else who shows an interest in what these people with long lenses are doing.
Julie and Adam
Printer fun - 11 November 2007
Internal flights and weight allowances - 21 October 2007
Photography with long lenses is a heavy business. As usual, for our recent trip to Kenya we brought with us; four bodies, an F4 600mm, an F4 500mm, a variety of other lenses, two pairs of binoculars, a GPS receiver, chargers, ipods, back-up storage devices ... oh yes and some clothes!
The allowance for internal flights in Kenya is 15kg each. We put some kit into the pockets of our excellent Domke photovests and tried to look casual (and not guilty) as we put our bags onto the scales .... 75kg in total ... 45kg excess baggage! For reference, the airport guys weigh everything, including your hand luggage. Our main concern was to get the bags on the plane. Thankfully they accepted our bags and we had to pay excess baggage for the flight to the camp and back two weeks later.
Total charge 9,000 KSH ... or £50! The cost is not the issue, but the worry is that the plane will be overloaded and they refuse one or more of our bags.
If anyone has any smart ideas how to get round this problem, let us know.
Julie and Adam
GPS and Google Maps
In the Masai Mara the Wildebeest herds cross the Mara river at points which have been used for hundreds if not thousands of years. Some of these are on steep cliffs and others on less challenging gentle crossings. For our August expedition we decided to plot the different crossings we saw to see whether there was a pattern or any logic to the mind of a Wildebeest.
We invested in a Garmin hand held GPSMAP 60CSX receiver (they need to do something about their naming conventions!). Aside from the name this is a really excellent device. At each of our eleven river crossing, three cheetah kills, Lion cubs and other significant sightings we marked the position which was stored on the Garmin's memory. This was really useful for the Cheetah and her cub. We sat for a day with her and aside from playing, the mother did not do much. The next morning we went back to the location, using the GPS as a guide, and found her. That day she killed three times! The GPS also is able to track your moving position. One afternoon it started raining ... very, very hard. We closed down the covers of the Landcruiser and the driver attempted to get us back to camp. Looking at the GPS later it was clear that at times because of the rain we were driving in circles!
Another amazing aspect is the ability to imported GPS data into Google Earth. This is simply a matter of downloading a file of the waypoints, dragging them onto Google Earth and like magic the crossings we spent so much time photographing appeared on Google Earth. This is really an excellent takeaway from the trip. The extract which we reproduced above does not really do Google Earth justice. With Google Earth and our data imported you can fly up the Mara river past each of the crossing points and in some parts of the Mara, the detail available on Google Earth is astonishing.
Our conclusion on how Wildebeest decide where to cross ... completely random!
Julie and Adam
Tips on ticks - 23 September 2007
Ticks are closely related to spiders (both have eight legs) and sit in trees, ferns and blades of grass waiting for a warm blooded animal to pass by. The scent and warmth of the animal wakes them up and then they quickly burrow their heads into their host and feast on warm blood.
On our recent trip to the Masai Mara, Murray and Adam each picked up a tick. Whilst they are both nature lovers, the thought of having their blood drained was not for them. In the field there are several ways of getting rid of ticks. DO NOT immediately pull the tick out; you will leave its mouth parts embedded in your flesh and this will cause an infection. It is far safer to kill the tick and a few hours later, the head can then be pulled out with the body attached, wthout the risk of breakage.
In the right hand photograph above, Murray is killing the tick with a lighter. Whilst effective, it can burn your flesh! In the second photograph, our Masai guide killed a tick by piercing its body with a thorn from a bush. Very effective, and painless!
Since then we have researched the subject and found that the lighter method is not recommended. Apart from the risk of burning yourself, there is apparently a risk that the stress will cause the tick to regurgitate the contents of its stomach into the host .... yuck!
Thankfully ticks have not been common on our trips.
Julie and Adam
In memorium ... in the Mara - 9 September 2007
We spent two full days with a Cheetah mother and her cub during our August 2007 expedition to the Masai Mara. We spent the first day watching them sleep and play together. The second day we watched the mother kill three young Thommies.
Unfortunately the cub suffered from either congenital glaucoma or cataracts in both eyes which gave both eyes a deep opaque blue colour and a vacant stare. Cheetahs and other wild cats often develop cataracts following injury, often a thorn but this cub was only weeks old and of course both eyes were afected. It was presumably congenital. Surgery is possible, and indeed has been perfomed on Lions in other parks. We were told that a vet had looked at our Cheetah but had judged it too young for treatment.
Shortly after our return to London, we heard from the park that Lions had killed the cub. Whether this was because the cub had poor vision is not known, but it cannot have helped. This was very sad news however it does demonstrate the balance of nature and the means of survival. We found the following from Richard Dawkins....
"Nature is not cruel, pitiless, indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous -- indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose"
All the best,
Julie and Adam
Immediate impressions from the Masai Mara - 23 August 2007
Amazing, incredible, outstanding!
We arrived back from Kenya last week to a very wet London. We had been in the Masai Mara for 12 days and had some really exceptional sightings. A trip report is being produced once we have sorted through our 11,000 photographs (!!!), but the highlights were:
1. Eleven crossings of the Mara River by Zebras and Wildebeest. Two of the crossings were for over an hour and nine with the animals coming towards us, which of course makes for much better photographic opportunities. As you can see from the snap above, our driver was able to position our vehicle in some really fantactic spots.
2. A Cheetah killing three young Tommies over the course of three hours. The first the Cheetah caught, but then was distracted and went off to kill another one within 20 minutes. This first victim was then finished off by a vulture. A couple of hours later the Cheetah killed again! We could not believe our luck.
3. Following a pair of mating Lions. Seeing them being chased off by a Buffalo and over the top of the hill, the Lions spotting that three Cheetah brothers had just caught a Tommie. The female Lion sped in, picked up the Tommie and ran off. Three very annoyed Cheetahs!
4. Our best views ever of a Serval. "Eagle eyed" Murray spotted the small and very shy cat in short grass and for a few minutes there was complete panic as we all tried to get some good shots. Fantastic stuff.
5. Following one of the famous BBC Leopards, Zawadi, one morning for about three hours. A troop of Baboons spotted the Leopard and gave chase. It ran up a tree and was followed by the Baboons! We held our breaths at the Leopard sat at the very top of the tree with about 20 Baboons looking up and thinking of ways of catching it. Thankfully the Baboons got bored and climbed down and ambled off!
Thanks to Wendy, Murray, Jackson and Makala for making this a really memorable trip.
Julie and Adam
Getting ready for the Masai Mara - 5 August 2007
In five days we will be right there in the Masai Mara with our guests watching one of nature's most amazing sights: over a million Zebra and Wilderbeest crossing the plains in search of good grazing. And if we are really lucky, we'll see some lengthy river crossings which will really get the adrenaline going. As we write this our guys at camp have updated us on the herds' progress - the migration has arrived in the Mara, having made the journey from the Serengeti. Late rains have slowed them a little this year - they were also late to have their calves, once again due to the rain, as we saw first hand from our trip to the Serengeti in February this year. But they have arrived in the Mara and small groups of Zebra have been crossing the river near to our camp so fingers crossed the large numbers of Wildebeest will be crossing by the time we arrive.
It seems a good time to be leaving London. The wettest summer on record has suddenly switched to a very warm one, and this is the time to get out.
We spent the weekend getting everything ready; cleaning all the camera gear, downloading the latest drivers for our cameras and computer gear, trying to pack everything into our "carry-on" Peli cases and check-in luggage ... we're not yet ready to weigh anything!
For the first time we are trying Garlic tablets as a way of keeping the insects away. There is a fair amount of research that suggests this does work. For example:
http://www.bth.se/fou/forskinfo.nsf/alfs/ef7b5b63b84666d4c1256e2a00340af5
In a few weeks we will report on how the trip went....
Julie and Adam