Rod Planck Nature Photography Class
April 20, 1997, Columbus, OH
reviewed by Glen E. Johnson for photo.net
Rod Planck did the photography for the book entitled Nature's
Places. He is a dedicated nature photographer, and makes his living from
his work in this field. In addition to his photographic work, he also
serves as a guide. His passion is natural history, and photography is
his way of sharing his love for the natural world with others. Rod lives
with his wife, Marlene, in Paradise, Michigan, in the upper
peninsula. In addition to one day workshops which travel from one
location to another, he also offers field workshops in such locations as
the Hiawatha National Forest (in Michigan), Badlands National Park (in
South Dakota), and Capitol Reef National Park-Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument (in Utah). He also has numerous tours to Antarctica
under his belt, and travels there yearly. Rod can be contacted at
(906)492-3444.
The workshop in Columbus was in the usual slide show format, but Rod
made more effort to present specific slides to show the effect of
various differences in methods and techniques than I've seen in other
workshops. For example, he spent more than an hour teaching how to
expose slide film with average and spot type meters. Many of the
illustrations that he used were specifically designed to make exposure
concepts clear to novice photographers. His techniques identically match
the methods that Philip, Bob Atkins, and I have outlined in the Q&A
forum here on Photo.net. People who are having trouble with transparency
exposure would benefit from Rod's workshop. As is often the case, Rod
is another photographer who does not promote the idea of bracketing. In
fact, he repeated the admonition from both Maria Zorn and Sam Abell,
that with live subjects, if you bracket, the frame that has the best
composition and subject expression is likely to turn out to be
incorrectly exposed. You really aren't in control of your medium until
you can leave the crutch of bracketing behind.
Rod spent quite a bit of time discussing equipment. There were no
surprises. He uses Nikon, Canon, Bogen, Gitzo, Kirk, Kaiser, and other
brands of equipment that are often recommended on Photo.net. He says
that there is absolutely no advantage to using light tripods or
ballheads, and he recommends that you select heavy gear for its superior
ability to reduce vibration levels. He suggested that your tripod
should be the largest size that your spouse can carry :-).
At one time he had extensive collections of lenses for both EOS and
Nikon. Because Canon did not have a long focal length macro lens (until
recently), and because this lens is his primary lens for close-up and
macro photography, he ended up selling most of his EOS gear a few years
ago. He did keep his tilt shift lenses and a body to use them with, but
aside from the tilt shift lenses, the rest of his lenses were
Nikkors. Since Rod had spent so much time on issues related to exposure,
I asked him after the seminar if the F5's color sensitive CCD cell was
smart enough to meter things like snow correctly. He said that in two
weeks use earlier this year, he had found that the CCD color sensitive
meter was smart enough to recognize that snow needed more exposure, but
not smart enough to provide enough exposure to make it white instead of
gray. In other words, if you use the CCD color sensitive meter, you will
have to develop new compensation strategies compared to those that you
already know for spot metering or center weighted metering. He also
commented that he intends to buy an F5 soon, and will probably continue
to use center weighted and spot metering. He will probably sell his F4
and buy two F5s, since "working with the F5 is more like working with an
EOS 1N than like working with an F4." He said it was hard to go back and
forth between the F4 and F5, and that another famous nature photographer
whose name has been mentioned from time to time on photo.net had also
indicated that he was going to have to sell his F4s and replace them
with F5s because of this mismatch. He said that this is the first Nikon
camera that didn't feel like a Nikon to him.
They gave out a lot of door prizes during the day, including several
$50 gift certificates from Kirk, large reflectors and diffusers, books,
clothing, camera bags, and other useful items. Probably 25% of the
attendees won some kind of door prize. Everyone received a free postage
paid mailer good for processing one roll of E-6 compatible film at
Corporate Color in Grand Rapids, MI. Rod highly recommended them, and
had several prints on display that had been made from transparencies by
Corporate Color using a 4x5 internegative process. The prints were as
good as any that I have seen that have come from transparencies.
Rod's primary film is Velvia, although he also uses the new Kodak
E100 films, as well as several other films depending on what the
situation calls for. As for filtration, he is a minimalist. He sometimes
uses the 81B and the B+W KR3 (warming filter with some magenta to
subtract green). He also occasionally uses a polarizer to get more
saturated colors. Interestingly, while many people recommend the use of
the warming filters to warm up cool tones, he does not recommend them
for this purpose. He recommends using warming filters (81B or KR3) on
subjects that are already warm tones. He is of the opinion that cool
tones should be photographed to maintain their cool character.
Rod does not work with captive or tame subjects. All of his subjects
are photographed in their natural habitats. He had the most beautiful
fishing brown bear photographs that I have ever seen, and his Antarctic
bird photographs were also of exceptional quality, rivaling the best
that I have seen published in magazines.
Rod is a very good teacher. Each participant gets a 28 page set of
notes so that they can pay attention to the slides and the lecture,
instead of writing things down during the seminar. He brings his own
equipment, including the projection screen, so that the show runs pretty
smoothly. Several sponsors participate in the seminar, but only on the
periphery. Aside from the acknowledgement of the sponsors of the various
door prizes, the seminar was pretty much free of commercials. A
representative from M&M (a NY mail order house that Rod recommends)
stayed the whole day, showed equipment, and answered questions during
breaks. Rod's wife also sold accessories and books during the
breaks.
Rod encourages people to tape record the voice portion of the program
if they wish. Camcorders are not allowed. The parts of the program that
deal with exposure and equipment would be of greatest interest to
beginning or intermediate photographers. The parts that deal with
composition would be of interest to photographers at all levels.
A sample of some of the useful information contained in the seminar
notes is the hyperfocal distance table presented below.
Hyperfocal Distance in Feet
|
lens\aperture |
f/8 |
f/11 |
f/16 |
f/22 |
f/32 |
|
20mm |
7 |
5 |
3.5 |
2.5 |
1.7 |
|
24mm |
10 |
7 |
5 |
3.5 |
2.5 |
|
28mm |
13 |
10 |
7 |
5 |
4 |
|
35mm |
20 |
15 |
10 |
8 |
5 |
|
50mm |
42 |
30 |
21 |
15 |
10 |
If the lens is focused to the hyperfocal distance, the field of "acceptably sharp focus" is from one half of the hyperfocal distance to infinity.
Some other teasers that I will pass along from the workshop are listed below.
- Find a subject, pick a lens, place the camera. Any other order for these activities makes no sense. Find the spot to place the camera by exploring with the camera in your hand. When you have the right camera placement, then get out the tripod and mount the camera.
- You can make your own test target for testing lenses by sticking low
cost postage stamps in a pattern on a sheet of white card stock. Postage
stamps have fine detail, and will show off the sharpness characteristics
of your lenses. Rod recommends the use of an 8x or higher power loupe
for evaluation of the sharpness of slides. He uses the Schneider 8x
loupe and a color corrected light table to evaluate his own work.
- Did you know that Kirk makes L shaped brackets (BL-1 for cameras
with battery packs and BL-2 for cameras without battery packs - either
for $110) that allow you to swap to vertical format with lenses that do
not have tripod collars while maintaining the weight of the package over
the center of your ballhead? This is a neat accessory, and Rod says that
it definitely helps maintain stability for vertical format shots when
the body has to be mounted on the tripod head instead of the lens.
- A step ladder is a great photo accessory for landscape
photography. If you can locate your camera at a higher position, you can
achieve less standard, more interesting views. If you are going to do
this, you have to have a tripod that will go tall enough to support your
camera at the higher vantage point.
- Tele-converters are better for making close subjects larger on the
film plane than they are for making distant subjects larger on the film
plane. Tele-converters, extension tubes, and close-up lenses can be
combined to make even larger close-up and macro images. Among the
various close-up lenses, Rod recommends the double element lenses made
by Canon (250D in 52mm and 58mm and 500D in 52mm, 58mm, 72mm, and 77mm)
and Nikon (3T, 4T, 5T, and 6T). In the Canon system, the 250D is
optimized for best performance with lenses that are shorter than 100mm,
and the 500D is optimized for best performance with lenses that are
longer than 100mm.
- If you are going to buy extension tubes, shorter ones are the most
useful. Extension tubes longer than about 30mm aren't really very
useful. You may want to buy several shorter tubes and stack them when
you need a longer extension. Within the EOS system, two EF-12 tubes
would be cheaper than an EF-12 and an EF-25, and would be equally
useful.
- If you can't afford to buy a 400mm telephoto from your camera
manufacturer, Rod believes that the Sigma 400mm f/5.6 is an acceptable
option. He also recommended the manufacturer's 300 f/4.0 coupled with a
1.4X tele-converter. He said that he used this combination as his long
lens combination for many years before he could afford to buy his 500mm
Nikkor.
- If you are going to use tele-converters, Rod recommends that you
maintain at least an f/8 capability in bright lighting situations, and
at least an f/5.6 capability in low light situations. In other words, if
you have a 300 f/4.0 and you stick a 2X tele-converter on it, don't
expect to use it in low light. If you have f/5.6 lens and you stick a 2X
tele-converter on it, don't expect it to be acceptable in any lighting
situations.
- Rod offered two sets of key words on composition. The first set was
of general value: "compose to obtain simplicity, balance, and harmony."
The second set was of special interest in tele-photo compositions:
"compose to isolate, simplify, and define." Both of these sets of key
words were clearly illustrated via numerous example slides. Rod made
excellent use of "before the advice" and "after the advice" images to
illustrate his points throughout the workshop.
I thought the workshop was worthwhile. Rod is a personable guy, and
quite well disciplined. He has some beautiful slides, and the fact that
none of them are "staged" is impressive. He stayed in the room from
before the 9:00 AM start time, until nearly 7:00 PM, with only a very
short break for his own lunch. He answered every question, and
interacted with all comers. Even though the formal program was over by
6:00 PM, he stayed until the curiosity of the last attendee was sated. I
would recommend the one day workshop, particularly for novice and
intermediate photographers, and for persons who just want to spend a day
looking at some of the nicest nature slides that can be seen
anywhere.
Copyright 1997 Glen E. Johnson
gjohnson@engr.udayton.edu
