NatGeo 2013 Winners

[Bobobird]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...o-Contest.html

For 2012 there were 22000 entries, for 2013 just 7000, two-thirds down. Would have thought that with the ever expanding use of digital that the numbers would increase.

Rules (yes I checked) - untouched, only minor dodging/burning/crop accepted. Clearly not the case in most of these shots.

Third thing - these all appear to be taken with wide angle lens. What is the point of zooms then?

[Shadowman]

Could be a number of reasons why entries dropped. One could be the annoying popup you get when you try to view the rules, it requires you to join the NG community.

[Shadowman]

Could be a number of reasons why entries dropped. One could be the annoying popup you get when you try to view the rules, it requires you to join the NG community.

[Downrigger]

Third thing - these all appear to be taken with wide angle lens. What is the point of zooms then?

I wonder about lens length here, Bobo, I went back an looked again (since I'm mulling a longer lens these days): The polar bear looks wide but can’t have been close enough for very wide – just not done with that animal without becoming a meal. (I'm guessing shot from the rail of a ship? Maybe normal? Perplexing. Looks like its shot at 25mm standing right next to the hole, which would be suicide) Expect the egrets were shot no shorter than 50 and maybe more like 100 but hard to tell. The Rhino shot has to be a bit long. Or do I look at these incorrectly?
Maybe too, its harder to be creative long than it is when you are shooting up close and wide... implicitly you have big reach just to "catch" your subject and to a large extent you are a victim of the light, surroundings, and compositional offerings that the situation provides. Seems to me great long shots are more often fortunate than contrived.

[Brownbear]

The image of the polar bear also won the Grand Prize in the National Wildlife Federations annual photo contest. In the blurb in the magazine the photographer (Paul Souders) states that he followed the polar bear in a zodiac for about an hour, allowing her to relax while he photographed her from a distance. Slowly her curiosity kicked in and he was able to get closer to the bear. He hung his camera on a 7 foot pole at the edge of the ice and managed a cool head shot when she poked her head out of the water, just 3 feet from the camera... Later while reviewing his images he discovered this image of her peering at him from beneath the waters surface.

What I want to know is just how one hangs their camera on a pole with no camera shake or blur...

[Bobobird]

What I want to know is just how one hangs their camera on a pole with no camera shake or blur...

That is an interesting question. Let's hear from the experts.

What is a zodiac?

[Brownbear]

Yes, indeed... I'm waiting.

A fancy rubber boat

That is an interesting question. Let's hear from the experts.

What is a zodiac?

[Mike Buckley]

Zodiac is a manufacturer of small (I think usually inflatable) boats that are typically used to go where larger boats can't go or are not allowed. The term, "zodiac," has come to be used to describe any such boat made by anybody, just as the term, "kleenex," has come to be used to describe any tissue.

As for hanging the camera on a pole, it doesn't matter what you use to hold a camera so long as the shutter speed is fast enough to negate the effects of the camera's movement and so long as the aperture provides a sufficient depth of field. My guess is that the camera was tethered to a computer that allowed the photographer to frame the image and configure the settings as if he or she had been holding the camera in his or her hands.

The thing that I find most interesting is that if the pole was 7 feet long and the camera was 3 feet from the bear, the zodiac was no more than ten feet away. Though I don't know anything about the capabilities of a polar bear in water, that seems to be dangerously close.

[Bobobird]

Thanks Christina.
Thanks Mike - ahhh the thing we blow our nose into. Cool.

I got to know a couple of "professional" photographers last summer at my usual haunts. The ONE thing that I did learn was that there is no such thing as a "right place, right time" shot. If they are making a living off their work they cannot afford to spend too much time at a location waiting for "the" shot.

The point they make is that one cannot just wander off into the wild "hoping" for something due to the expense, uncertainty etc. Normally they do a "controlled" shoot with the assistance of locals. The animals models are more used to having people around so the chances of the shot are substantially increased. It is similar to the farmer with bull on sunset terraced fields in Asia - those and many like net casting, boat in misty canyon etc are all setup.

To prove the point one of them produced a shot of a snowy owl in flight around green vegetation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameratruth2/10163919736/

Forgive me for being cynical but Mr Souders has not told the complete story.

[Mike Buckley]

If they are making a living off their work they cannot afford to spend too much time at a location waiting for "the" shot.

That's the situation that National Geographic provides to its photographers that is so unique. They provide their photographers with time, time, time. Their photographers sometimes spend months on assignment and much longer than that preparing for being in the field. Nat Geo recently explained that their photographers took over 3000 shots for every photo that Nat Geo published in print or online in 2012.

[Bobobird]

That is true of "their" commissioned photographers. They have a reputation to maintain. Maintaining that level of vigilance for every photograph they get is almost impossible.

What is interesting though is the 2/3 drop in entries.