Arizona; sonora desert
I just returned from Tucson co-teaching a workshop for the Mentor Series with Tamara Lackey. We had an amazing few days photographing a wide variety of subjects, and our group was fantastic. Thanks to Tamara for the great energy and fun in teaching, and to Michelle for yet again putting together a learning packed workshop.
Our first day we visited the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Don’t let museum fool you. This facility is amazing, and has a wide variety of plants and animals in their native environment, perfect for photography. Their cactus garden alone is worth going to see. We photographed a birds in flight presentation, which gave me the chance to try out my D810 for some fast action photography. Photographers may not think of the D810 as an action camera, but with group-area autofocus and large files, this camera has some advantages. It may not have the blazing frame rate of the D4s, but with 36mp you can crop down on distant wildlife and still have large files with a lot bigger subject in your image. And group-area autofocus just works amazingly well. In the image above I focused on a Harris Hawk as it flew towards us, and I didn’t miss a frame with this fast moving bird. If you have a D810, 750 or D4s, you should try it out on your next action shoot, you won’t be disappointed.