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Not too many photos from this day as it was designated for driving. We did return to the Deadvlei to photograph it at sunrise which is only possible when you sleep in the reserve. Our first stop on the way from Sesriem to Swakopmund was in a desolate place called Solitaire. There were several other stops along the way for some landscapes and notable sign posts, but that road was the worst I have ever driven on. I was following in the Land Rover behind the other vehicle so basically sucking in dust the whole way, trying to dodge the rocks and ruts in the dirt track and keep in range with 2 way radio lest we had a mechanical failure. It was gruelling!

More from my holiday to Lanzarote. There are some of the most peculiar vineyards in the world, really a genial solution to the fact that water is in extremely short supply. Please see large. Comments and critique welcome.

X Hvaler - Norway, 17.03.2014. D800E, 17-35 2.8 @ 17mm, 346 sec, f/22, iso 50, Big Stopper + GND 0.3 (Hard grad). →Must be viewed huge!← - As typical locally this shot is being "butchered" of amateur photographers (who I prefer calling; "know-it-alls") in my home town area, one even tried to learn me the rule of the golden ratio earlier today.. One even told me that he would have used a tripod on this shot.... I replied that I got a sturdy hand and to handhold the cam for 346 seconds for a shot like this ain't no problem!... - But in fact this is a record breaking shot for me (at least on my own site), well under 24 hours after it had been posted on my Gplus profile I had enormously 880 likes/or +1 as Google calls it, some 40 shares and a ton of comments.. - (As usual), I have added contrast (and some clarity) in the "X" itself to make the eye wander from the bottom of the image and down with the line and out into the image and then the sky. The contrast increases as the line of the "X" vanish down in the shot, just to make the eye keep "on track".

In photojournalism the saying goes “f/8 and be there”. Landscape work is a little…different. You need to obviously be there, but you need to work a little harder to get your shots. This means getting to the place you want to photograph at the right time of the day, be it either early morning or late afternoon to catch that golden hour. I hate having to scramble to get to any photographic opportunity, so for landscapes ideally I like to re-visit the same location a number of times because what I find is that when I am looking at the images I took later on the computer screen, I always see ways that I could have changed my shooting parameters to improve the shot. Maybe a little to the left or right? A little wider, narrower? Perhaps a different point of interest? Unfortunately this isn’t always possible, especially on a landscape photo safari where you’re always pressed for time and re-visiting a location isn’t always practical (think travel time here). You need a different approach. So pre-visualisation and working methodically are tools I use to maximise landscape photo opportunities. On the pre-visualisation side I normally have an idea in my head on what I want to get from a landscape. It could be to emphasise the colours or land lines or the relationship between elements in that landscape. If I’m going for black and white I might want to be capturing the mood of the landscape by concentrating on bringing to the fore the tonality of the elements in the landscape. A method I often use if I know I am probably not going to get back to the area anytime soon for a second crack at a particular scene, is to bracket each shot by about 5 frames per composition. I don’t do this for HDR purposes, but instead having a number of frames to work with gives me more latitude to chose a final working frame from. I also tend to work a number of angles of the location too, plus if I am using a zoom lens I will try a few different compositions between wide and maybe not-so-wide. At the end of the day I want to collect as much data as I can to work with when I get back to the editing desk. Sometimes though, I’ll get to a place and instinctively know just how I want to frame it up and how I want to expose it without the need for alternatives. That doesn’t happen all that often but when it does I don’t stress about the methodology I just described. On our trip to Namibia this September past I found myself using the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye to do really wide landscapes sometimes. By keeping the horizon mid frame I was able to keep the curvature at bay and the resulting images from some of the places we went to I find quite pleasing. This is from the dunes near the entrance to Sossussvlei. Click to view the large version. View full article

To me the RX100 is like a mirrorless camera, only without an interchangeable lens. It has the same sensor size as the Nikon 1 after all, and in terms of image quality it fits that category better than that of compact cameras. In a way similar to the Fuji X100, which despite not having an interchangeable lens certainly produces images of a quality comparable if not better than many mirrorless. But the Sony RX100 IS a compact cameras after all. That means that if the image quality is good, one could accept performance/ergonomics shortcomings for the advantage of reduced bulk and mass where bulk and mass are a problem. Last weekend for the first time since my daughter was born I was allowed a half day off to hike and decided to see how different it is hiking and photographing with the RX100 instead of my usual kit (D700 + 24-85 f2.8-4 & 70-300 [or if I want to go manual, 28/2, 35/1.4, 50/1.4 & 75-150], plus sometimes a small tripod and the 28/4 TS on minibellows). In terms of weight the difference is enormous. I can cover ground much more quickly and effortlessly if I carry just the RX100. But how about the pictures? Do I feel restricted by the limited choice of focal lengths and most of all is the camera capable of giving me good pictures? Here is a small selection, let's hear what you think. As far as I am concerned depending on the occasion I will "hike lite" again. It lacks the performance and flexibility of a DSLR but the little RX100 is a godsend for the weight conscious photographer and in most conditions is capable of producing excellent images. The capability of this photographer is definitely more limited than that of the camera.