A Walk In The Park With The Olympus M. Zuiko 100-400 f/5-6.3

I was talking to a colleague on Wednesday when she let it drop that her husband, a good friend of mine, was in one of the parks in Munich photographing tawny owls with their son. I'd known about at least one of the owls - the infamous Kazimir - from another photographer's Facebook posts, but when I learned that there were four of five of them, that they were in relatively predictable positions, that the best time of year to shoot them is when there are no leaves on the trees and that the weather for the following day was going to be great, well I had to go, didn't I? Plus I have such a backlog of leave from last year that I really need to start using up and so early Thursday morning I set off in the car to drive into the centre of Munich.

Schloß Nymphenburg || Olympus 12 mm, f/8, 1/500 s, ISO 200

We've been having some spectacular sunrises at the moment due to Sahara sand in the air and Thursday morning was no exception. Driving down to the motorway I was greeted by the most amazing sight; a perfect disc of yellow rising behind some naked trees with a misty foreground. One of those once in a lifetime shots and I had a car full of camera gear. But also a date with some owls. It'll have to be one of those that got away...

Kanali Catching the Rays || Olympus 400 mm, 1/125 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Finding my friend in the park wasn't difficult, the first known roost tree is just behind Nymphenburg palace by the canal (I don't think I'm giving any secrets away here), and so there I was before 8 am setting up my tripod in the park, getting out my new mega zoom and trying to find a position through the twigs and branches. The photos make it look easier than it was. Getting the right angle was not straightforward and emphasised the need to be shooting these beautiful birds now rather than in a month's time, when the trees will be shooting bright green new leaves.

Hi-Res Kanali || Olympus 400 mm, 1/125 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

This was one of the first photos I took of the bird who has affectionately been named "Kanali" due to his proximity to the canal (yeah, the Germans can be really imaginative). Remarkably, the bird was sitting still enough for me to engage one of the Olympus camera's super-powers; the high res mode. Using some technical jiggery-pokery, the camera moves the sensor by a few microns in each direction over multiple shots, creating an 80 MP shot using a 20 MP sensor. I never imagined I'd be using this magic on wildlife, but I didn't have anything to lose and am really happy with the way it turned out. If you look at the branches above the owl you can see some artefacts generated by the breeze moving the twigs between the individual shots, but I'm really pleased with how this turned out and could easily imaging this hanging on my wall.

Canada Goose || Olympus 400 mm, 1/160 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Classical Swan || Olympus 400 mm, 1/160 s, f/13, ISO 200

Of course there aren't only owls in the park. There are more lesser spotted woodpeckers than you can shake a stick at, plenty of tits and nuthatches. An ornithologist friend who was out with us was able to point out the song of some wallcreepers and of course with all the open water there is also an abundance of ducks, geese and swans. On another day I'd have had an eye out for the swans in flight, landing on the water and taking off, but today was all about the owls. I did allow myself to be distracted for a couple of minutes to take this canadian goose resting between the frost-crested mole hills and a classical swan shot. Nothing to write home about, but nice portraits nevertheless. I particularly like the repeating patterns of the molehills with the goose - a nice bit of tessellation with a difference.

Light Through the Palace || Olympus 342 mm, f/11, 1/200 s, ISO 200

After spending an hour or so admiring Kanali we headed north to the Pagoda and the Kleiner See - the little lake. There's another owl roost east of the lake, but be warned that the park rangers don't look kindly on people walking on the grass here.

Tawny Owl || Olympus 400 mm, 1/160 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Our third owl was in the woods north of the lake, set well back from the path with a poor line of sight. This one is very shy and we had to wait a while for him to show even this much above the lip of his hole.

Shy Owl || Olympus 400 mm, 1/100 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

When shooting birds like this, don't be afraid to fill up your memory cards. Some of the owl shots were taken with manual focus, some with auto focus. Not even the pros get 100% focus lock and so really can be a case of 'spray and pray', sorting out the very best shots afterwards on the PC. You're looking at my pick from 150 photos here, a much lower keeper rate than I'm used to from my landscape and macro photos, but this is a different game and different rules apply.

Back to Kanali || Olympus 400 mm, 1/200 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

You will need a good length lens to get decent shots though. Most of these shots are cropped at least a little bit to focus in on the birds. I was mostly shooting at the long end of the 100-400 mm - that's 200-800 mm in full format terms and I think the tripod was necessary. With more megapixels you could probably get away with a shorter lens, but it would be a compromise.

Leaving the park I was struck by the clumps of snowdrops and crocuses lining the paths and so I dropped back to my trusty 12-100 mm for a few close ups before heading hope for lunch.

Snowdrops || Olympus 54 mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 s, ISO 200

Crocus || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/200 s, ISO 200

Incidentally, if you're interested in getting together to shoot some time, we've now created a Facebook group: Munich Expats Photo Group. If you on Facebook, get in touch, otherwise drop me a line using the contact information on the right here. I'm always looking for partners in crime!

Feedback on the First Workshops

"Apparently, if you try to cram two years of learning into 4-6 hour 1-2-1 workshop, the participants can find it a bit too much. Who knew?"

The Old Gypsum Mill || Olympus f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 1250 

I’ve now run my first two workshops for volunteer guinea-pigs recruited from among my local friends on the understanding that they would give me in-depth feedback on the sessions in lieu of payment. We had two great afternoons, one hiking in the local mountains in less than perfect weather and one shooting flowers in a friend’s back garden. We had several “aha” moments as they learned things about their cameras that they didn’t know before and both have got some great shots out of the sessions. But what did I learn?

Over the last 18 months I’ve invested a lot of time in my photographic education. I’ve read books, I’ve watched a ton of videos and online courses on photography and post-processing and I’ve endeavoured to put a lot of it into practice in the field. I think that most people would agree with me when I say that I’ve come a long way photographically in that time. I’ve almost completely changed my approach to photographing and my philosophy of photography. A lot of things are now obvious that would have been a complete mystery to me even two years ago. I was an idiot to think that I could convey the significant parts of that learning in a single session, but that’s what I set out to do. Twice. In my defence, the second session was probably much better structured than the first. But I need to trim it down much further, or at least give the students more time to take each aspect of the teaching on board before progressing to the next.

Let’s take a look at the two sessions and try to assess what works and what doesn’t and look at how to build this into planning future workshops.

In the Pöllat River || Olympus f/11, 2 s, ISO 200

Session 1: In The Pöllat Gorge

The first session was held at one of my favourite local spots – the Pöllat gorge below the fabulous Neuschwanstein castle near Füssen. My student, a friend from the Munich choir that I sing with, had previously been a teacher – a huge plus for me, as this was someone who had first-hand experience of teaching methods and knew what he was talking about when it came to feedback. We’d had a chance to chat a little about photography on the way down in the car and I’d already sounded him out concerning what he wanted to learn.

The fun part about this session was that Andrew had a relatively clear idea of the images he wanted to get, but wasn’t always clear on how to achieve those images technically. This was definitely something I could help with.

Parking the car at the Tegelberg car park (much cheaper than parking in Hohenschwangau at the bottom of the castle), we trekked along the base of the mountain, the clouds lingering in the trees above us. Excellent opportunity for composition questions 1 and 2: (1) What catches your attention, and (2) what aspect of the subject do you want to emphasise or caricature? (thanks Joshua Cripps!)

Moody, Misty Forest || Olympus f/5, 1/200 s, ISO 500

Arriving at the bottom of the Pöllat gorge, I was dismayed to see that the gorgeous wooden mill race had been very badly damaged in the recent storms. I sincerely hope that they repair it using the original wood, since this has always been a complete eye-catcher and really strong element for photos here. As it was, the heavy flow was just gushing out of the broken end of the trellis into a mess of tree branches. Such a shame.

After we'd walked around the bottom of the gorge for a bit, scouting compositions, we went a few meters downstream where it was a little quieter so that we could chat about how to emphasise the water movement, leading into a discussion of long exposures and tripods. I'd established in advance that Andrew would be using the Nikon 18-55 mm kit lens and managed to source a cheap step-up ring of the right diameter so that he could use my filter system to create a series of shots with different exposures.

Shooting in the Pöllat || Huawei P30 Pro

Having had a good long session at the bottom of the gorge, we walked up through the shady forest, looking for other compositions. There are some nice shots to be had of the falls as well as some nice intimate forest landscapes - what my father calls my signature shots. The moss was particularly appealing 

Moss Micro Landscape || Olympus f/4, 1/8 s, ISO 200

At this point, I forgot a bit that I was supposed to be leading a workshop and got side-tracked by taking my own images - wrong of me I know, but too easy to do in the circumstances. In future, I'm really going to have to put my own shots in the background, unless they're to make a teaching point.

Carrying on up to the path between Neuschwanstein and the Marienbrücke, we were rewarded by a moody view over Hohenschwangau with the sun breaking through the clouds. An impossible shot for Andrew's camera, but no match for modern exposure bracketing. Once again, I was putting my own photos first. But come on, who would have said no to this:

God-Rays over Hohenschwangau || Olympus Exposure Bracketing

After waiting a while in vain to see whether the weather would provide us with anything better, we headed on up to the Marienbrücke, the bridge overlooking Neuschwanstein, to see whether the light would allow us to catch any useful shots. Andrew took quite a few from the bridge and we toyed with the concept of including some foreground in a shot in order to establish a bit of 3-dimensionality to the scene.

It was quite late by the time we got back to the car and we were both starving, so we looked for a suitable hostelry. Waiting for food, I had a chance to go through my workshop cheat-sheets with him. In my mind I had planned to shoot and then go over the theory in the hope that he would be more receptive to the concepts - a teaching style that we often use at work. In reality, it would have been helpful to look at them beforehand and then try to put some of it into practice in the field.

Session 2: A Munich Garden

For the second session I visited my friend in her garden in Munich. Because one of her primary photographic interests was flowers and because they have a beautiful flower garden, this really worked out nicely. The weather was definitely playing ball this time as well, which really helped. It had rained just before I got there, but we had a great 4 h in the garden in lovely late afternoon light, shooting anything and everything in sight.

This time we were able to sit down before we started and look at some of the concepts that help me focus on what makes a good photo. I was delighted that my friend was able to make the intuitive jumps from the things I was pointing out (more here) to compositional consequences. Once we'd got some of the basics out of the way, we were able to knuckle down to the two issues that she had highlighted approaching the workshop; exposure and focus.

Reach for the Sky || Olympus f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200

After explaining the various ways in which cameras measure exposure and the shortcomings of assuming that everything is 50% grey, we looked around for potential examples. She has a beautiful honeysuckle growing up the side of the garage. Against the sky, most cameras will underexpose the subject to avoid an overly-bright image, leaving the subject quite dull. Exposure compensation to the rescue (once we'd found out how to in the manual).

Essence of Hydrangea || Olympus f/8, 1/40 s, ISO 200

Looking back, we should have spent a little while at least concentrating on exposure, but I was so excited with the progress that I was all for moving swiftly on to the next issue; focus. Once we figured out how to give her back the control over what the camera was focusing on we even got a chance to look at the concept of depth of field before switching over to her macro lens and fiddling about with focus magnification in a foreign camera system.

Old Wooden Chair || Olympus f/8

All in all we had a great afternoon/evening working through various technical and compositional aspects before I was gently told to stop - I'd passed on enough information and time was required to process and practice.

Lessons Learned

What Went Well

Let's start with what went well:

• The second workshop was much better structured than the first, working through the teaching materials and having a chance to put it all into practice.
• Knowing both locations well before the shoots was essential. Even then there were surprises, like the demolished mill race at the Pöllat gorge.
• Both locations were good and had some 'gimme' images where you couldn't really go wrong, whether Schloss Neuschwanstein or my friends gorgeous garden.
• Having a few toys to hand to play with worked well, such as the ND filters for the gorge and my tiny fish-eye lens as a demonstration of how aperture works.
• Getting the students to fill out a self-assessment form (below) well in advance of the workshop so that I could prepare a session to fit their individual needs worked really well.
• The handouts I had prepared turned out to be really good teaching aids.
• After the first workshop we sat down and went through a handful of the best images, looking at technique and possible tips. The offer is still out on the second workshop, but, life!

Challenges

• One of the time-consuming aspects of both workshops was becoming familiar with other peoples’ cameras. After 18 months with my Olympus I can operate it pretty much blindfolded. Previously I’d been using a Panasonic bridge camera and so had at least a working knowledge of the menu structure. My students had Nikon and Cannon cameras respectively and finding functions in the various menus took time. If students aren’t familiar with their cameras, it’s essential that they bring the manual with them. It was also challenging switching between a mirrorless camera with all of the associated ease of use and the more flighty DSLRs.
• The weather and, more importantly, the light during the first workshop was extremely challenging. But that’s life sometimes.
• It’s important to establish ahead of time which lenses your students are bringing to the workshop. I’m used to the flexibility of being able to choose between ultra-wide angle, long telephoto and everything in between. Students aren’t always going to be able to bring that variety to the workshop and the location needs to be planned accordingly.

What Didn’t Go So Well

• Looking back, although the first workshop was fun, setting out without covering at least the basic theory was a mistake. I was all gung-ho for the location and thought I could explain as we went. I couldn’t.
• After the first few shots, I also assumed that the student was doing ok and didn’t need as much help or feedback. In future I’ll have to be more proactive in checking in with them.

Looking Forward

Looking forward, I think I will have to offer either one or the other; either a photo safari or a photography workshop. It’s much easier to concentrate on teaching skills in a calmer environment with few distractions, where we can sit down, talk about the principles and then put them into action.

On the other hand, once someone has mastered the basics, it will still be fun to head out to the hills to look at how to put those skills into practice.

Fairy-Tale Neuschwanstein || Olympus f/4.5, 1/8 s, ISO 800

My Questionnaires

I've created two questionnaires, one to give me a feel for the student's needs, one for them to give me feedback on the workshop so that I can continue to improve as an instructor. I'll reproduce them here for anyone wanting to use and adapt. I've created these using Google docs, and the answers flow directly into a table. I'm a huge fan of Google docs as they allow me to access the information on the go using a variety of platforms.

Student Assessment Form

I ask a lot about my students because I really want to understand their needs and offer a tailor-made session. It also helps them to assess where they are and think a bit about the issues involved. I also ask them either in advance of - or during the session how they would define a "good" photo. Although a straightforward question, it really helps focus on the issues.

Student Feedback Form

Feeback is critical to the process of becoming a better instructor - which is a huge part of the process for me. Here's my Student Feedback Form

Shooting in the City: A Change of Scene

Munich by Night || Huawei P30 Pro

There’s a good reason why we live outside of the city and put up with a 60 min commute each way during the week; we need our green space! The 15 min bike track from the station to home really helps us decompress and we’ll often startle hares on our route in through the fields and forest in the early morning. I grew up in rural Wiltshire and the rolling countryside west of Munich bears more than just a passing resemblance to the chalk downs of my youth. Being a country lad, at least 95% of my images are taken in the countryside – either in the mountains or out-and-about locally, but every now and again I’m struck by something in the city of Munich where I work and have to whip out my P30 Pro – bought with exactly this in mind.

Munich Hackerbrücke || Huawei P30 Pro

Zentraler Omnibus Bahnhof  || Huawei P30 Pro

The Same, But Different

I work right next to the Hackerbrücke in Munich, a wrought iron bridge built in 1890 and crossing 26 separate rail tracks just west of the main station (leading lines galore!). The tracks run east-west, making sunrise and sunset shots a gimme, particularly in the winter months when my commute regularly takes place in the golden hour or the blue hour. Photography in the city has a very different feel to it to photography in nature. The combination of familiar ground (I follow the same route every day), the strong geometry provided by man-made structures, the combination of natural and artificial light, a different colour scheme and the interruption of people are all significant changes to my usual subjects and are a welcome change. The same rules of composition apply, the same positioning game – where do I stand so that the mast doesn’t stick out but blend into the background? It's the same but different. The standard perspective can sometimes even be exchanged for a bird’s-eye view.

Swooosh || F4, 2 s, ISO 200

One of the first ever images I took with my Olympus EM-1 Mk II was this shot of a tram at Karlsplatz. I didn’t believe at the time that the IBIS (in body image stabilisation) could be anything like as good as they said it was and set out to test for myself whether a 2 s hand-held shot was even possible. To my complete amazement, the sign bearing the road name came out sharp as a tack whilst the tram gave me this beautiful sweeping line of blue-white light. I don’t think I’ve ever had a camera before where there wasn’t at least a little bit of buyer’s remorse. Only the recent advent of the Mk III has led me to wistfully check the coffers to see whether I could justify shelling out the requisite Euros. Sadly I cannot.

At the Hackerbrücke 

There are so many angles around the Hackerbrücke, so many nooks and crannies I could probably take a different shot each day for a year (now there's an idea!). Depending on the time of day the sun lights up different aspects of the various buildings. One of the great things about shooting here are the contrasts between the various ages and styles of the buildings themselves, the colours, shapes and angles and the way they catch the light at different times, such as the ship's-bridge-like structure of the control tower at the Hackerbrücke with the bridge and modern offices in the background.

Control Tower at Hackerbrücke || Huawei P30 Pro

Kurt Haertel Passage || Huawei P30 Pro

Hackerbrücke S-Bahn || Huawei P30 Pro

Oktoberfest 

Anyone who has heard of Munich has heard of the Oktoberfest. Actually, it's probably the other way round - Oktoberfest is probably more famous than its host city. My office lies on the route between the main S-Bahn station that people use to get to the Oktoberfest and the site of the festival, meaning that we are always spoilt for choice for photos when walking between the buildings at lunchtime, whether the horse-drawn dreys that still ply the streets or the people in their local costumes - Tracht.

A Munich Drey || Huawei P30 Pro

I Wonder Where They're Headed || Huawei P30 Pro

Oktoberfest Drey || Huawei P30 Pro

Working about half a mile from the site where this annual festival gives me plenty of perspective on the comings and goings, especially when trying to stem the tide of evening visitors on my route home as you can see below. Getting down to the platform can sometimes be a challenge and colleagues of less stature than myself (I'm about 6'1" and am anything but slight) have been known to use my wake to cross the Hackerbrücke of an evening.

Chaos at the Hackerbrücke || Huawei P30 Pro

Offices

As the light changes through the year, leaving the office at more or less the same time every day I get to experience the same scenes in daylight, the golden- and blue-hours as well as full night in the dark days of December. Balancing the levels between natural and artificial light can lead to some powerfully graphic images. Combine this with the strong lines offered by the architecture and you get some image magic!

Office Block at Hackerbrücke  || Huawei P30 Pro

Office Block at Hackerbrücke  || Huawei P30 Pro

Office Block at Hackerbrücke  || Huawei P30 Pro

Sunsets

The real treat leaving work (well, apart from the obvious), is when it coincides with a cool sunset. Whether the burnt-out copper tones of a summer evening or the delicious orange to blues of a cool spring, the colour palette is seemingly infinite. Bouncing the light off the glass-fronted buildings seems to stretch the available light.

Hackerbrücke from the Hauptbahnhof || Huawei P30 Pro

Leading Lines Galore  || Huawei P30 Pro

Hackerbrücke Sunsets || Huawei P30 Pro

The astute reader will have noticed that many of the images here are taken with my P30 Pro instead of my trusty Olympus. Of course I could take my snazzy DSLR with me to work every day, but it's not really practical. The P30 goes with me practially everywhere and is also capable of producing top quality images, after all:

Sometimes, the best camera is simply the one you have with you at the time.