This journal records my actual 10,000 hours photography; ten thousand hours of deliberate practice mastering the art of photography. In particular, these journal pages contain references to:
- images as they are made
- references to source materials
- thoughts that might, or might not, later form part of a full post
(Hours at start of month: 9,731)
10th May 2025
Hours 9,768 to 6,7
(1h) updating this journal with the first of the photos from Botswana and Zimbabwe, and finishing off the new month admin
9th May 2025
Hour 9,767
(1h) effectively finishing the “Setting Up the Sony a1 – Safari Update” post – just need to implement on the camera (and as far as possible on the A7c before publishing
8th May 2025
Hours 9,765 to 9,766
(½h) shooting at Victoria Falls on my iPhone
(1½h) starting a post called: “Setting Up the Sony a1 – Safari Update” to update the post published on the 12th August 2023 with yesterday’s thought on potential improvements
7th May 2025
Hours 9,762 to 9,764
(1h) editing and processing recent images
(2h) updating this journal including:
- most of the new month admin
- creating the new banner above
- the post safari – camera set-up thoughts below
Limitations with my current set-up for the Sony A1 when used on safari with the big 400mm lens:
- was often pressing the button for “My Menu” by accident, it was just where my thumb moved to when trying to control the big lens
- need a constant display of Eye AF setting, i.e. Human/ Animal/ Bird as often had this wrong
- need a better button for toggling between Eye AF setting, either a button reachable by the right thumb or, better still, the function ring on the lens
- ideally the Eye AF setting should be limited to Animal/ Bird (photos of people on the trip were generally taken on my iPhone)
- auto ISO has a tendency to keep the speed unduly fast and therefore increase the ISO too much. Given that when the light was low I tended to use a monopod and with all the image stabilisation in both lens and camera body – I need to explore options
- I also found the function button on the lens, that I had programmed to shoot in medium burst speed, somewhat inconsistent – I need to practice using this
It might make sense to incorporate the above in a wildlife memory setting on the camera, maybe setting 3 which is currently set to landscape/ creative which can more easily be done in manual. The above might be worth writing up as a blog post
6th May 2025
Hours 9,758 to 9,761
(2h) shooting mainly on a very productive 3 hour river cruise where it was possible to get much closer to the birds we were seeing and get some great shot of animals in the water
(2h) editing and processing the day’s images
5th May 2025
Hours 9,754 to 9,757
(1h) shooting morning drive
(2h) editing and processing
(1h) evening drive
4th May 2025
Hours 9,748 to 9,753
(2h) shooting
(3h) editing
(1h) evening drive
3rd May 2025
Hours 9,745 to 9,747
(2h) shooting
(1h) editing
2nd May 2025
Hours 9,738 to 9,744
(2h) shooting – 3h morning drive
(3h) editing – including identifying the potential for a flock birds series
(2h) shooting evening/ night drive
1st May 2025
Hours 9,731 to 9,737
(2h) shooting – 3h morning drive
(3h) editing
(2h) shooting evening and night drive