gwilliams6

I agree, good glass is always the best investment longterm.

Canisdirus

Superb image btw.....

gwilliams6

Thanks, happy to share it here. And you are so right, camera bodies will come and go, but good glass can last a lifetime.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Know the old saying that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with typewriters, eventually they'll write the Bible? Just random chance.

In the digital age, and even with film if you had a big film budget, you can take thousands of shots all different ways, regardless of what equipment, and chances are there will be something usable/good/sellable, even to National Geographic.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

Worth is usually determined by what rights are being bought. One time magazine rights. One time book cover rights. One time newspaper rights. Most pros avoid selling "All Rights" unless it is contracted or their gain is more that the loss of the rights. And then there are some businesses that try to get "All Rights" by using trick checks as the photographer's payment for lessor rights. A lot of legalize.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Yes, the majority of them do use PS and do their own processing!

tennis2618

I have the fortunate opportunity to frequently go on photo trips with Nat Geo photographers and know several of them pretty well, although none of the ones readers of the magazine recognize as the superstars. There has been a lot of incorrect info in this stream. Nat Geo goes have strict editorial guidelines which could be summed up as not allowing any more than the basic "editing" capabilities as were possible back in the film days. The equipment that they shoot with is pretty much the same as the more serious who I read regularly on this site. I was surprised to see on a trip last month that three of them were using mirrorless-each a different brand. Two of them were just trying them out. And they were getting great pictures. They do get equipment support from the manufacturer of equipment they use, but normally this amounts to use of new cameras or lenses--which they can purchase at a discount after the shoot.

What they do better than us which leads to so many excellent shots is practice. I have heard one say that he will be playing with the controls on his camera every day when he is relaxing over tv, etc, so that he will be very familiar with every control on his camera when he is shooting--not having to think about how to adjust something, but just doing it. They all say they shoot daily, even if they don't have an assignment. For the most part they use our equipment and glass and get better results because they do this for a living and they have a great eye for what they want to get in a picture. I have been challenged by these people as I try to get pictures they might be proud of. My first such shot occurred in the Arctic shooting a polar bear on sea ice. She was jumping from one ice flow to another and I caught it perfectly--all four feet off of the ice, sharp, great light, etc. (the picture is on the dust cover of my book of the trip). One of the Nat Geo people has become a good friend and he was taking pictures of the same activity. He told me that none of his got the scene like mine--the proudest photo experience in my life! By the way, that hasn't happened since then.

rwww80a Loc: Hampton, NH

No, as an employee it might not be worth it but as a professional photographer a cover on Nat Geo IS.

Most pros at this level are contractors with their own business and don't have witholdings from their pay the same as the fee paid to a wedding photog.

rwww80a Loc: Hampton, NH

As I said when I ran a camera store on LI, you take one or 2, I take 2 or 3, a pro takes 2 or 3 rolls of film and a Nat Geo photographer takes 3 or 4 suitcases of film. How many chances of getting that lucky shot.

NHSmitty Loc: Goffstown NH

Cool pic!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Slightly off topic, but find the photography videos by Joel Sartori, a Nat Geo photographer. They are on The Great Courses, generally available through your library system. He tells you how to take great pictures without having to "repair" them with software.

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/fundamentals-of-photography.html?pfm=BestSellers&pos=1

Garden Gnome Loc: Central Pennsylvania

There's an online course through "The Great Courses Plus" that I took featuring Joel Sartore (a Nat Geo photographer)...he shared a lot of his "secrets" and how he takes such amazing images. I found it to be worth the cost. Here it is: Fundamentals of Photography: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/fundamentals-of-photography

Toment Loc: FL, IL

👍👍👍👍

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

There is actually no such thing as "straight out of the camera".

I'd argue that ALL images require some tweaking and adjustment. Even back when we shot film, there was retouching and cropping, cropping and color balancing being done. It's much easier (too easy?) today with digitial.

The key thing with editorial usage such as Nat Geo's is to avoid serious modification of the image. In addition to the pyramid cover example shown in an earliear, one of the earliest dust ups was a surfer posed with a long board... too long apparently, because someone photoshopped it shorter so that it would fit the Nat Geo cover. That caused a real stink.

But there is no problem adjusting exposure, tweaking color balance, applying noise reduction or sharpening an image. Cropping is fine... but removing an object from an image or adding one would be a no-no.

How does Nat Geo get all those great images? Folks I've known who shot for them said it's pretty simple... they take A TON of shots. A story may have one or two dozen photo illustrations... but a photography might spend 3 months or more and take 20,000, 30,000 or more images to get those shots!

Perhaps the real "heros" at Nat Geo are the photo editors who have to go through all those images and narrow it down to the 1/10 or 1% that end up being used to illustrate a story.

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

It may not have happened since, but if you know that you have one shot a Nat Geo photographer would have liked to have shot, it is this a matter of time before you shoot another. Just keep shooting.