Nikon D800, 24-70mm lens, f11 various speeds, panos stitched in Adobe Camera Raw.
Friday, 4 November 2016
Autumn colours at JCB
Here are a few images from a recent walk around the JCB testing site by Alton Towers, the colours of the trees were pretty spectacular, I think that they will be on their way out very soon with the cold, wind and rain we've had the last couple of days!.
Nikon D800, 24-70mm lens, f11 various speeds, panos stitched in Adobe Camera Raw.
Nikon D800, 24-70mm lens, f11 various speeds, panos stitched in Adobe Camera Raw.
Tuesday, 1 November 2016
Springer Spaniel Commission
I had to photograph a couple of springer spaniels for a Christmas present the other week, they were looking at getting something a bit different in the shots, although the shoot was mid morning and out on the fields.
I decided to take my Lencarta portable battery pack and a couple of gridded spots so I could pin point the light on the dogs.
My set up was to put the camera into manual mode, place the dogs with some bushes in the background that were in the shade and place the dogs in the shade too.
I shot at f11, iso 100 and 1/500sec, using my pocket wizards to trigger the light allowed me to have such a high shutter speed and darken the ambient light.
Heres some of the images from the day.
I decided to take my Lencarta portable battery pack and a couple of gridded spots so I could pin point the light on the dogs.
My set up was to put the camera into manual mode, place the dogs with some bushes in the background that were in the shade and place the dogs in the shade too.
I shot at f11, iso 100 and 1/500sec, using my pocket wizards to trigger the light allowed me to have such a high shutter speed and darken the ambient light.
Heres some of the images from the day.
Photographing Locals
Since moving to Waterhouses we have met some great people and I decided to start a personal project to photograph some of the characters and the new friends we have made.
I always like to do a personal project with my photography, this allows me to shoot what and how I want to rather having the sometimes constraints from my clients, this project is on going and lots more people to add, the end result will be an exhibition in the village hall for all the villages to come along and see.
I will add images to this project as I goes along, these are the photos so far.
Beautiful Autumn Colours
I went for a wander around Lamaload Reservoir in Cheshire yesterday afternoon. After passing by the other afternoon on the way to a job I thought it would make for some really nice photos as the colours were looking great.
So once Nicki came back from work we set off in the car and got to this location in about 40 mins from home, we were lucky because the sun had decided to go behind a large bank of clouds on the way over, but by the time we got there and grabbed my tripod and camera it started to appear once again and was in full shine when we got to a good location to take a few shots.
I set the camera to f11 and used a hyperfocal distance on my 24-70mm lens (set in manual, no Auto focus) of 2.3 meters from my HD chart from the great David Taylor's book (Mastering Landscape Photography) this ensured that everything would be in focus and took a few shots, one of them a pano which I stitched together in ACR.
Nicki making friends!
So once Nicki came back from work we set off in the car and got to this location in about 40 mins from home, we were lucky because the sun had decided to go behind a large bank of clouds on the way over, but by the time we got there and grabbed my tripod and camera it started to appear once again and was in full shine when we got to a good location to take a few shots.
I set the camera to f11 and used a hyperfocal distance on my 24-70mm lens (set in manual, no Auto focus) of 2.3 meters from my HD chart from the great David Taylor's book (Mastering Landscape Photography) this ensured that everything would be in focus and took a few shots, one of them a pano which I stitched together in ACR.
Nicki making friends!Monday, 31 October 2016
Photographing Celebrities
I had a job for Derbyshire Life Magazine on Saturday evening covering A charity event for Tideswell Male Voice Choir, whilst I was there I set up a small area to do a few head shots using my studio lights, as it happens Edwina Currie and her husband John were guests, so I managed to get a few really nice professional looking head shots rather than the usual on camera flash shot you usually get at this kind of event.
The comedian Mick Miller was also attending to entertain the crowds (and a great job he did!) I managed to get a nice headshot of him and I also set up a SB800 flash off camera on a light stand just to his left when he was doing his performance and again got some really nice shots of him, much better than if I just left the flash on the camera!
A few images from the evening below!
Thursday, 27 October 2016
DPS Tableware Autumn/Winter brochure
It was really good to get a copy of the new DPS Tableware brochure arrive through the door today, the photos they used were from a shoot I did with a top chef in Wales a month or so ago, really good of them to send me a copy and really great comments about the images I shot, really looking forward to working with them again real soon.
Here are a few screen shots of the pages from the brochure
Here are a few screen shots of the pages from the brochure
Monday, 24 October 2016
Photographing Fireworks
I've been asked how I take photos of Fireworks after posting a few from yesterday evening on social media and as there are sure to be some more displays about, I'll explain how I got my images.
Firstly I'm going to use an aperture of f8, the reason is that it will keep the fireworks pretty sharp and any smaller an aperture i.e. f16 starts to make the light trails thinner, so f8, f11 or even f5.6 will work well.
I set my ISO as low as possible to avoid noise (in this case 100) but 200 will be fine and I'm going to use the Bulb setting on the camera.
Right that's the settings, now to get the shots.
1, Use a sturdy tripod ....... Set the tripod up well before the fireworks start so you can get a good spot and look at what composition you are going to get, In this case I thought I would get behind the bonfire and the crowds, so I could add them to some of the images.
2, Use a cable release ........ to make sure there is no camera shake when you press the shutter button.
3, Focus ........ Now I always check my focus while it is still light, focus on a point in the distance roughly where the fireworks will go off (a tree or a building to get the focus) look at your lens and see what length it is showing, nearly always infinity, but don't just turn it to infinity because in most cases your lens will be out of focus, on my 24-70mm lens it showed right in the middle of the infinity icon.
4, Shoot Manual ....... don't use auto focus or the lens will be struggling to find a point of focus, set your lens to manual and set it to the focal length you took earlier.
5, Take the shot as you hear the firework get let off, keep the bulb setting open for as long as it's needed for that firework, If you want to add more fireworks to the same frame you can cover the lens with a piece of black card (not touching it) whilst the shutter is still open to stop light entering it, then take it away when another firework is let off.
6, check you LCD to make sure you have all the light trail in and adjust your lens accordingly, I was between 24mm and 45mm for these shots.
7, try and get the best of your shots early on in the display before too much smoke from the fireworks hangs around and spoils your images, In this case it was quite windy and removed most of the smoke.
8, Enjoy yourself!!
Firstly I'm going to use an aperture of f8, the reason is that it will keep the fireworks pretty sharp and any smaller an aperture i.e. f16 starts to make the light trails thinner, so f8, f11 or even f5.6 will work well.
I set my ISO as low as possible to avoid noise (in this case 100) but 200 will be fine and I'm going to use the Bulb setting on the camera.
Right that's the settings, now to get the shots.
1, Use a sturdy tripod ....... Set the tripod up well before the fireworks start so you can get a good spot and look at what composition you are going to get, In this case I thought I would get behind the bonfire and the crowds, so I could add them to some of the images.
2, Use a cable release ........ to make sure there is no camera shake when you press the shutter button.
3, Focus ........ Now I always check my focus while it is still light, focus on a point in the distance roughly where the fireworks will go off (a tree or a building to get the focus) look at your lens and see what length it is showing, nearly always infinity, but don't just turn it to infinity because in most cases your lens will be out of focus, on my 24-70mm lens it showed right in the middle of the infinity icon.
4, Shoot Manual ....... don't use auto focus or the lens will be struggling to find a point of focus, set your lens to manual and set it to the focal length you took earlier.
5, Take the shot as you hear the firework get let off, keep the bulb setting open for as long as it's needed for that firework, If you want to add more fireworks to the same frame you can cover the lens with a piece of black card (not touching it) whilst the shutter is still open to stop light entering it, then take it away when another firework is let off.
6, check you LCD to make sure you have all the light trail in and adjust your lens accordingly, I was between 24mm and 45mm for these shots.
7, try and get the best of your shots early on in the display before too much smoke from the fireworks hangs around and spoils your images, In this case it was quite windy and removed most of the smoke.
8, Enjoy yourself!!
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