Tag Archives: Canon
Norfolk
Well after a little break, I’m back to the blog! I’m sitting here wondering whether I release all my pictures from the weekend on you or whether I drip feed them in. Since I’m in an impatient mood today I’ve decided to compromise – I’ll subject you to some now and some later!
For those of you who don’t know, I’ve spent the last four days with a couple of friends having a whale of a time photographing all sorts of things. This was a purely photographic trip, no holiday with photography, no other half to consider – I could spend as long as I wanted shooting what I wanted when I wanted! What this meant was four days of 5:30am alarm calls and being out until the sun was gone…and then a bit longer.
While we had a plan of subjects we were aiming for (Barn Owls being the main one) I actually had more fun with the waders. And just for the practice, I did a couple of landscapes because I was asked about a technique. Contrary to popular belief among my friends, I don’t object to being asked how to do things or why I do things a certain way – I may be out with friends taking pictures, but I still love teaching and passing on knowledge! Just ask my better half – I apparently have a teacher voice I use when I’m trying to get a point across…!
We spent the four days on the Norfolk coast and I found it great to have the chance at some serious photography over an extended period of time. Our list of interesting subjects seen is really pretty good:
Marsh Harrier, Barn Owl, Kestrel, Buzzard, Avocet, Snow Bunting, Turnstone, Dunlin, Redshank, Greenshank, Teal, Ringed Plover and Hare among many others.
Before heading off, I was fortunate enough to lay my hands on a big lens – an EF800mm f/5.6 IS USM – a stellar lens that once you get used to using is capable of spectacular results. The reason I say “get used to using” is that while you may be used to a 400mm or 500mm, the step up makes things that bit different. Everything is bigger in the frame (D’uh!) but the way you handle the lens is different. You need to think about the 6meter minimum focusing distance (I think Turnstone must still be using imperial measurements; I kept telling them to be 6 meters away, they seemed to think I said 6 inches….) and the slower response time you have while swinging a bigger lens around. Switching back to a 500mm having been using the 800mm really felt like I was missing something – namely the frame filling ‘wow!’ that a long lens can provide. If I could, I’d be tempted to have one in the bag but at the price of a good small car, that’s not happening any time soon, and to be honest, I’m of the opinion that a EF400mm f/2.8L II IS USM with the new EF1.4 and EF2x Mark III Extenders is a more versatile solution – again, still the cost of a small car, not to mention not being available to buy yet.
With one of the landscape shots shown here (the huts with the sunset) it’s a combination of two techniques – light painting and HDR (and some ND grad filters too). In truth, the standard light painted image looks pretty good, but I want to experiment with HDR for landscapes so I figured it was a good one to try it out on. Sure it’s a bit different to my normal “minimal editing” approach, but I like to experiment and try new things to see if they’ll be useful for projects in the future. My view of HDR is that it has a place and can produce great images, but it has to be used with care. Images that look obviously HDR’ed are not my cup of tea.
The light-painted bit was done with three flashguns – two controlled by me and one controlled by my VAL (that’s voice activated light-stand) in this case, the VAL was aka Calum. (Thanks Calum!)
If you are interested in learning more about this kind of photography (both wildlife and landscape) and how to get these kinds of images, as well as getting to see subjects like this, drop me a line and let me know. I am looking at organising a photographic training trip to some of these locations where you’ll get time to photograph as well as help in getting great shots, all while seeing some spectacular wildlife. Send me a mail from this link and let me know, or drop a note in the comments.
Anyway, I shan’t bore you with any more drivel, instead here’s some pictures for you to look at instead – hopefully they’re more interesting than me typing!
Costa Rica
Towards the back end of last year the better half and I decided we needed a holiday before the end of the year. After a lot of searching and head scratching we grabbed a late minute deal (booking the trip less than a week before departure!) and took off to Costa Rica. Neither of us had been before, and while we have a list as long as my arms of places to visit, with only a week timescale I was reluctant to go somewhere on the list in case a week wasn’t long enough.
I was under strict instructions – this was not a photo trip. It was a holiday and therefore the kit I took with me was to be limited – not my usual “everything and the kitchen sink” approach! This meant a short time period in which to pare down and pack my kit to cover the sort of things I figured I might get the chance to photograph.
What I got when I arrived in Costa Rica I was completely not prepared for. I knew it would be a ‘pretty’ place, but really I was blown away. Where we were, in the Guanacaste region on the pacific coast, was truly stunning – and we’d arrived at just the right time. Up until October, it’s the rainy season and from December it’s the summer season. This shoulder was perfect – no rain but all the benefits of lush colours from the preceding rain – and not yet so hot that the tropical dry forest had become burnt and bare. In short, lush foliage, fantastic colours and great weather! What more could you want?
Ever conscious that this was a holiday and not a photo trip I didn’t take anywhere near as many pictures as I normally would. But still, I managed to take some images every day we were there and come home with two things – a good set of images and an appreciation of the beauty of Costa Rica. It’s somewhere I urge you all to go, and indeed somewhere I’m thinking I might have to organise a photo tour to….
Below is a small collection of some of the images taken during the week there. Comments are always welcome, so light them up and let me know what you think 
Canon goes launch crazy
“Tell me what you want, what you really, really want…..” Is this Canon’s new company song? Judging by the latest announcement they’ve been listening diligently to the calls for an EF200-400mm lens to rival Nikon’s offering. And now they’ve promised they’ll deliver one and they’ve thrown in a 1.4x Extender for good measure…
As you’ll have no doubt seen all over the web today there is a bit of a furore going on. Canon have announced a slew of new products – cameras at the consumer end and lenses at the high end as well as a couple of flashguns. all very interesting stuff, but to my mind,the most interesting announcement was the development release talking about a new lens they will release later in 2011 – an EF200-400mm f/4L lens with built-in 1.4x Extender.
Now, I’d be a rich man indeed if I had even a penny for every time someone has asked me when we’d see an update to the EF100-400mm lens, or more ideally a competitor to the Nikon 200-400mm lens. It seems everyone from wildlife to sports to travel photographers wants this lens.
Well, the waiting isn’t quite over but at least we have an announcement. And what an announcement it is. It seems Canon have listed to lots of feedback and requests about this lens. Clearly the Nikon lens has been very popular with lots of users, most notably those shooting ‘contained’ sports like tennis and anyone interested in a single wildlife lens for traveling with.
It’s the addition of the 1.4x Extender that takes this lens from “I want one!” to “OMG I have to have one!” Imagine you’re sitting on an elephant on safari. It’s dusty and there’s a faint breeze. Suddenly, a tiger appears along the track from you. 400mm just won’t do it, you need more. Instead of reaching in the bag, finding the 1.4 Extender removing the lens, fitting it and then cursing as the tiger walks off the track, you can now just flip the extender into the optical path and go to a 560mm f/5.6 lens – all without having to remove the lens and risk dust getting in as well.
You want f/4 rather than f/5.6? Just flip the extender back out again. Simples…!
There is no word on weight, wait or wallet lightening abilities yet, but I’d suggest it won’t be cheap. Then again, if it replaces a 100-400mm, 500mm and Extender in your bag, there’s got to be some saving there.
What do you think? Is it something you’d be interested in? What would you use it for?
Check out the EOS-Network blog post for the announcement details and links to Canon’s press releases.
Black and white experiments
The Christmas period gave me a chance to have a look at some of my older images and start to experiment with some new applications for processing images. Generally, I like to keep my images as they are shot, preferring global adjustment to local modification – I’m a photographer after all, not an ‘image maker’ or graphic designer – so my work is done in the camera rather than on the computer.
I recently got hold of Nik Silver Efex which can be used either through Aperture, Photoshop or Lightroom. Since my RAW processing is done either in Canon’s DPP or Apple’s Aperture, Silver Efex slots nicely into the workflow and I am hoping it will make me produce a few more black and white images.
Back in my days doing my MSc at uni I really enjoyed my time in the darkroom – I could go in there first thing in the morning and appear, bleary-eyed, hungry and completely dis-orientated in the wee small hours of the following day. Since the switch to digital though, black and white is not something I’ve done much of. Occasionally there’s been an image I’ve thought would work in black and white, or indeed have shot with black and white in mind, but generally, I deal in colour images.
Silver Efex takes me back to my darkroom days – fortunately though I don’t have to be locked in a dark room to use it!
The trick with black and white is that not all images suit the treatment. So I took a wander through my library of images to find some images that might work. These two images are both taken from my New Zealand collection – take a look at this post to see the colour versions….. – and were one’s I thought might suit a bit of black and white.
Do you do much black and white? If so, where do you perform your black and white conversions? In-camera? In RAW conversion? In Photoshop?
Cuteness overload
Firstly, Happy New Year! I trust you all had a good festive season and are ready for 2011?
I didn’t have to wait long into 2011 to get the chance to take some pictures – on the third day of the year a friend from my uni days at Bangor (North Wales, Marine Biology before you ask…) came to visit with her new kitten. The kitten is only 6 weeks old, and literally just weaned. Turns out he’s a bit of an Einstein having weaned quickly and learned to use a litter tray 2 weeks before any of his siblings – that said, they’re all female and are therefore no-doubt just being awkward..
Anyway, he turned up and I wasn’t expecting to take any pictures – it was meant to be a catch up with my friend but I couldn’t resits his cuteness. He’s been named Huckleberry and is just the tiniest ball of fur and fun.
If you’re ever seen just how small cats are when they are kittens, you’ll know what I mean. If not, the shot of him on the stairs shows just how tiny he is (no, I don’t have giants stair steps in my house!)
Since the expectation of Christmas has gone and the excitement of a new year is fading rapidly, I figured I’d try and cheer you up with a couple of the impromptu images I took while he was visiting. Enjoy!
PS – If you’ve ever tried photographing a tiny, fast moving creature that just won’t sit still, you’ll know the lengths I had to go to to get any of these in focus, let alone find some form of composition.
All shot with an EOS-1D Mark IV and EF35mm f/1.4L USM lens
That summer theme
Continuing the happy summer theme from yesterday’s blog post, here’s some UK based images taken in Cornwall earlier this year.
I’d never spent a lot of time in Cornwall before. I’d traveled down there for the solar eclipse back in 1999. At that stage I was into photography but I was still very green. And the weather was terrible meaning the sky just went a bit dark and then a bit light again!A fun time was had, but photographically it was not very fulfilling. Since then I’ve wanted to go back but never really found the chance – other places in the world always seeming to conspire to take me further afield.
This year I went down there for a week long holiday. My girlfriend and I had booked a holiday cottage (through Classic Cottages… highly recommended) for the week. It was right on the Northern Cornish coast (using the word ‘Northern’ for anything to do with Cornwall just seems somehow wrong!), about 6 miles up from Land’s End. If you’ve never been to that part of the world, then I strongly recommend you do. It’s a wonderful place – so calm and relaxing, and if you stay out of the bigger towns then it’s also blissfully cut-off from everything…including mobile phone reception!
We spent the time visiting the area, taking trips and generally relaxing. Fortunately, the weather was very kind to us, giving hardly any rain at all during the entire week.We spent the majority of our time on the very bottom tip – Penzance, Land’s End, Sennen Cove, Mousehole, the Minack Theartre and a day trip over the the Scilly Isles. We even took a wildlife watching trip to see Basking Sharks (Cetorhinus maximus), though sadly they were not to be found that day.
Over the week, despite it being a holiday, I was allowed some photography time – not the 24/7 I’d have spent if it had been a photographic trip, but a reasonable amount of time none-the-less. And overall, I was pretty happy with the images I got. In fact, one has just sold and you may well see it around next year!
In 2011, I am looking to plan a week long residential course in and around Cornwall. At this stage I am looking for people who might be interested to start getting a plan together, so either let me know in the comments, or drop me an email. The aim would be to have a maximum of 10 people and have it very hand’s on. We’ll concentrate on landscapes with me giving you tips and advice on how to improve your shots through composition and technical knowledge – use of filters, camera settings, lens choice and accessories. Being residential we’ll also look at processing in the evenings, showing you some tips on RAW processing to make your images stand out, as well as offering critique on the day’s images.If other opportunities present themselves (like wildlife) we’ll give that a go too.
The trip will suit people who really want the opportunity to improve their photography by learning from me and by being surrounded by other like-minded people. You’ll need an SLR, a wide-ish lens (they don’t even have to be Canon!) and a tripod.
It’s cold, wet and horrible
…in fact, it’s the complete opposite of this set of pictures, and that’s why they’re today’s post!
I was trawling through some old pictures and came across this set of images taken in January this year on a trip to Gran Canaria. The model is Claire Guest, a great model who’s very accommodating and professional and so easy to work with.
We’d spent the third day (of a week long shoot) moving around locations before finally ending up on the Maspalomas dunes late in the afternoon. After shooting some video footage and getting some stills of Claire running, she ‘let her hair down’ and just had a play on the beach. I grabbed this sequence of candids shots as she bounced around, relaxing, having fun and soaking up some warm Gran Canarian sun – before we returned to the snow-bound England we’d left a couple of days before.
To me they say summer fun and always put a smile on my face when I see them. Memories of a happy shoot, great weather and sunnier climes than the dreary, dank rubbish we’ve got here at the moment!
What do you think? Do they cheer you up? Hit up the comments and let me know.
The story behind the picture
All pictures have a story behind them. Some are mundane and not worth expanding on greatly, others are told by the image itself. There is a third group too – this is the group that the story means something to you and that makes the picture more special to you. And so it was with this image, taken back in 2007 on a trip around New Zealand’s South Island in a camper van.
The image was taken at Lake Matheson, the Mirror Lake, located just up the way from Fox Glacier. If you go to New Zealand, this is a must stop place. I have never seen water so calm and the views around it are simply breathtaking. Anyway, I arrived at Lake Matheson in the hired camper van (from escape rentals) and discovered that I was not actually allowed to camp in the car park there. This presented me with a little problem as the nearest campsite was a good few kilometers back down the road and I wanted to be at the lake for sunrise. Duly not wishing to break the law, I drove back to the campsite and unwittingly chose a pitch quite a way into the campsite.
The following morning I awoke early ready to head off for sunrise at the lake. But on climbing out the camper van I realised the error of my ways – in the evening the site had filled up and I was no in a situation where the English consideration in me wouldn’t allow me to start the camper van – it was a Toyota van that had been converted and while I can’t say enough good things about it, the fact remains it was a bit noisy when it started. I empathised with the people in the other vans and tents knowing that if I was fast asleep I wouldn’t appreciate someone starting a tank next to me at ridiculous o’clock in the morning.
This left me with no other option – I had to push the camper van off the pitch and through the campsite until I was far enough away that I could start the engine without waking anyone. You didn’t see that coming, did you?!
About 10minutes later I was half way down the approach road, I jumped in, started the engine and drove up to the lake car park. I still had the small matter of a 40minute hike to get around to the best viewpoint on the lake.
I arrived, got myself set up and started shooting some images. I was the only person there for ages and it really was quite a special time to have this perfectly calm lake all to myself. The mountain in the background is Aoraki, or Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. After a while I noticed a plane take off in the distance, circle around to the right, drop some parachutists and then return back along the back of the lake. This happened a couple of times and I then hit on the idea of trying to include it in a picture – it’d be small in the frame but would add a little human interest to an otherwise human-less landscape. It was about this time that my travelling companion woke and made the walk around to find me. For those not used to it, travelling with someone who is not as immersed in your photography as you are is not to be recommended!
We chatted for a while as I waited for the plane to do its thing again. But nothing happened. Eventually my companion got bored and announced they were going back to the van and I was to join them shortly. I pleaded for more time and at just that moment I heard the engines roar as the plane took off. My companion decided to wait with me after which we’d head back to the van together ready to move on to the next location for the day.
We waited a while and a couple arrived and started talking to me, asking me what the filters on the front of my lens were and why I was using them. Never one to shy away from teaching people about photography I launched into a long discussion on the benefits of ND grad filters and why you use them. Just as I was getting to the crux of my argument, the plane shot passed in front of me and landed on the airstrip out of site to the left. I’d missed it. *&£$*£$*%$£@*$*£*&£. (Insert your own stream of expletives here).
That was it, my companion was off and I was to go with them. I begged and pleaded for more time and we reached an agreement. We’d wait 30minutes and if the plane took off we would wait the 15-ish minutes it was taking to run a circuit. Cue some nervous moments as the clock ticked by and on about 28minutes the engines roared and off it went.
10minutes passed. 15minutes passed. My companion left. 20minutes. 25minutes. 30minutes.
Finally, after what seemed like an age I heard the engines in the distance. Another couple had just started talking to me and, not wishing to miss the shot again, I politely told them I’d talk to them in a few minutes once the plane had passed.
I was all set, the camera was in place, I’d decided how I wanted to compose the image, the exposure was right, the filters were where they needed to be. All I need to do was trip the shutter at the right time. I took no chances. As the plane came into view I started shooting and got three frames, the middle of which had the plane perfectly positioned in the gap. I packed up, finished my conversation and went back to the van. Total time since envisaging the shot: about 4 hours. Total damage to travelling companion’s patience: immeasurable.
As it turned out, missing the plane on the first pass was a blessing in disguise – the sun hadn’t yet got up enough to light the trees on the far side of the lake, so I’d have had lit reflections of mountains and a silhouette of plane and trees. (Of course I’d planned for this so the first miss was deliberate…..ahem).
So, the image itself is not bad, but the story behind it is what make me personally like it all the more – a bit of luck, some pre-planning and an insistence to not move until you’ve got the shot you want – the three key ingredients needed in landscape photography!
To complete the story, a while later I sold the image to a company to use in a brochure. All was looking good until I got the brochure back – they’d decided the plane was not clear enough at the print size they were using and had cloned it out! Such is life – they could have had an image without the plane if they’d asked. Clients ‘eh! Who’d have ‘em?
Which of your images have stories behind them that make them more precious to you?
Below is a collection of some other images from that South Island trip. All taken on a Canon EOS 5D.
Country Life tear sheet
Back in the summer, through a random set of coincidences, I found myself with a commission from Country Life to photograph orchids around Bucks. A couple of the images are shown on the site in the Flora portfolio however, here is the tear sheet showing how they were used the images were used, and the images themselves in one group.
Keep in touch
