Tag: EF16-35f2.8L

What equipment do I need to photograph weddings?

 Gavin   Tips
What equipment do you need to photograph weddings?

 

What equipment do I need to photograph weddings?

Photographing weddings is easy. Don’t be put off by the illusion of stress on the wedding day because it’s just that, an illusion. The secret is having a plan and having the right equipment to do the job. In this post, we’re going to talk about equipment. (If you’d like to talk about planning the day to make it stress-free, leave a comment and let me know).

OK, so what do you need?

This list is what I believe to be the absolute minimum. Can you do it with less? Of course you can, Continue reading What equipment do I need to photograph weddings? »

Fisheye Lens – Worth the money???

 Gavin   Equipment

I bought a fisheye lens a few years ago on an impulse. I didn’t really have a use for it and the time and the real reason was I thought it might be fun to play with at the time. It was too. The severe distortion created an interesting effect at first before I grew tired of it quite quickly. My wife in particular hated me using it on her. Close-ups of a person’s face can be very unflattering.

When I first bought the lens I used it mainly on my 20D. With a crop sensor the distortion is a lot less noticeable than on a full frame body such as the 5D. On the 20D it behaved much more like a super wide lens. Here’s an example from one of my images made with this lens, the EF15 f/2.8 Fisheye. The horizon in the original image was virtually undistorted and so easily corrected with the warp tool in PhotoShop.

Bournemouth Beach - 15mm Fisheye Lens
15mm fisheye lens view of Bournemouth Beach

Continue reading Fisheye Lens – Worth the money??? »

The night before…

 Gavin   Equipment

This evening is the night before my next photoshoot. It’s going to be a twilight fashon shoot in the City of London. The idea is to make the most of the fading light as we approach and pass through the sunset, creating stunning images as we go.

I’m really looking forwards to this one too. Plenty of off-camera flash which is always great fun and a great opportunity to move outside my comfort zone to boot.

In the run-up I’ve just packed my bag for tomorrow. The emphasis, as always is on keeping the weight down.

Continue reading The night before… »

The Castle Bride

 Gavin   Bridal, Photoshoot, Strobist

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege or working on a bridal portfolio shoot with a fantastic model, Helene, and her fiancée, Jo. We also had a brilliant and very talented MUA, Louise of Faceinate, on hand too.

We were to be shooting at Guildford Castle, early on a Saturday morning and although is was bitterly cold, thankfully we weren’t to be plagued by the rain or snow of recent weeks. It was very overcast too with nothing but cloud cover overhead making for very soft, diffused light and although it was quite a dull day there was still plenty of light to work with. This when combined with a typical grey January day meant for a reduced colour pallette: mainly very muted greys, greens and browns to work with. Continue reading The Castle Bride »

A truly fun event…

 Gavin   Digital Darkroom, Equipment, Event, Photoshoot, Techniques, Tips, Workflow

Had a fun afternoon yesterday covering the Nokia 5k Fun Run in London and all for a good cause too. All the images are available on ovi.com, here: http://share.ovi.com/album/Nokia5k2009.UKLondon5K2009. All mine are tagged with QTPortraits.

091028 Nokia Fun Run-1133Needless to say, I jumped at the chance when asked to take part (on the condition that I didn’t actually have to run anywhere :-)) seeing this as a fantastic opportunity of gaining that all too precious commodity: experience. In hindsight it also proves that Marc Gamble‘s podcast about the Education Spectrum although this could be argued an accident rather than by design.

This was my first attempt at event photography and a real eye opener too. It was also a good excuse to practice some of the techniques that we covered on the Wedding Seminar a couple of weeks ago, both at capture time and in post. I find it quite odd, although hardly surprising, that two distinctly different genres such as Events and Weddings share so much in common.

So what did I learn from the afternoon? Continue reading A truly fun event… »