Broken Cameras / New Camera

I started having problems with one of my Canon 400D's a few months ago while photographing an in-line hockey tournament.  I started to notice a delay between pressing the shutter and the actual photograph being taken.  It is similar to what I had fixed on on my other 400D a while ago, that one would press half way to focus but wouldn't press fully down and it turned out the pad under the shutter button had slipped.

The chap that repairs and maintains my cameras has been looking to move out of the area and retire for a while now and as I can no longer get hold of him on the telephone sussect he has now succeeded so been using my second 400D as my main camera which has been fine until last Sunday.  I had two ice hockey games to photograph and 2/3rds of the way through the second one I started to get ERR 99 and it stopped taking photographs.  Error message said to turn off and on again and try removing and replacing the battery, all of which I did without success.  I managed to finish the game using the camera with a shutter problem via a shutter release cable, not ideal but it got me through.

Nothing for it, after months of saving and ummm and arghing time to get down the shop and get a replacement.  I decided to go for the Canon 60D, had been trying to choose between this and the 7D but hadn't saved up enough yet for the 7D. 

I managed to get through about a third of the manual in the few days I had before my next ice hockey game which was last night so I knew the basic controls and had set it up for what I thought I needed for the rink in MK.  The biggest thing I have noticed is how big the RAW files are comared to those from the 400D, I needed to convert to TIF at 50% to reduce the size enough for them to be more managable in the time frame I have post game and will have to review my server storage as it will be filling up a lot quicker now.  Only have a couple of days before the next game I'm covering so will have to get my head down and read the rest of the manual.  For now here are a few of the photographs taken with the 60D last night.

 

F4.5, ISO2000, 1/250s, 70mm

F/4, ISO2000, 1/640s, 200mm

F/4, ISO2000, /500s, 200mm

F/4, ISO2000, 1/320s, 110mm

My first Studio Photoshoot

Well technically second with clients as I did do one at college about 10 years ago!  I was really please with how they come up and everyone had good fun having them taken, samples of some of those taken are below.  I have another day booked in the studio on the 11th December which I hope goes as well.

ISO100, F/11, 1/125s, 80mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 35mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 80mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 42mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 80mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 35mm

ISO100, F13, 1/125s, 35mm

ISO100, F13, 1/125s, 44mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 56mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 50mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 35mm

ISO100, F13, 1/125s, 80mm

ISO100, F13, 1/125s, 80mm

ISO100, F11, 1/125s, 71mm

Busy, busy, busy

I've not posted for a while but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!


Actually I have taken a few weeks off from my uni course to concentrate of my photography business.  At the beginning of October I posted about my studio lesson, this is something I want to do more of and learn enough to be more comfortable in the studio as another option to try and get a bit more work.

Couple of weeks after my lesson I sent an email round to a dozen of so of my collegues at work, offering them studio portraits for the cost of the studio hire, explaining that that as well as needing more practise I also needed a range of photographs to build up my portfolio.  Most of them know that I do have my own photography business and that I am doing this course.  There was a really good response, enough to book two days of studio time in fact.

For several evenings I spent my time looking through photographs taken by the studio owners, Unique Capture, but also looking through flickr to get ideas for poses that I might want to try.  I have done portraits before but always on location in local parks etc so some of the poses from those could be used in the studio but because the light and conditions can be controlled it also means there are more options.

My first day in the studio with customers was on the 13th November, I had a young couple with a 7 month old daughter come in first, the little girl was very well behaved and very smiley which made my job lots easier.  My second clients were a large family, a couple with their two children, both their parents plus a brother and niece - it got a bit busy in the studio but got lots of different combinations including one big family shot and individuals of the children.  This was followed up by someone I used to work with a few years ago, his wife and son, in fact I first met his wife while she was pregnant and now their son is almost 8 - where has all the time gone?  Slight change of  pace for my final booking Ihad half the members of the ENL1 ice hockey team I do work for come down for some promo photographs to be taken which was a lot of fun.  It meant I got to try out some different lighting techinques and use three different areas in the studio.  Before the ice hockey shoot I spent quite a bit of time on the internet looking at promo photographs used by NHL teams and the guys were good sports letting me try some of them out.  Everyone seemed to enjoy their sessions and the studio owner remarked that there had been a lot of laughter which was a good thing as it meant they were having fun.

Tomorrow I'll post some of the results of my first studio session here and I must say a special thank you to my colleage Lynn who volunteered to come down and manage the reception for me, she did a great job and it meant I didn't have to worry about my next customers turning up while I was still working in the studio.

Interesting fact

This evening I was absently mindly surfing the web while half listening to the news when I came across this article, it is from a couple of years ago but am sure still relevant.

http://www.ispwp.com/the-secret-life-of-wedding-photographers.html

It was interesting to see sure a huge difference between peoples perceptions of a wedding photographers working time compared to the reality.

From the little bit of sports photography that I do I would guess that the percentages would similarly apply to most forms of photography.

Exercise 15 - Positioning a Point

For this exercise we were asked to take three photographs each with a single point.  Each photograph to have the point in a different part of the frame.  These are the three photographs I took for this exercise which I have marked to show the division easier.

I took this photograph just before the squirrell jumped down off the lawn, he had bounded across, down onto the path.  I positioned him at the bottom of the frame so you can see where he has come from and a little in from the border.  Usually I would try to have the subject looking/moving into the fame not out of it but in this case the border shown is enough to anticipate what he s going to do next.  It adds an interest as you wonder what is over the boarder and why he is going that way.  The diagonal of the squirrells body adds movement.

I positioned the summer house to the left of the frame as I wanted it to appear like it was alone in an ideallic setting.  In fact it was outside a church and this was part of the church grounds.  If it had been any further into the frame you would have been able to see some of the grave stones in the photograph.

I positioned the bench low on the right of the frame for this photograph.  It is positioned on the right so you can imagine sitting on it and where they would be looking.  It always looks more 'correct' if a person would be looking into rather than out of a photograph.  By positioning the bench low in the frame it shows off the hight of the tree behind and gives impression of it looking over/sheltering the bench.

I also reviewed some of the previous photographs with a single point to see the division in them:

 

Part Two - Elements of Design (Points)

With my first assignment in the post today I read through the second part of the course, elements of design and am ready to get going again.

Project:  Points

Situations that would make a clear photograph of a point:

* Single swan on a lake
* Single house in a landscape/hillside
* Church in countryside
* Boat on a lake/in the sea

* Single person on the ice pad
* Plane in the sky
* Single floating balloon

* One book on a desk
* One item of cloathing on a washing line
* One red tomato on a tomato plant


I looked back through some photographs that I had taken previously to find some with a single point, here are a few I found:

 Looking back through my photographs I found it hard to find any with just a single point, often the posible point was too large, taking up over half the frame.

A long day

I was very fortunate to have been invited to cover last weekends NSHL In Line Hockey tournament at Bisley in Surrey.

It went really well and the organiser has given me first refusal to cover a world tournament they are organising next January.

I found it to be a very long day and hard on the feet but the positive feedback received from the players and tournament organiser more than made up for that.

Here are just a few photographs from the tournament.

 

 

It's in the post

It's taken a week or so to get in the post but my first assignment is now on it's way to my tutor :-)

Photographs for Assignment 1

These are the photographs i'm submitted for my first assignment:

Broad/Narrow

Diagonal/Round

High/Low

Dark/Light

Many/Few

Pointed/Blunt

Straight/Curved

Rough/Smooth

Black & White

In the studio

I treated myself to a 1-1 lesson at a local studio at the weekend.  I did a single term on studio lighting when at college many many years ago but never really got the hang of it.

Here are some of the things that were covered:

 Using a single light

Broad Lighting

Main light and fill light

Lighting from above

Lighting from above and with fill light

High Key

With fancy background

Using hyperfocal focusing (useful photographing kids)

Many thanks to Will at Unique Capture for his patience and a very useful afternoon, i'm looking forward to hiring their studio again soon to try out what I learnt.