Learn Photography Tips Blog

My 1st Off Camera Flash Shot

// August 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // My Photographic Life

I’ve been interested in off-camera flash for a while now, and really fancied having a go, seeing what it could do for my photography – so, last week, I bit the bullet and ordered the Canon ST-E2 wireless transmitter (from Amazon UK, also available at Amazon US). It really wasn’t cheap – not by any means! – but it means I can now fire my 430 EX II flash wirelessly, with full ETTL support. While I was spending my hard-earned money (oh, how easy it is to spend too much money on photography!) I also bought a portable softbox kit too (Amazon UK – similiar one on Amazon US).

Anyways, enough of the talking, here’s my first off-camera flash shot, of my dog, jumping. Softbox was camera left, using a 430 EX II flash.

What do you think? Have you tried some off camera flash photography? There’s so much to learn, if you have any tips you’d like to share, please do leave a comment below!

Wedding Photography: What I’ve Learnt Recently

// August 5th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // My Photographic Life, Photography Tips, What I've Learnt This Week

I recently had the pleasure of taking photos (lots of them!) at 2 friends’ weddings over 3 days. Yep, quite exhausting, but good fun and really good experience. Of course, I wasn’t the main photographer at either of the weddings – not even a ‘second shooter’, as both weddings actually had 2 pros at each. But I was more than happy to take lots of shots without the added pressure of actually having to produce the goods!

At the first wedding I was actually an usher (the ‘photogrusher’), so couldn’t actually take as many as I wanted, as I had other duties to do (it’s actually quite stressful in itself, being an usher!). At the second wedding I was free from any responsibilities and so could take more. Over the two weddings, I shot around 500 photos. Anyway, here are a selection of some of my fave shots, and my thoughts on what I’ve learnt from this experience is at the bottom:

(more…)

How To Show EXIF Data For Your Photos On Flickr

// July 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // How To...

Have you ever wondered why the EXIF data isn’t showing for your photos on Flickr? I know I have, and, though it hasn’t been a major concern over the past couple of months that I’ve been using the photo-sharing site, I did wonder why my shots weren’t showing that info.

The EXIF data, by the way, is all the information about how your photo was taken – shutter speed, aperture, ISO, camera model, focal length etc – that is automatically embedded within your photo by your camera, and it means, among other things, that you can quickly check how you took the shot. It’s really handy to be able to look at people’s photos on Flickr and see exactly how they ‘got the shot’, and I noticed that this information is available for a lot of photos, but wasn’t there for mine. What was I doing wrong?

The Solution: Don’t ‘Save For Web’ in Photoshop

And that’s all there is to it…! I thought I was being helpful by using the ‘Save For Web’ function on Photoshop to reduce the filesize of my images (which, I thought, would make my photos quicker for people to view online, and reduce my upload time), but it turns out using this feature strips the EXIF data from my photos. Simply choosing a normal ‘Save As’ keeps the EXIF data intact, even if I have edited the shot in Photoshop.

(more…)

Is Photography School Really Worth It?

// July 9th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Random Photography

Now, there’s a question: Do you think photography school and courses are really worth it?

And, by ‘worth it’, I’m not just meaning the money they involve, but also everything else: the time, the work, and – perhaps most importantly – the results. I’m really interested in getting people’s feedback on this subject – have you been to a photography school? Have you perhaps gone to your local college for some photography classes? Did you learn a lot? Was it expensive? Good value? Would you recommend it to others?

When there are so many free sources of information and guidance available on the internet – this site included – is there really a need for them?

On the other hand, surely you can only learn so much from books, so much from articles?

(more…)

A Dabble Into Wedding Photography

// June 22nd, 2010 // 5 Comments » // My Photographic Life

It’s been a while since I posted some of my own photography on the site, so I thought I’d just do a quick post to show some wedding pics I took recently in Liverpool. I obviously – and thankfully! – wasn’t the ‘proper’ photographer for the day at all, but it was still a good chance to have a go, without the added pressure of actually being asked to do so.

I like quite a few of my shots, and the ones I’ll post below are some of my faves. They’ve all been edited in photoshop CS5 to boost the contrast using ‘Curves’, and I’ve added a vignette to some, using this great quick video tutorial. In the last photo, I also used Photoshop’s brilliant new feature, ‘Content Aware Fill‘, to remove some distracting candlesticks in the background. I’m really, really new to photo editing, and I must say I’m kind of enjoying it!

(more…)

How To Take Sharp Photos In Low Light Without A Flash

// April 27th, 2010 // 11 Comments » // How To...

If you’re anything like me, then one of the reasons you’re interested in photography – and why you shelled out on a nice camera – is to take some lovely shots of your family and friends. And, most of the time, I find that these photographic opportunities occur inside, where the light is low. Sure, there are the occasional barbeques outside, and holidays in the sun, but for the most part, I find I’m taking photos of my loved ones indoors.

And do we want to use our flash? Of course we don’t! As Scott Kelby says, and I’m paraphrasing here, “If you have a worst enemy, make sure you take a photo of them with your flash’. Shots taken with our little pop-up flashes look dreadful – either washed out, too dark, and always flat and just ugly looking. (By the way, you can check out my digital photography book review, a fantastic book written by Scott Kelby, if you like).

So, what can we do to take great photos indoors – where the light levels are often less than ideal – without using a tripod (as families and friends don’t stay still all the time, unfortunately!), and all this without using our flash?

The good news is that there are quite a few things we can do to attain this, including the use of Aperture, ISO, Burst Mode and more

(more…)

The Perils Of Photography Via Google Search

// April 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // Random Photography

Google have released a really nifty new tool, called Search Stories – where you can create your very own video to tell a story via Google search. It’s really quick and easy to do – see the one I knocked up in about 5 mins below, entitled ‘Photography Perils’:

What do you think? Pretty fun, huh? Why not try making your own video – if it’s photography-related, and you let me know of its existence (you can contact me through the site, or follow me on twitter) I may feature it on the site sometime.

Go on, you know you want to!

How To Blur The Background

// April 11th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // How To...

If there’s possibly one thing that makes a photo stand out as being ‘pro’-like, its the fact that the subject of the photo  – whether this be a person, a dog, a football or whatever – is in focus, whilst the background is a blur. This ‘blurred background’ is probably the major difference between pro-quality photos and most people’s holiday snaps – it really is that effective.

And it’s easy to do!

It really comes down to the use of aperture, focal length and focus distance – all of which may sound pretty technical if you’re new to photography, but it’s really not complicated. Aperture is simply talking about how much light enters your camera, focal length just means how long your lens is, and focus distance just means how near you are to the object you’re focusing on. I’ll go into more depth on how controlling all of these factors means you can get that blurred background look below – and though this is probably easier to achieve if you have a DSLR camera, if your compact has the ability to manually choose the aperture and focal length, then it will apply to you too.

(more…)

How I Got The Shot: ‘Bird Of Gloom’

// March 30th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // How I Got The Shot

How I Got The Shot

Camera: Canon T1i
Lens: Canon EF-S 55 – 250 mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/320 sec
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 250 mm
Shooting Mode: Aperture Priority
Photoshop: Increased the contrast, and converted to black and white.

The Story Of The Shot

This was taken on a recent trip to St. Ives in Cornwall, and was the only photo I really liked from the day. I was actually waiting outside while my wife was shopping, and I noticed this bird above me, and thought it would make an interesting shot. It was daylight, but a bit cloudy, so I chose a relatively low ISO of 200, and I shot in Aperture Priority mode (‘AV’ on my Canon camera). I shoot in this mode a lot, as I often want to control the depth of field in the shot, but, in this case, it didn’t really matter too much what aperture I used, as the background was the distant sky.

By using my telephoto lens ‘racked out’ to its longest focal length of 250mm, I managed to get pretty close to the bird, and I framed it so it was just to the right of the shot, with the wire creating a pleasing diagonal across the image. By increasing the contrast, and converting it to black and white in Photoshop, I think I’ve created quite a strong, impactful image – I especially like all the ‘white space’ in the shot, and how this deeply contrasts with the black bird.

Critique The Shot

What do you think of the photo? Write a comment below and let me know – all your thoughts are really appreciated.

My First Photo In The Paper!

// March 17th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // My Photographic Life

Was reading the local newspaper this afternoon, and stumbled upon a photo that looked familiar…a shot I had taken of local cornwall band, Gregor and The Martians! Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled to see one of my photos in print. Yes, it’s pretty tiny (it’s top-right, above); yes, it’s a local newspaper (the ‘West Briton’, found in Cornwall); and no, I didn’t get paid.

But it’s my photo. In the paper! Yay!

By the way, the photo they used is this one:

And you can read my full Gregor and The Martians Gig Shoot post, including info on what I learnt, if you feel like it.