Monthly Archives: December 2012

Finao 10×10 Album in Argento

The Finao 10×10 album in Argento with 20 black pages and a lay flat spine.

Finao 8×8 Album in True Blue

The Finao 8×8 album in True Blue with 10 white pages and a lay flat spine.

Beth and Keith Wedding

The start of the wedding photography

Beth and Keith’s wedding was to be held in the stunning Arts Centre situated in South Hill Park, Ringmead, Bracknell.

The hard wintery frost arrived a few days late for Beth who had her heart set on a snowy winter wedding, but the sun was glorious and was the next best thing after the strong gales and rain the day before.

Bride Prep

Hair and make up was the first stop where I met up with Beth and her bridesmaids for some preparation shots. The mood was very relaxed as the champagne was flowing, although we did have a short tense moment when we thought that Beth had glued her eye lashes together but it soon turned into cry’s of laughter as she slowly managed to open them.

Ceremony

After a lovely candle lit ceremony it was time to enjoy the reception drinks of warm mulled wine which was the ideal tipple to warm everyone up before heading outside for some shots around the grounds of South Hill Park. Although Beth didn’t get snow on the outside it was back inside where Beth worked wonders to bring her lovely christmas wintery feel to venue. With table top snow, twinkling trees and flickering candles the venue was transformed and looked stunning.

Reception

After enjoying a lovely wedding breakfast it was onto the evening reception where the guest’s let their hair down and danced the night away. An enjoyable day was had by all. Beth and Keith are a lovely couple and I wish them all the best for the future.

Linda and James E-Shoot

The engagement shoot

Linda & James Engagement shoot was in the grounds of Caversham Court Gardens Reading Berkshire on a cold sunday morning

It was an early start on a crisp cold Sunday morning to meet up with Linda and James for their engagement shoot in the grounds of Caversham Court Gardens. We enjoyed a pleasent stroll around the gardens capturing some lovely shoots.

Street Photography

What is Street Photography ?

Primarily Street Photography is not reportage, it is not a series of images displaying, together, the different facets of a subject or issue. For the Street Photographer there is no specific subject matter and only the issue of ‘life’ in general, he does not leave the house in the morning with an agenda and he doesn’t visualise his photographs in advance of taking them. Street Photography is about seeing and reacting, almost by-passing thought altogether.

Street photography does not need to include people although it usually does. Situated in public environments which are often but not exclusively, urban – street photography is perhaps more easily defined as a method than a genre. Subjects and settings can vary greatly but the key elements of spontaneity, careful observation and an open mind ready to capture whatever appears in the viewfinder are essential.

The classic technique for street photography consists of fitting a wide (20mm on a full-frame camera) or moderately wide-angle (35mm) lens to a camera, setting the ISO to a moderate high speed (400 or 800), and pre-focusing the lens. Pre-focusing? How do you know how far away your subject will be. It turns out that it doesn’t matter. Wide angle lenses have good depth of field. If your subject is 10 feet away and the lens is set for 12 feet, you’d probably need to enlarge to 16×20″ before noticing the error, assuming a typical aperture. This is why the high ISO setting is important. Given a fixed shutter speed, the higher the ISO setting, the smaller the aperture. The smaller the aperture, the less critical it is to focus precisely

Street photographers traditionally will set the lens at its hyper-focal distance. This distance depends on the lens focal length and the aperture but the basic idea is that it is the closest distance setting for which subjects at infinity are still acceptably sharp. With fast film and a sunny day, you will probably be able to expose at f/16. With a 35mm lens focussed to, say, 9 feet, subjects between 4.5 feet and infinity will be acceptably sharp (where “acceptable” means “if the person viewing the final photograph doesn’t stick his eyes right up against it”).

A modern alternative is to use a camera with a very high-performance autofocus system and a zoom lens, the Olympus OMD EM-5 id perfect for this sort of photography.

Many street photographers like to use rangefinder cameras but street photographs can be made on SLRs, four thirds systems, compact cameras and even Lomos or mobile phones! The ultimate street photography camera used by the masters is a Leica rangefinder M7 (analogue) and M9 (digital). We’re big fans of the Olympus PEN too! Choose a camera that you feel comfortable using and that allows you to react quickly when a picture appears in front of you.

You should also consider its weight and portability (you may be carrying it around all day) and how easily it allows you to blend into your surroundings. Many photographers find this ‘invisible’ approach works for them, although some like to get close to their subject which is also effective for the more confident photographer

Conclusion

Simply put, the main focus of street photography is taking the everyday and the mundane and making it into something unique and beautiful.

Elspeth and Luke Wedding

The start of the wedding photography

Elspeth & Luke’s wedding was located at Easthampstead Park on a very rainy and misty day but as I was only starting from the ceremony most of the fog had lifted by then. Elspeth was already dressed and eager to go when I arrived but I couldn’t resist some quick photos of the girls before we headed of to the ceremony.

Wedding

Luke was looking pretty nervous on the day and I was warned by others that he was very camera shy at the best of times, but he was very quick to admit that to me on my approach (even sending a sneaky text to the girls saying he’s going to hide from me) but little did luke know I was with the girls when he sent the text so I knew of his plan and that just made me more determing to get some awesome shots of him to conquer his fear of the camera.

The rain didn’t let up much so all the group shots had to be captured inside but thats not a problem at this venue with there stunning staircase managing to fit all 70 guests on and all in shot. After the group shots the bride and groom set off with myself to captur some portraits from around the manor. The fog had started to come back in but the scenery looking stunning as the dear’s were coming out of the woods walking around near the back patio area.

Reception

It was time for food so I gave them all a break from the camera and sat down myself to tuck in to what I could only call a monster bit of steak !! well I was full and it was time for the speeches which was a bit over my head as it was to do with doctor who (im not much of a doctor fan but the brides parents are) it gave for some laughter amongst the guests. The time had come to what I believe Luke was dreading the most and thats the first dance !! but I must admit he pulled it off nicely.

The Games Room

What a superb touch to add to your wedding reception, they have a room dedicated to games from a nintendo wii to a football table so every time i needed to find the men (and Luke’s favourites hiding place) off to the games room i headed. By well in to the evening the girls were overtaking the games having loads of fun joining in with the men and showing then how its all done.

Olympus OMD EM-5

The OMD EM-5 is a 16.1-megapixel compact, interchangeable-lens micro four thirds camera. It boasts a massive LCD touchscreen on the back and claims to be the world’s fastest focusing mirrorless camera.

It’s got a design from the original OMD that was released back in 1972 and it’s pitched at people who want to get into DSLR photography but don’t really know what an F-stop is. Features like Live View will give you a look at what your photo will turn out like as you muck about with the camera’s retro twisty-knobs and the shot will actually turn out that way once you release the shutter.

What’s Good ?

The most striking part of the OMD is the design. It begs to be picked up and played with, and rewards you when you do with a reasonably light 373g body and a sexy alloy finish complete with rubber grips.

With a price tag of £1148, which includes the body and the 12-50mm splash-resistant lens. It’s a clever collared lens that lets you switch between manual zoom, electric zoom and macro modes with a little tug. Below is a macro photo taken of a microphone using the 12-50mm lens.

Both the camera and lens are splashproof so you can keep using it when the weather turns on you, just don’t try deep sea diving with it unless you have purchased the optional underwater case that is waterproof up to a water pressure equivalent to a depth of 45 metres.

Bootup time is lightning fast, I had my first image taken within two seconds in a lot of different light situations and speaking of lighting, the five-axis image stabiliser on the OMD works wonders when you’re shooting in low light.

Firmware

Out of the box the OMD will be on firmware 1.2 and will be making some strange noises. When you first turn the camera on you will notice a fan like noise coming from the cameras body constantly and this is down to the 5 access Image stabilisation creating a field around the sensor according to Olympus when I spoke to them.

The fix is a simple update that you will have to complete two times. The first time you plug the camera in to your computer and run the update program it will show firmware 1.4 is available. Once you have updated to 1.4 run the updater a second time and it will show 1.5 (the latest firmware at writing this post) is available and this will stop all the fan like noise.

Conclusion

Its no cheap camera thats for sure coming in with a price tag close to a professional DSLR but on the other hand it performs and in some cases outperforms the high end cameras. If your an ammeter photographer or even a photographer looking for a carry around camera then this is it and in my opinion one of the best mirrorless cameras around with the best selection of lenses.

Take a look at our unboxing over at YouTube