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Island Bay Intentional Camera Movement
The phrase Intentional Camera Movement describes the technique of deliberately moving the camera during a long exposure to create blurred images. It may sound counter-intuitive, but a look at the work...
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Up Close with Canon’s 40mm Pancake Lens
EOS 5D Mark II, EF 40mm f2.8 STM pancake lens, EF 25 extension tube, 1/250 second @ f5.6, ISO 1600Here are a few photos taken with Canon’s new EF 40mm f2.8 STM pancake lens and extension tubes (I...
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40mm Portraits
I’d like to share with you some photos that I took today. The idea was to test my EF 40mm f2.8 pancake lens as a portrait lens on both full-frame and APS-C cameras. I own both an EOS 5D Mark II and a...
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More 40mm portraits
Here is another set of portraits taken with my new 40mm pancake lens (you can see a previous set here). The idea was to play around with the lens on my EOS 5D Mark II, experimenting with point-of-view...
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Portraits at Red Rocks
The Red Rocks are found on the south coast of New Zealand’s North Island near Wellington. They formed during underwater volcanic eruptions 200 million years ago and contain iron oxides which give them...
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Understanding Lenses: Part II – A Guide to Canon Normal & Telephoto Lenses
(scroll down for details of a special offer)Writing eBooks is a learning process for me as much as it is for the readers. Earlier this month I finished Understanding Lenses: Part II. I finally had...
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Lenses I Own
Now that my Understanding Lenses eBooks are complete I thought it would be interesting for my readers to know what lenses I use for my EOS cameras and why.Choosing lenses can be problematic, especially...
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Steel Wool Spinning
Photography opportunities don’t finish once the light gets low. If you have a cable release and a good tripod then the creative possibilities continue well into dusk. The photo above was taken when it...
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Behind the Photo – Portrait Lenses
There are two lenses that every portrait photographer should own at least one of – the 85mm and 50mm prime lenses.If you have a full-frame camera, then the 85mm lens is generally best for head and...
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Understanding EOS autofocus: Centre AF points
This is the second in a series of articles about the Canon EOS autofocus system.In my previous article I wrote about the difficulties of focusing at wide apertures using prime lenses. I’ve been taking...
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Portraits in Low Light
1/180 sec @ f1.8, ISO 6400 Low light is beautiful. Often the best light of the day comes after the sun has set, especially if you are by the sea as the water acts like a giant reflector, bouncing the...
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Comparing Portrait Lenses
I took two lenses with me on a recent portrait shoot: the Canon EF 85mm f1.8 and Canon EF 40mm f2.8 pancake lenses. I wanted to compare the aesthetics of each lens for portraits, and the results were...
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How to Show the Focus Points in Lightroom
If you’re a Canon EOS user and you process your Raw files in Digital Photo Professional (DPP) there’s a feature that shows you which autofocus points were locked onto the subject when you took the...
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Thoughts on Taking Portraits with the Fujifilm X-T1 Camera
A few weeks ago I purchased a Fujifilm X-T1 camera. I’ll explain why at the end of the article, but first I’d like to share my thoughts regarding the suitability of this camera for portrait...
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How to Protect Your Camera Gear and Register it with Lenstag
I’ve never lost any camera equipment or had it stolen but for those of you that have suffered this unfortunate event it must be horrible. Fortunately, there are steps that you can take to reduce the...
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Street Food in Xi’an
Fujifilm XT-1, 56mm lens, 1/250 @ f4, ISO 800 Today’s photo was taken in the Muslim Quarter in Xi’an. The streets are lined with food stalls. This one was selling fish – perhaps you could call it fish...
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The Lenses I Used in China
Fujifilm XT-1, 35mm lens, 1/400 @f10, ISO 1600 The Forbidden City is one of Beijing’s most famous attractions. And rightly so – despite the crowds and the heat exploring the temples, alleyways and...
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How to Take Photos in Fog (and process them in Lightroom)
After leaving China we flew on to the UK to visit family. Now we are spending a few weeks in Galicia in north-west Spain. It’s a fascinating region, green and mountainous, mostly rural. There’s a...
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Going wide in Galicia
Fujifilm X-T1, Fujinon 14mm f2.8 lens, 1/125 @ f9, ISO 400There’s a seaside town in north-west Galicia called Muxia. The town has a church (Virxe da Barca) built on a rocky outpost facing the sea. On...
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What I Did with my Helios Lens in China (and why you should buy a vintage lens)
Before I went to China in August I published a list on here of the photo gear that I was going to take with me. One of the items on that list was a Helios 58mm f2 lens. I only used it once during the...
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