Photoshoot at St Crispin Inn, Worth

I did a photoshoot for the St Crispin Inn in the lovely village of Worth, near Sandwich, on Saturday morning. The sun was incredibly strong by 9:30am and streaming in through the windows - time for some high dynamic range (HDR) shots! I used a tripod and auto-exposure bracketing to record shots at -2, 0 and +2 stops relative to the metered exposure and then Photomatix Pro to combine them.

I often use the HDR technique when hand-holding the camera if the shutter speed is so fast that I can just leave my finger on the shutter to take the 3 shots. The photo of Whitstable Castle posted on Monday was done this way.

Check out more of my photography here: Kent photographer

Photoshoot at Kearnsey Abbey, Dover

I did a very relaxed photoshoot with Jennie and her family on Sunday at Kearnsey Abbey, near Dover. There were a few nerves initially, but it didn't take them long to warm up (about one minute!). Several of the group explained to me that they don't 'photograph well'. I hear this at most wedding and portrait sessions. In these cases I take a few shots and then show them the pictures using the LCD screen on the camera - this always builds their confidence. As you can see from the shots above they were quite a photogenic bunch!

The sun was very strong so we found some open shade under trees. I used exposure compensation from +2/3 to +2 stops depending upon the brightness of the background.

Check out more of portrait photography here: Kent portrait photography

Wedding at Whitstable Castle

I had the pleasure of photographing Carly and James' wedding at Whitstable Castle on Saturday. What a terrific day it was. Carly and James were fantastic to work with, the light was great (during the afternoon the sun was softened by a partially overcast sky but reappeared as the evening wore on) and the venue was wonderful (it's closing shortly to be refurbished and is due to re-open in April 2010 - definitely one to check out venue-wise in this part of Kent). The only downside was the stifling heat - I felt very sorry for the gents with their waistcoats and jackets.

Check out more of my wedding photography here: Kent wedding photographer

Sharpening using unsharp masks

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

I intend to post a few articles on sharpening images over the next week. This exercise should get you thinking about the subject.

One of the best methods in Photoshop is to use the unsharp mask filter. It initially seems a little peverse to have the term unsharp in a technique for sharpening, but if you work through the following procedure it should give you some insight into how an unsharp mask works.

1. Open your image in Photoshop and duplicate in a new layer.

2. Desaturate the new layer (Image - Adjustments - Desaturate).

3. Duplicate this desaturated layer, then invert the new layer (Image - Adjustments - Invert).

4. Change the blending mode to Colour Dodge.

5. In most cases the image will now appear completely white, but there may be some black areas if the original image had pure black in.

6. Slightly blur the image (Filter - Blur - Gaussian blur) by a few pixels radius.

7. Select the top two layers and merge them.

8. You should now see a soft ghost-like outline of the original image (as above) - this is your unsharp mask.

9. Change the blending mode of this layer to Multiply.

10. The image should appear sharper (since these images are reduced in size the effect here is not that overwhelming - on your full resolution image you should see a significant difference).

A full discussion will follow soon.

Check out my photography here: wedding photographer in Kent

Garden Party in Canterbury

I photographed the 100 Years Celebration of Steven James Hairdressing on Sunday in Canterbury - event gallery. A very entertaining garden party - hairdressers are a lively bunch!

From a photographic perspective there were a couple of challenges to deal with. 100 people in a back garden means you have to relax your normal standards of composition - it's not possible to remove all background distractions. Also, I took a series of large group shots for which I needed people at different levels in order to be able to see them all. There were some suitable steps for this but, unfortunately, the front row was in shade and the back row in direct sunlight. I therefore decided to blast (flash exposure compensation +1) the front row with softened flash to try and balance the two areas - it worked reasonably well.

Check out more of my photography here: event photographer in Kent

Wedding at Manor Gate House and Princes Park, Dartford

A selection of images from Sharon and David's lovely wedding at the Manor Gate House Registry Office and Princes Park in Dartford yesterday. The light was pretty good, with only the occasional burst of intense sunlight - otherwise it was softened nicely by clouds without being fully overcast. I made extensive use of my fast prime lenses as there was plenty of room at both locations (meaning I could position myself where I needed to be). The 35mm f/1.4 L and 85mm f/1.2 L are truly awesome lenses.

Check out more of my photography here: wedding photographer in Kent

Emily

A shot of Emily taken with my new Canon EF 35mm f/1.4 L lens (more about that in a future post). This was taken with Emily facing a large window in our lounge - light levels were low as it's an overcast day here (ISO 640, 1/200 at f/2.0 - the lens is already nice and sharp at f/2.0!). Getting shots of her with a lovely smile can be frustrating when photographing alone - as soon as I put the camera to my eye she no longer recognises daddy and stops smiling. What I end up doing is putting the camera just below my chin, pulling silly faces, and then firing away using autofocus to try and get a sharp shot - composition goes right out the window but it's worth it for the lovely expressions. I bumped up the contrast using curves in Photoshop and then applied a gentle vignette.

I'm off to photograph Sharon and David's wedding at the Manor Gatehouse and Prince's Park, Dartford this afternoon - fingers crossed the rain holds off (I'm sure this is why so many of the best wedding photographers are based in Australia).

Check out my wedding photography here: Kent wedding photographer

Extension tubes

For a more in-depth discussion of macro photography and magnification rates check out John Shaw's 'Closeups in Nature'.

Extension tubes increase the distance between the optics in the lens and the digital sensor. This allow the lens to focus at a closer distance to the subject, hence increasing its size. An approximate magnification rate is given by total extension/focal length - immediately this tells you that greater magnification rates are achieved with shorter focal length lenses. 

Since there is only air between the end of the lens optics and the sensor I bought the cheaper Kenko extension tubes which come as a set of three - 12, 20 and 36mm. They allow the lens to communicate with the camera body so that autofocus and metering are not affected. With my 100m f/2.8 (a true 1:1 macro lens) putting on all of the above extension gives a magnification rate of .7-fold. 


The extension tubes can be used in conjunction with the extender I discussed in the previous post. If you attach extension to the lens first and then subsequently add the extender you will multiply the magnification by a further 2x. I took the photograph of the fly with a 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, 68mm of extension and a 2x extender!

Another result of adding extension to a lens is that minimum and maximum focusing distances are reduced. The former can be beneficial. I often use my 85mm f/1.2 L lens indoors with an extension tube to reduce the closest focusing distance of 0.95m - I can then take advantage of its excellent low-light capabilities in confined spaces.

Check out my photography here: wedding photographer Kent