I've Received A Gift Voucher, What Do I do Now?

I hope you all had a great Christmas and you're looking forward to 2015 as much as I am!

In the last couple of months I've been sending out Photography Tuition Gift Vouchers to lovely people who were giving them to lucky photographers all over Essex (and beyond), and you were one of those lucky people you may be wondering about the best way to go about using them - well here's what you do...

The voucher entitles you to a 4 hour tuition session, at a location of your choice.  If it's in the Brentwood/Billericay/Chelmsford area, there are no further costs involved, if you'd like to meet outside these areas, I will make a small charge for travelling.

Have a think about what you would like to cover during your time with me, and start making notes of any questions you may have, to ensure you get the most from the session.  Decide what time of year would suit you best, don't feel you have to use the voucher straight away. If you want to wait until Spring or Summer, that's fine - your voucher is valid for two years (check the expiry date on the bottom left-hand corner).

Give me a ring, or email me, to arrange a date, time and location for your session.  Feel free to discuss anything at this time, as it's better that we both know what you would like to get out of the tuition before we get started.  I am available most days of the week, but please be aware that I run workshops and also work for Essex Wildlife Trust on certain days, including weekends, so you may need to be flexible with your chosen date.

I can cover all sorts of requirements during these tuition sessions, whether it's getting to grips with the basics of your camera, or how to approach composition, or more specific themes like close-up or macro photography.

The whole point about 1-2-1 tuition is that you should get as much as possible from the time you have with me, so make sure you ask lots of questions, take lots of notes (even if they're just taken mentally), and above all enjoy yourself!

Northern Lights in Essex

A couple of weeks ago, I saw reports on Facebook and Twitter of northern lights (aurora) being visible as far south as Essex, and even a couple of photos from Brentwood (here and here), showing amazing displays.  Normally you would need to be much further north to see these, many people traveling to the arctic regions of Norway for instance, but here was a chance to see them locally, so I jumped in the car.

Unfortunately I'd missed the best show, but still spent an enjoyable hour or so shooting star scenes, something reminiscent of the photography that Jordy at Cameraworld does.  The following day whilst reviewing the photos I did detect a feint colouration to the north (first image below), but it just wasn't what I was after.  Ah well, maybe next time I'll be better prepared, and more sure of what settings are likely to give the best results.


Pentax K-5, Pentax DA 16-45mm f/4 lens @ 16mm, f/5.6, 10s, ISO3200, tripod.


Pentax K-5, Pentax DA 16-45mm f/4 lens @ 16mm, f/5.6, 10s, ISO3200, tripod.

Outdoor Photography Pentax K-3 Review

I was very pleased to receive my copy of this month's Outdoor Photography magazine through the post today, as it contains a review of the Pentax K-3 DSLR that I conducted for them.

Without giving too much away, it got a favourable review, albeit with some drawbacks. You'll have to pick up a copy of the mag to see for yourself! EDIT: You can now download the full review here: Outdoor Photography, March, 176 issue, Camera Test.  Once you've read it, and decide you want one, you can't do better than speaking to Chris at SRS Microsystems.

It's an adventure special this month too, so if you like shots from wild and extreme environments, or climbing, mountain-biking and other dangerous sports, this would be a great introduction to an excellent magazine.

Keep your eyes peeled for it on a newsagent shelf near you!

Sigma 350-1200mm Lens - Pentax PK fit

Every now and again, you hear about an interesting lens. James at Cameraworld let me know about one such lens that had arrived in the Chelmsford branch this week, so this afternoon I popped in to have a look. Having Googled it already, I knew a little about what I was about to see, but there's not really much information about this lens on the net.

For a start, it's big, and very heavy (specs say 12kg). Its full title is the Sigma 350-1200mm f/11 APO (yes, the widest aperture at any focal length is f/11), and it's an older manual focus. To say it's a fairly specialised lens would be a bit of an understatement, as handholding is, shall we say, challenging, and even a standard tripod is going to allow some movement. You'd be best to have this either on a bean bag or two, or on two tripods, one for the lens, one for the body.

Handholding is also out of the question as it would be impossible to focus too.

It's about the same size as a small bazooka. :-)

Here's James giving you a good sense of scale.

We took the lens outside the shop, and selected a convenient target to see how much magnification this monster was going to give us. Looking down the mall we picked the menu board outside Starbucks, focused, then waited for the camera shake to stop - this tripod was clearly and unsurprisingly not up to the job. Focusing was best achieved using live-view with a magnified view, but success was attainable thought the viewfinder too, it was just that bit darker than you're used to with that small max aperture.

The resulting shot. The lens also has a matched 1.4x convertor with it, which brings the effective max focal length up to 1680mm, albeit at f/16.

This shot shows the view with a 50mm lens on a Canon 5D111. The board we were shooting is right in the middle of the frame.

If you fancy this lens, it's available for the relative bargain price of £1,500 from Cameraworld, full details here. I reckon it would be good for astronomical shots (would be lovely to try the moon with it), wildlife from a static position, maybe a purpose-built hide, or for spying on the neighbours at the other end of the street. ;-)

Many thanks to Jordy at Cameraworld for the photos. :-)

EDIT: I understand this lens is now sold!