Canon Professional Services - Landscape Event

Canon 5Ds + Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II 

On Tuesday 29 November 2016, I happily attended a special Canon Professional Services Landscape Event at Durlston Country Park, Swanage. We were allowed to bring a guest so I brought me best mate Liz along. It was a long drive for us, around three hours there and then another three hours back, but we love a good road trip. Especially when photography is involved. Not only was photography involved but we got to play with some new kit as well. That's always a bonus.

We were greeted with coffee/tea and cakes, treated to displays of gear from Canon, Manfrotto and Lee Filters and enjoyed a talks by Canon Explorer David Norton and Professional Photographer Jon Gooding. A bit later we were given a light lunch and then later in the evening treated to a proper hot dinner. They took very good care of us. :-)

Canon 5Ds + Canon 16-35mm f/2.8L II

 There was gear from Canon of course as well as Manfrotto and Lee Filters. I've got a nice basic selection of Lee Filters already as well as Manfrotto tripods and heads so I was more interested in the new Canon gear. Specifically the new Canon 5D IV and 5Ds/r DSLR cameras, and the super wide angle lenses. Canon 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye Lens and 11-24mm f/4L. Of these I managed to get my hands on the Canon 5Ds and the Canon 11-24mm f/4L, but not at the same time. I really wanted the lens first as by the time we swapped gear around I knew it'd be dark, but that wasn't to be, I got the camera first. Two photos above were some of the first photos I took with it. Later I photographed sunset with it.

Canon 5Ds + Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L

The Canon 5Ds is a 50 megapixel full frame camera. I'm not a technical person so I'm not going to go into the spec details, apologies if you came here for that. If you are interested it's easy enough to look up, especially when I made you a handy link to click on above. :-)

I only had the camera for a short amount of time and didn't really have time to put it through it's paces. But what little time I spent with it was enough to fall in love. The camera was already familiar to me as I own both the Canon 5D II and 5D III cameras. It's pretty much set up just like the 5D III, button wise, and I had no problems controlling the camera or finding my way around.

The 5D III is a 22.3 megapixel camera and the 5Ds is a whopping 50.6 megapixel camera! Much larger files means larger prints and more image definition. Again, I'm not going to go into the technical details, these are just the basics. But say you printed an image from the 5D III @ 300dpi you'd get roughly a 19 x 13 inch print. With the 5Ds you'd get roughly a 29 x 19 inch print. I did my best not to drool all over the camera.

Canon 5D mark II + Canon 70-200mm f2.8L

I shot with a 50 megapixel camera a few years ago, in a studio situation. It was a medium format Hasselblad. I'm in love with that camera too. OK, I confess, I'm in love with a lot of cameras. :-) Wish I could have had the Canon 5Ds and the 5D IV for a few days to test under more controlled conditions, but I have to make do with what I can get my hands on. :-)

My thoughts on the 5Ds, I love it. I am seriously thinking about retiring my Canon 5D II and replacing it with the 5Ds. Not only for the image quality and size but because the controls are the same as my 5D III. When you are shooting with two cameras it helps if their buttons are all in the same places and the controls the same. I often get confused between my 5D II and 5D III cameras. As for the 5D IV which I did't get to play with, yes I want, but I'll have to wait for the price to drop a bit before I can afford it. It's very rare for me to run out and buy the latest gear, I have to be a bit more frugal.

On to the night time shoot..

Canon 5D mark III + Canon 11-24mm f/4L with a hint of  the Milky Way.

There were two shooting groups for the evening which we were suppose to all get a chance at, but there was some confusion and Liz and I missed out on nearly all of one of them. There was photographing the night sky and light painting. We only caught the tail end of the light painting group before they packed up for the evening. Shame we missed that, but I have done light painting more than I've done night sky shooting so I went for that first.

For the evening shoots I borrowed the Canon 11-24mm f/4L lens, which is a fabulous lens and one I've been drooling over. Yes I know, I drool so much I should wear a bib. What's so special about the super wide angle 11-24mm zoom? Well it doesn't have all the distortion that other wide angle lenses do. It's not to everyone's taste though, as Liz says, that takes all the fun out!

Canon 5D mark III + Canon 11-24mm f/4L

Using this lens at night really wasn't a great test for the lens, but it's when I could get my hands on it. I still enjoyed using it though. It's definitely on my drool list. Oops I mean want list! I can just about justify it as a business expense so I might eventually get one. I can think of several shoots I have coming up that it sure would be handy on. I'm thinking especially large group shots, like at events and weddings. It has a hefty price tag though, so might take me awhile to save up for it.

Canon 5D mark III + Canon 11-24mm f/4L with a hint of  the Milky Way.

I've been to a few Canon Professional Services Network meetings, and I always enjoy myself. I highly recommend them if you are a CPS or CPN member. This one was exceptionally nice as they fed us and provided us with lots of coffee and cake! I also really liked being able to check out the gear to try in the field. I did already know most of the information given in the talks but it was a nice refresher and provided some much needed inspiration to get out there and do some more landscape photography, both during the day and night.

Here are a few photos from my phone of the event:

We were greeted with cake and coffee! :-D 

The Canon Table (First venue, there was more gear at second venue)

Manfrotto Table (First venue, there was more gear at second venue)

Lee Filter Table (First venue, there was more gear at second venue)

One of the talks at the first venue.

The Canon 5Ds I had on loan, they teased me by putting a 5D IV strap on it. 

Back of the Canon 5Ds

If you are a professional photographer and have a lot of pro Canon gear, I highly recommend signing up with the Canon Professional Services Network. Especially if you enjoying attending free network meetings like I attended above.

Happy shooting!

Just sHy of a Hasselblad...

I finally have a Hasselblad! :-D 

HAHA, OK, not really. ;-)
(Original photo below)

The new Hasselblad Stellar II is basically a blinged up and very expensive Sony RX100 Mk II, which I do have.

My Sony RX100 Mk II

You may have noticed that I photoshoped my camera in the top photo to look like the new Hasselblad compact camera. This is probably as close to owning a Hasselblad as I will ever come, so this amuses me to no end. :-D

Google: Hasselblad Stellar II to see what people are saying about this new tiny Hasselblad. Or you can read what The Photoblographer had to say about it.

A few years ago, back in April of 2010, I got to play with (at the time) one the latest Hasselblad digital medium format cameras. (Thanks to a special invite from Hasselblad via Frasers of Gloucester.) I have to say, I was blown away! By both the cameras and the motorbikes! :-D

It was the Hasselblad H4D-40 that I got to use which retailed at the time I think for around £13,000, body only. If you wanted to buy the latest Hasselblad today you'd need around £40,000 for a body and a couple good lenses. Yea, that's why I don't have one.

Here are a couple of photos that I took with the H4D-40 back in 2010.

I so loved using that camera. So much so that I just stayed up until 1am looking for used ones on ebay. I found one with an 80mm lens, which is what I used above, for only £10,000! Yea, a bit out of my reach. I also found one a bit older with an 80mm lens for £3500. That's just about within my reach, but it's quite an old bit of kit by now. But, with such a large sensor it will be better quality than the camera I currently shoot with. With the large file of the images above you can zoom in and zoom in and zoom in and still have a fabulously crisp sharp image....even zooming in greater 100 percent! Try that with your current camera! Unless you have a medium format camera it's not going to be very pretty.

So, my Sony RX100mII will most likely be as close to owning a Hasselblad as I will ever come, but that won't stop me from dreaming about them. One can dream can't they? Besides, there was once a time when I thought I'd never own a Canon 5D, and now I own a Canon 5D II, I thought that camera was way out of my reach at one time, and here I am today thinking about buying my second one! The mark III....or maybe I'll wait for the mark IV, that should be out before too much longer. If I can't own/afford a Hasselblad at least I can now own my once dream camera, the Canon 5D series. :-D

(Note: What I did to the image at the top of this blog post... I inverted the second image to make the black camera seem silver (Like the Hasselblad), which in turn made all the colours go funny. I coloured the lens back in to make it black again. I then added a photo of a wooden hand grip on the left and the Hasselblad logo on the right over the Sony logo....which now spells sHy. Hence the title of this blog post....Just sHy of a Hasselblad.)

A Late Lunch by the Canal

The Lock Keeper's Café in Stroud

---

Photography information: Above: Canon 5D II, with a Canon 85mm 1.8 prime lens, hand held. 1/1600 of a second exposure at f/1.8. ISO 100. AV (Aperture Priority) mode. 

---

Wow! What a week! I've had several jobs back to back and it's not over yet! I have another lovely job tomorrow and my eldest baby girl is coming for a visit! I feel a shopping and baking frenzy coming on! :-D 

This week I finished up a big family shoot and have been working all week on a commercial job in which I had to hire several models for. I've been working all day every day from early morning until the wee hours of the night. It's a good thing I love my job! 

As a reward to myself for all the hard work I've been doing this week, I walked down into town for lunch. It was a late lunch as I was working hard to get some images out for the commercial job mentioned above. Where did I go? The Lock Keeper's Café of course! I love this place, and it's right at the bottom of the hill from where we live. People are always asking me where it is so I'll tell you. From town it's the other side of the train station over by the Wallbridge Lock/canal. That's the Hill Paul building behind it in the photo above. Just in front of it is the Cotswold Canal Trust Visitor Centre in the old Bell Hotel. 

The Lock Keeper's Café at Wallbridge Lock

---

Photography information: Above: Canon 5D II with a Canon 50mm 1.4 prime lens. 1/1600 of a second exposure at f/1.4. ISO 100. Hand held.  AV (Aperture Priority) mode.  

---

There's no parking so you'll have to make the short walk from town to it. It's well worth the walk though! And soon the foot path along the canal will be open again. I'm so looking forward to that as I love walking along the canal. 

Usually on Fridays you'll find the Friday Forum crew here at the Lock Keeper's. This Friday everyone had something else to do, so it was just me, and I was late. But not too late! They did serve me some lunch. I usually have a ham, cheese and tomato panini with a cappuccino coffee. But today I thought I'd treat myself to something different, so I had one of their specials for the day which today was a Tuna Noodle Casserole. Yummy!

Tuna Noodle Casserole

---

Photography information: Above: Canon 5D II with a Canon 50mm 1.4 prime lens. 1/125 of a second exposure at f/2. ISO 400. Hand held. AV (Aperture Priority) mode.

---

Today I had lunch alone all by my lonesome. I don't usually like eating alone and avoid it at all cost. But today down at the Lock Keepers it was quite nice. I did't feel all alone. I'm in there so often that the owner and crew know me quite well now. Also several people I knew were in and out and they stopped to say hi which was quite nice. 

I give the Lock Keeper's Café 5 out of 5 Stars! I highly recommend them for lunch or for just a coffee break with a friend. The staff are always friendly, the place is super clean, the food and coffee are fantastic, an over all lovely atmosphere. Oh and there's free WiFi and papers on hand to read. What more could you ask for? 

While I was there this little girl came for a visit. I couldn't resist asking for permission to take her photograph as she was just too cute! I had a talk with her father the other day and he said he'd be booking a family photo shoot with me soon. I'm looking forward to it. :-)

The low afternoon sunshine coming in through the large window on the right made for some lovely lighting and I waited until she was in this light to take her portrait. The two catch lights in her eyes really bring her eyes to life. The main light source being the large window I just mentioned above and the second catch light being made by the window in the door behind me. 

It's a shame about the window directly behind her head as this bright area in the photo is quite distracting. I burned it down some so that it wasn't so bright. I did notice this while I was taking the photo but there wasn't an immediate solution to the problem, not without loosing the lovely light on her face. 

Two year old Blue Eyed Beauty

The above photograph has had some extra post processing done to it. I did not exactly invent this look all by myself but the technique I used I developed myself. What I do is after normal processing I create a black and white adjustment layer. I really push the contrast of the B/W image then I lower the opacity of the B/W layer by 50% letting some of the colour of the original image come though. You wind up with a lovely desaturated image. Well I think it's lovely, my husband prefers the original full colour image which is below. 

Two year old blue eyed beauty (original)

---

Photography information: Above: Canon 5D II with a Canon 50mm 1.4 prime lens. 1/800th of a second exposure at f/1.4. ISO 400. Hand held. AV (Aperture Priority) mode.

---

(Please note: I know who the little girl is in this photo, I just didn't want to say who she was to the world wide web.)


On my walk home I noticed this sign by the canal. It tickled my funny bone so I photographed it.

CAUTION DEEP MUD

It's not every day you see this sign. Actually it's the first time I've ever seen it. If we'd seen a sign like this when we were kids you'd been hard pressed to keep us out of it. :-D In the background you can see the road construction continues up Bath Road in Stroud.

---

Photography information: Above: Canon 5D II with a Canon 85mm 1.8 prime lens. 1/640th of a second exposure at f/1.8. ISO 100. Hand held. AV (Aperture Priority) mode.

---

I leave you with a few photographs of flowers that I took on the way home today. All taken with the 85mm prime lens. Well and a camera too of course. ;-)

Street Portrait

Will

Canon 5D II, 85mm 1.8 Lens. Camera settings: f1.8, ISO 200, 1/800th second, AV mode. RAW image processed in Photoshop. 

Rarely do I go out without my camera and today was no different. We had some errands to run down in town so I grabbed my camera bags and rummaged through my lenses to decide which one to take. Wasn't a difficult decision, had already decided on one of two lenses before opened up the first bag. I'm in love with prime lenses and I've only got two of them. The Canon 50mm 1.4 and the Canon 85mm 1.8. The 50mm is my favourite, it practically lives on my camera. I love my zooms too, but they are big and heavy and for walking around the 50 is just perfect, small and light weight. Easily fits into a smallish bag. 

As you already know from above I decided to take the 85mm for a walk today. I took a few photos on our walk to town and back, but the above photo was by far my favourite. The shot wasn't planned, was just chance that we ran into Will. 

Usually I tell people to pay attention to their background when taking portraits. I tell them to steer clear of busy and bold background which mostly over power your subject. But I really loved these red phone boxes and I thought they'd make a great background for Will. While I was taking the photo my husband commented on the red phone boxes and thought they might not make a good background. With a different lens and broader crop I'd probably agree, but I really thought this would work. I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and found that it worked wonderfully. Thanks for posing for me Will! 

New Baby!

My new baby has arrived!

This is soooo exciting! Let's open the box!

Well it's definitely packed well. Thanks Dave @ LCE Canon Pro shop in Lincoln! :-D

I also a couple extras.

oohhh sexy, I love how the memory card matches the camera box. :-D Let's look in the big box now!

What I see first is my new lens! YaY! Can't wait to try it out. My friend and business partner Damon has this lens and it's supper fast and supper sharp. :-D

All my new toys! Let's open them! :-D

Camera box first...

Quick, charge that battery!!! Excuse me a minute while I go plug it in. ......

OK, now the lens... Ohhh what's that on top?

oohhh it's a lens case! Cool. :-D

YaY! My new toys! Can't wait for battery to get charged! I want to play!

New baby with lens... Battery still charging. Guess I'd better get some work done while I wait. Maybe it will be fully charged by lunch time. :-D