alexander_hare

<p>Clickpic offer a very affordable and flexible set of templates with the photographer in mind-I use it for my photo your website Tripod Travels and it's easy to maintain and simple to to post new content too.<br>

That said, if you can stretch to it pay a dedicated pro to design one for you.<br>

Let us see your new site when you launch it though.</p>

<p>Regards</p>

<p>Alex Hare</p>

<p>Hi Anthony,<br>

My wife and I are off to Thailand for a stock photography shoot shortly and she asked me whether she should take her 70-200. What I said to her applies here too: it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it!<br>

From a technical POV you will struggle to get frame filling shots and I think Kenneth has good advice about the tele converter-it's what I use to beef up my own 70-200 without the cost and weight of an additional 'super zoom.' I think, unless you are prepared to hire and carry some heavy artillery, you just have to accept these limitations and work on creative solutions to them. Mind you the 300mm plus a tele converter would solve the problems!<br>

Have a great trip and show us your results when you're back.</p>

<p>Alex Hare</p>

<p><img src="http://www.alexharephotography.com/landscape-gallery/view/avignon-france/" alt="" />Hi Bruce, I've been through the canal du midi on my father's boat-he wrote a series of features in Practical Boat Owner (I think) about it which may also be of interest-if you want to review them for local info let me know.<br>

Turning to your photo question, I think you'll need to be there quite late in November. But I warn you, it's a very unpredictable region-I've ben twice to photograph the lavender and missed it-either too early or too late; it's so variable! In any event, you could do a lot worse that shoot the Pont D Avignon at dawn and dusk...</p>

<p>Alex Hare</p>

<p>Hi Paul, I've just gone pro and shoot weddings and landscapes-funny combination but i've found my niche! All I can say is there is a lot more to it than buying yourself a decent camera. If you are going to set up as a fully operational pro with all the 'right' gear, back ups etc it is about £15,000 to do it from scratch-more if you need to buy a car to get yourself about. That might seem a lot (and it is) but I recently added it all up for a article I wrote for Photo Pro magazine here in the UK and by the time you buy two 5DmkII's, a good Mac, couple of flashes, L series lenses, studio lights and all the other wedding accessories you ned to elevate your photography above 'Uncle Bob' and it soon adds up.</p>

<p>Don't get bogged down in the Nikon vs Canon debate-I've seen pros use both just get what you like, and concentrate on buying the best lenses-you results will be judged by very discerning people and you need the kit to deliver on your creative vision, not be hampered by it. I will be posting articvles on wedding photography skills on my website so feel free to book mark this and watch out for when they appear. Good luck!</p>

<p>Hi Adam, it took me ten years of practice before I went pro as a landscape and travel photographer. even then I've added weddings to my product line for commercial and creative reasons-I think that a photographer should have skills in ambient as well as flash lighting as you learn some really important fundamental principles of photography that way. all I can say is don't expect it to happen over night-enter compeitions, send ideas off to magazines etc-next to cash, i firmly belive that ideas are king in this business-it's a creative profession afterall! <br>

I learnt a lot of key skills by attending workshops and I now run them myself as another important part of my business for people interested in landscape and travel photography-I guess what I'm sayng is you have to look to squeeze as much value from your skills as a travel photographer rather than just look to the pics to make you money and selling your knowledge is part of it all. There are plenty of photographers, myself included, who provide lots of useful tips on their websites which is a god source of info-if you can learn to de construct the images you like you can fathom out what it took to create them which is half the battle! Good luck.</p>

<p>Hi Annette<br>

You've had good advice already, all I would add is an alternative to wireless flash control which I can recommend. I shoot a lot of wedding s and use the Elinchrom Skyport-you put a little transmitter in your camera hotshoe and the receiver plugs into your remote flash (or the flash mount if it's on a tripod/stand) and away you go-very long baterry life, very small and discreet.<br>

Alex Hare</p>

<p>Have a look at: <cite><a href="http://www.dofmaster.com">www.<strong>dof</strong>master.com</a></cite><br>

<cite>You can find the dof for a range of lenses and the results are revelaing in terms of the effect a telephoto has on the shortening of the DOF, irrespective of how far away you are. I've printed off a table for my lenses at f22 so I know what each lens is capable of because they do vary for the same subject to camera distance when you chnage focal length...</cite></p>

<p>Hi Carol<br>

I think you posted in reply to my info that you were prepared to buy the best lens on the basis you could keep it for life and certainly longer than the camera body-a good conclusion in my view. So, on that basis you need to look at the Canon L series-you have the 24-105 f4 listed above which is excellent, alternatively the 24-70 f2.8. They seem expensive but you'll save in the long run-I made the mistake of buying intermediate lenses like the EFS and Tamron range-they are sharp but they don;t last as long and it's a false economy if you are a regular user of your gear outside a studio.<br>

Regards<br>

Alex Hare</p>

<p>Hi Leo<br>

I think we've all been in your situtation-looking to upgrade our kit to match our growing interest and skills. I know I have!<br>

My advice, and I give it to everyone that comes on one of my photography workshops, is to buy the bets lenses you can afford. They will, if you look after them, last many years, perhaps even a lifetime. You will no doubt buy, sell and generally upgrade your camera body over the years but good lenses don;t usually need replacing.<br>

I have a 5dmkII and I use the 24-70mm. I am a pro and I have to satisfy editors who look at my pictures very critically and on purely technical grounds (is it sharp?) before they even decide if they like it and think it will sell so I need something that I can forget about worrying whether it is up to scratch and this lens is peerless in it's focal range for Canon cameras and many of my pro colleagues also own it for the same reasons.<br>

Similarly, the 70-200mm L usm IS is now in it's 'mk II' incarnation. I have the old one which will probably now come on the market second hand for a cheaper option but it too cannot be beaten. I have reservations about the 17-40 f4-it's not sharp enough at the edges and the distortion bugs me even though it is often slight and correctable-it's just more time down the drain in front of the computer. If you can afford it then go for the 16-35mm or even consider a TSE lens-there is a 17mm and a 24mm. This would be my preffered choice when I next invest in my lens collection-perspective control lenses are the way ahead in my view.<br>

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<p>Hi Carol<br>

You have a lovely camera so make the most of it and buy the best possible lenses you can-you'll keep them longer than the camera body I suspect!<br>

It is hard to get decent glass for that money and, as I say to everyone that comes on my workshops, no matter how many megapixels are in your camra's sensor, the technical quality of your pictures is decided by the glass you put in front of it. Would you put a cheap kit lens on the latest top range SLR and expect sharp results-no; it's impossible as the sensor is not allowed to gather the information because of the poor glass. <br>

So, what do I suggest based on my expereince? The canon 17-85mm is a good lens that is around your price range. My wife uses it on a 40D and the results are excellent, only draw back is the maximum aperture sizes. Alternatively, I have used a Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens and the results were very sharp-I have printed up to 24inches with flawless results and this lens is cheaper than Canon's own branded stuff. <br>

Ultimately, if can face it, buy the L series lenses-they are the best and they will remain with you always as you upgrade your camera body over the years.<br>

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<p>Hi Jubal<br>

Welcome to the wonderful world of photography! I hope you get loads of enjoyment from creating images with your new camera.<br>

I think Andrew has provided a lot of comprehensive info so all I will add is that you can get a bigger zoom by using a 'Telephoto Converter.' This is basically an adaptor for your lens that acts as a magnifying glass that sits between your camera and your lens-it goes onto the camera body and the lens then goes onto it. They are available from all camera lens retailers.<br>

They usually come in 1.4 and 2 times sizes, i.e. they magnify 1.4 your focal length or double it. So a 100mm lens becomes either a 140mm lens or a 200mm lens. <br>

The only downside to this seemingly perfect way of getting a 400mm focal length from a 200mm lens is that you lose a bit of light by having the converter fitted, up to 2 stops to be precise. This means that if you were shootnig at 1/500 sec with your 200mm lens, the converter will drop your shutter speed down to 1/125. Of course you can just up the ISO a bit to compensate which is a good, quick remedy if the slower speed is a problem.<br>

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<p>Hi Andrew<br>

I think you've posted a really interesting question here.<br>

I use a long telephoto of up to 200mm quite a lot in my wedding work and up to 400mm for my landscapes and I find the issue of sharpness more critical with these focal lengths than any other.<br>

You'd be surprised how much softness creeps in with just the slightest movement. When I was being trained as a landscape photographer I was taught to do everything I possibly could to squeeze every last drop of quality from my (expensive) glass. Even to the point of weding a piece of wood between the lens and the tripod mount to add extra support! My point is that with a long focal length absolute stability is critical and this means you can use lower ISO's and really get every ounce of quality out of your equipment.<br>

The other issue to think about is depth of field (DOF). Remeber-with long lenses, even f22 is relatively shallow and many soft images taken by people with a telephoto are not soft because of motion blur but simply because they are out of focus. This means you need to think harder about your DOF with these lenses and your point of focus. For example, if you shoot a group of people and you focus on the person in the middle who is standing just forward of the rest, you can easily find that those just behind are at the back end of your DOF and are in fact slightly out of it and looking a bit soft...<br>

Whatever you do, don't be put off using this lens - just take these steps and think about what you need to do to make the image you've got in mind happen because it's really creative to use this angle of view and I encourage you to go for it.<br>

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<p>Hi Tobey<br>

Old lenses do work-that much you've gathered frmo the other responses, but they don't have all the funtionality of lenses made especially for the camera.<br>

That said, I knew a fellow pro who used an adaptor ring on his IdsmkII so he could use manual Carl Zeiss lenses to obtain the level of sharpness he expected from the huge sensor. Nowadays, I think you'd get frustrated using old manual lenses on a modern DSLR unless you're doing landscape work where time is not so much of ther essence as, say, wedding photography.<br>

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<p>Hi Larry<br>

The 50mm lens discussed above is a good advice but a better option could be something with a longer focal length and a similarly wide aperture. Typically, portrait lenses start at 70mm and can go as far as 200mm-much of my candid wedding work is done at this length. This is because portraits usually require a non distracting background so the viewer concenrates on the subject, i.e. the mother and/or child in your case. <br>

So, without getting too technical, a longer focal length can help you create more engaging portraits with lovely soft backgrounds and a pin sharp subject which also keeps you slightly further away from your subject-people find it a little uncomfortable with a lens shoved up close which you would need to do for frame filling shots with a 50mm lens.<br>

So what do I suggest? Well, if you can find an 80 or 85mm lens (maybe second hand?) with an aperture of up to f4 you will have a fantastic lens for the portraits you want to take. If you want to cover all bases you could buy a 70-200mm f4 lens which would be great for a lot of other types of photography but is heavier and more cumbersome than a neat, compact 85mm lens.<br>

Hope that helps and do show us your results whatever you do!<br>

Alex Hare</p>

<p>Hi John,<br>

You've asked what apears on the face of it to be a very straight forward question but it's actually a technical mine field as some of the responses already allude to! Don't worry though, you don;t need to get bogged down in the complexities of it all to understand what's going in inside a DSLR over a compact when both are set to the same aperture. It's a good question though because, in my view, aperture is one of the most important creative choices we make as photographer's so the ability to control it is vital.<br>

Basically, compact cameras are optimised for maximum depth of field (DOF) at any given aperture. This is because people that buy them usually just want to get on with taking great shots and not worrying about juggling apertures and exposures etc. The technical reason for optimising the apertures is to do with the sensor and lenses used in compacts more than some marketing decision by the companies branding execs though!<br>

So, in answer to your questiopn, no, aperture does not play an important role in compact cameras. Because you can't really achieve a shallow DOF even at f3.5 or f5.6 (because it's not capable of doing this due to the technical construction of the camera, sensor, lens etc) the aperture settings are less meaningful than in a DSLR. In a DSLR you can achive very shallow DOF at wide apertures of f4, f5.6 and very deep ones at f16 and f22 so it's a far bigger creative choice to make, a choice you can't make with a compact.<br>

I hope this helps and do show us your results!<br>

Alex Hare</p>

<p>Hi Maerk<br>

I use a 10 stop ND too for creating interesting effects. I think the way to think about the effect it has is not in terms of what aperture you would need to give you the same amount of light coming onto your sensor rather we should think about the extra 10 stops in terms of the exposure.<br>

If you look at my shot this was 529 seconds at f22. I took an exposure reading for my scene without the filter then counted up ten stops of time to reach 530 seconds then screwed the filter on, set the camera to Bulb and fired away. I didn't count out ten aperture settings. The reason for this is because the filter has no effect on depth of field so it's largely pointless thinking about it's effect in f stops as only the aperture controls this whereas the ND filter controls shutter speeds required to correctly expose your scene.<br>

I often teach people how to use long exposures on my workshops and it's a growing area of interest because it is a creative dimension people rarely consider. I'd like to see some of your results with this filter.<br>

Hope this helps.</p>

<p>Alex Hare</p><div></div>

<p>Hi Debra<br />This is actually my first post for years on photo.net -I'm back!<br>

<br />When I last posted I was an amateur and I now work professionally and part of my income is workshops for people of all levels and all cameras. During my photo learning curve I've paid for help on group courses, in the UK and abroad and a one to one so I learnt what was good and what wasn't so here's my view having completed this phase of my photo journey.<br>

<br />Most workshops are pointless. There are hundreds of them out there run by people with poor teaching skills, poor technical knowledge and, worse of all in my view, poor creativity. This is a creative industry; if you're not creative, or able to teach someone how to release their creativity (we have all have it in us) then you can't produce good, original work. Without creativity you can stare at an amazing sunset and have no idea how to distil this into a beautiful picture. My point? Look carefully at the course leader's work-do you like it? Does it inspire you? Do you want to take pictures of that standard or is there someone out there that really inspires you who you’d love to learn from?<br>

<br />If so make an enquiry. You may think that all you need to learn is what ISO, aperture, shutter speed etc is but these are technical hurdles you will soon jump if your teacher is any good, and I mean in only a few hours for the basic but essential understanding you need at this stage of your photography. What you could look for is a course with a leader that will cover these for you and also show you how to deploy them to realise your creativity. You said no one bothered to come back on the ones you tried so ditch them-that’s bad manners-how will they treat you once you’ve parted with your cash?<br>

<br />Incidentally, I totally disagree that if you’re a proper working pro you don’t have time for workshops. This is a whole debate in itself but put simply many of the very best working pros in my field of landscape and travel photography run workshops as a part of their business model. It in no way detracts from their credibility or professional quality so don’t let this put you off someone.<br>

<br />Good luck with your hunt for a workshop and I hope you find one that takes your creativity to another level and gives you skills you can take with you wherever you go in the future with your camera.<br />Alex Hare</p>