Animals

July 22, 2015 by John Wallace in Nature and tagged animal, Australia, Camera, lens, lion, meerkat, nature, otter, Photography, wild, zoo, zoom | Leave a comment

Animals, they’re all around us, from the wild ones that we often can and a great deal that we can’t see to the domestic variety on farms and in the home. The list is pretty endless so its only natural that they find a place in my portfolio. The zoo is a pretty obvious place to find the more exotic ones plus there are plenty of wildlife parks showing native animals in Australia. The distinct advantages of course are that I can get in a lot closer and don’t have to travel too far to find a great variety, my visits to these places often result in hundreds of images to choose from. There still remains the problem of course of achieving the right image, apart from the Meerkats they don’t pose for the camera so everything is about patience and timing and a reasonable zoom is essential, I find my 55-250 lens adequate for the job.

Meerkat, suricata suricata

African Lion, panthera leo senegalis

Then of course there are the crowds and the kids but who said anything about this being easy. I’ve attached three images to show that reasonable results can be obtained, the Meercat and Lion were from the local zoo and the otters from a wildlife park in England. So give it a go, its good practise and certainly a good day out.

Asian short clawed otter, Aonyx cinereus

More images of animals can be found in this sites galleries as well as high definition versions available through my online shops.

Macros, or getting in a bit closer

July 16, 2015 by John Wallace in Cameras, Nature and tagged beauty, Camera, close up, Digital, floral, flower, macro, Photography | Leave a comment

As well as taking wide angle shots of landscapes I’ve always wanted to get in close to my subject, to do this properly takes a dedicated macro lens but most lenses on digital cameras will have a macro capability so until I’m rich enough to buy the lenses that I need like most I must make do. Flowers seemed the most obvious subject to try first as shown in the examples attached. Obviously stability is a prime here as I found that the slightest movement when in this close can cause a lot of movement on the image so a tripod is considered essential though it can be one of the smaller desktop models as the subject is only inches away from the lens and it allows a larger f stop to be set. If you haven’t thought about it then I can only recommend giving it a try, you might surprise yourself.

Flowers

July 2, 2015 by John Wallace in Cameras, Nature and tagged beautiful, beauty, Camera, Canon, Digital, display, EOS, floral, flower, fragile, images, nature, Photography, plant | Leave a comment

Flowers just ask to be photographed, I’ll bet that there is no-one who has bought a camera who has not taken a photograph of a flower at some time. Although you can take them outdoors on the plant itself I find that setting them in a studio type environment works much better, to start with there is not all that background clutter of other plants, fences etc and they are not always in the best position to be photographed or lit and of course you would need to get down on your knees in the flower bed. I did say studio environment but this doesn’t mean you need a studio.

I use sheets of black or coloured mounting card as a backdrop and natural daylight, often on the patio. With the flower in a suitable holder it can be rotated to achieve the effect, the backdrop is far enough away that the card doesn’t come in focus and the composition can be better displayed to suit.