Matt Staples Photography

Super Zooms

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:22:00 +0000

And finally in this little lens round up we have the super zooms. We wittled down the list but as of today dpreview have announced that Sigma have launched an Image Stabilised version of the Bigma, the 50-500mm lens f4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM. Thats going to put the cat amoung the pidgeons. Lets have a look.

Long Telephoto

Sigma 100-300mm f/4 EX DG £765
Review: naturephotographers.net, Fred Miranda
Comments: The user reviews are excellent, much like the 120-300 listed below. Sharp, with almost no complaints about image quality (a few mention a slight softness appraching the 250-300mm mark. You could put a 1.4x teleconverter on this lens to make it a 120-420mm f5.6 throughout. The price is £1000 less then it's bigger brother below...

Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM £1755
Review: talkphotography.co.uk, Fred Miranda
Comments: The talk photography readers pretty much went mad for it. The Fredmiranda crew were also pretty keen, 9.1 out of 10. Sharp, fast (2.3 throughout!) no reports of needing to stop it down to get quality images. For the cost I'm not shocked. It doesn't have IS which is a shame, possibly (since we saw in the last review the quality of the canon 70-200mm f2.8 seens to be a bit dodgier on the IS version) and it's heavy, which is to be expected. Not to mention you could slap a x2 converter onto this and make it a 240-600 f5.6...

Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM £530
Review: Seemingly hard to find.
Comments: I know the lens exists, plenty of forums discussing it, but not many people posting much about how this lens really behaves. The range looks good, the f stop range is pretty mediocre but it has image stabilisation... It's cheap and apparently not enough people have brought one and wanted to review it online. Perhaps not the lens for me then.

Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM £588
Review: michaelfurtman.com, Ephotozine, Fred Miranda
Comments: The Michael Furtman site reviews this lens against the canon 100-400. Seemingly a fair review, both have a wide focal range, both are similar f stops (this lens is a tad slower) and both have their own version of image stabilisation. Sadly this lens did not meet his requirements on image quality at the top end of the it's aperture range, and truely great results apparently don't appear until f8. That's slow! If I were to buy a long lens I want to be stalking animals... they move, I need to be shooting waay faster. Scroll back up... we have good f2.8s and f4's from sigma... this is not the lens for me. The Fre Miranda reviews also reported it to be a "tad" soft at times.

Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 EX DG £16,000
Review: -
Comments: Without even hunting for any reviews, this is a specialist tool. It's not something I can ever imagine needing to buy. Why the price? Well, it is the ONLY lens that goes to 500mm and remains at f2.8. It comes with a converter to make it a 400-1000 f5.6 lens whilst retaining autofocus. Bear in mind that if you were to stick that onto a crop camera this could become as much as 640-1600mm and still autofocus, that's just mental. It's also massive, I've seen and fondles this lens and I'm not sure I could pick it up on my own. It's a true monster.

Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 EX DG HSM £4780
Review: -
Comments: This lens is also a specialist tool, and the price reflects this. It has a long reach, the only zoom lens that starts off being able to exceed the 500mm mark. A teleconverter isn't going to do you any good here. If I ever got crazily good at wildlife photography and was making significant money from it this might be the tool for me to pick up, but as it stands it's not on my radar.

Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 DG HSM £890
Review:
Comments: I once had the opportunity to pick one of these up cheap from a local second hand camera store but I let the chance slip me by.

Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM £TBA
Review: Preview only - dpreveiw
Comments:I notice though that the starting point has snuck from f4.0 to f4.5 but thats not a significant deal if this lens is tempting you.

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM £1025
Review: Fred Miranda

Comments: Funnily enough, the only canon in my superzoom line up and the last of which I went hunting reviews on. This is the lens often personally recommended to me and the one I've seen most often wielded by fellow photographers. But it's still not perfect. FM reviewers report softness under f5.6. It's a push-pull meaning it could suck in dust far more easily then the normal lens types. It's also bright bloody white! It has image stabilisation, but this is first generation, you're probably talking 2 stops of IS, instead of the common 3 or recently released 4 stops on other lenses.

Conclusions
At this stage I haven't come to a firm decision, it's a tricky one. The Sigma 100-300mm f/4 EX DG and a 1.4 teleconverter does look very promising, but getting one creates a massive overlap on the 70-200 range that I've been craving for a while now. Would I want this much of an overlap? It seems a bit redundant. 70 is almost 100... and the extra 100mm reach on the sigma would prove useful. As per my previous post about the new sigma 70-200 f2.8 with OS (Image stabilisation), if the price is right I could go for getting that... slap a 1.4x teleconverter and you're walking around with a 98 to 280 at f4.0... thats pretty much the same beast in theory. Ah the agony of choice.

Sigma announces 70-200mm f2.8 with stabilisation!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:06:00 +0000

I'm a subscriber to dpreview and I've just spotted that to really complicate my lens agony, they have launched a 70-200mm f2.8 with image stabilisation. The report states that the lens will have approximately 4 stops of stabilisation. If the reviews of this lens in the coming months show that the f2.8 is usable and there is no significant short comings with the lens it will be a great contender to the Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS HSM. (If the price is right, which I assume it will be - surely thats the entire point of third party lenses).

Longer "Telephoto" lenses

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Continuing on from the previous posts, lets have a quick look at the whittled down lens list for the longer Telephoto lenses (not the super long, those I'll come back to in another post).

Our choices:
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM £770
Reviews: Fred Miranda
Comments: No reports of it being soft, but no Image Stabilisation (IS). Very sharp. One of the highest rates lenses on FM.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM £1125
Reviews: Fred Mirada
Comments: Some reports of it being soft at f2.8, but it has IS, and it's listed as being very sharp once you stop down. Some variability in these reports.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM £575
Reviews: Fred Miranda
Comments: Some vignetting. The obvious.. it's f4.0 and it's not got IS.

Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4.0L IS USM £750
Reviews: Fred MIranda
Comments: Sharp, Image stabilisation, the obvious downside - it's f4, so super shallow depth of field (DOF) shots will be limited by this. No mention of needing to stop it down, so you get f4. Some vignetting.

Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro HSM II £510
Reviews: Fred Miranda
Comments: Low rating on FM. Soft at f2.8. Yellow cast.

Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 EX APO IF HSM £530 (Just found this one and added it to the line-up)
Reviews: Fred Miranda
Comments: Ford at f2.8, CA issues. Sharp, but has yellow cast

I've avoided mentioning in any of the comments sections that the lenses here are heavy and in the case of the Canons are white! You know this before you buy them.

Conclusions:
I've been pondering these lenses for a long time now and read many more reviews then just the user reviews on FM, but they are a good source of first hand intelligence so I've provided the links here. For me this category is a real toss up. The Canon EF 70-200mm WITHOUT IS is listed as being incredibly sharp even at f2.8, you'll get your shallow depth of field. But the Canon f2.8 WITH IS gives me 3 stops of extra hand-hold-ability, letting me shoot in lower light, but if the reports are accurate, I'm likely to find the f2.8 unusable because I require sharp images.

If trying to move up to these top end lenses but trying to conserve money I would take a Canon f4 without IS over the two sigmas, they are essentually the same price and I avoid the yellow colour cast. However, if money isn't the issue, I would need to spend some time with both the IS and non IS version of the Canon f2.8 and really go over the reviews to ensure I make the right decision.

Standard "Portrait" lens choices

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:09:00 +0000

So looking at the previous post about which len to pick from the line ups, after filtering as per my requirements, we whittled down the telephoto lenses to

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM £750
Reviews: Fred Miranda, Luminous Landscapes
Comments: Reviewers say it is heavy. image quality great. No images stabilisation.

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro £325
Reviews: Photozone
Comments: From this one review it's shown as very sharp, dropping to merely "good" at 70mm, but at the wide end it's showing as exceptional on their charts. Clearly is I am looking for a (close to) macro lens this might be on interest.

Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG IF HSM £550
Reviews: Fred Miranda, The Digital Picture
Comments: Reported as not being as good as the Canon equivilent, but vastly cheaper and still at a good image quality, though noisier and slower to focus. I already own the previous version of this lens and other then the colour cast I am generally very happy with it. You do need to step down to f4.0 before the sharpness comes through.

Canon 24-105 mm f4 L IS lens £785
Reveiws: Luminous Landscapes, Fred Miranda
Comments: The Luminous Landscapes comparison is particularly useful, showing as it does that the 24-105mm F4 is usable immeadiately at F4, you do not need to stop it down to get workable results, a common factor in many lenses. However, the fredmiranda reviews cite a lot of issues with CA (chromatic aberration - Purple fringing), barrel distortion at the wide end and a few other issues, though they agree the sharpness and colour is good.

New lenses are coming out all the time which always complicates things, in this instance I've just discovered there is the Canon EF 24-105mm f4.0 L IS lens and I've backtracked and added it to the list as it's a very attractive option since it has image stabilisation. Now lets look at these options.

I currently own the Sigma 28-70 f2.8mm EX DG which is the older model for Sigma. It's a good lens and very sharp once stopped down to f4.0, there is a warm colour cast which is pretty much what you should expect from a Sigma, but I easily correct this out of images when processing the images in RAW. Due to an emergency purchase after a disaster I also own a Sigma 24-70 f2.8-4.5 (macro lens which is very sharp, but strongly colour cast (fixable in RAW). So... would I change to another one of these lenses, is there a need?

Obviously if I've got a good workable zoom in this range then any upgrade needs to have a good reason. a 2.8 with image stabilisation would be good, which is why the 24-105 f4 is interesting, but it's reviews against the canon 24-70 f2.8 just doesn't hold up on the image quality and does start at one stop slower (so yes, the IS would give me back 3 stops, but it starts from one behind. So it's a 2 stop gain, and questions remain about it's image quality in certain areas. It's apparently weak at the wide end, and I'm highly likely to invest in a 70-200 lens which makes the overlap redundant.

It looks like I'll stick with what I have for now, and when money is flowing I would upgrade to the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM so that I can safely use the f2.8m without having to stop down and I would no lnoger have the yellow colour cast. If an IS version were to come out and was not rediculously priced it would be the winner for me. Right this is definately a ramble and I shall label is such, thanks for reading.

Wide Angle Lenses

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:48:00 +0000

Following on from my previous post, I have narrowed down the potential wide angle lenses I would be choosing from when it came to doing the big upgrade in the future.

Here is how this list has been wittled down.

1) The lens had to be suitable for a full frame Canon camera. I'm sticking to Canon as this is the system I know. However, I'm not that invested at the moment and I will be examining Nikon bodies at a later date.

2) The lens needed to come from the Canon or Sigma range as these are brands I know and trust.

3) Must be a zoom, the freedom these gives is a must for me.

4) Constant. I want the maximum aperture to stay where I put it, not change because I've zoomed in or out.

5) Image stabilisation is a consideration where present, but is not a must.

The list of wide angles quickly whittled down to this:

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM £866
Reviews: The Digital Picture, Fred Miranda
Comments: Softer in the corners then the mk II.

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM £955
Reviews: The Digital Picture, Fred Miranda
Comments: Best of the bunch, but highest price.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM £465 -
Reviews: The Digital Picture, Fred Miranda
Comments: Vignetting

There is lots to read in the reviews but in a nut shell, the 17-40mm was the most affordable option from the three non budget wideangle lenses whtat met my criteria, however at all lengths it is reported to have moderate vignetting (that's darkened corners). The original 16-35mm was reported to be better but had soft corner "wide open" (that means at it's widest aperture, F2.8) and stepped down to f4.0. The latest version is not that much more money and is described as having dealt with the corner softness, but if I'm going to save almost £900 for a lens and there is a better version for £955... I'll save that little bit more.

Se we have our first choice, the Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8 II USM with a current market cost of around £955. Any new lens entering the market can then be compared against this for quality and price point.

Which Lens?

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:46:00 +0000

This post is more a ramble for my own benefit but maybe someone else will latch on and once read it they might find it useful for their own purposes.

I'm pondering what line up of lenses I want to own when I take the step up to the full frame sensor camera of my dreams (Currently the Canon 5D mk 2... although after a long discussion with someone about auto focus I do find myself pondering if in a years time a version 3 might have an improved system).

Bear this in mind, buy the right lens and you will keep it for years, even if you are constantly upgrading to the latest and greatest camera body. The key point there is buy the "right lens". I currently use a 1.6x cropped body, The canon 400D. It takes lenses that will only work on cropped sensor cameras but it will ALSO take the lenses that will fit the big boy cameras.

I've got experience of Canon and Sigma lenses. Sigma lenses have a tendancy to have a warmer cast then the Canon lenses, but Canon lenses tend to cost a lot more. If the sharpness and overall image quality is the same I am not too concerned by the colour cast because I can correct for this when I shoot in RAW.

Because I know these two brands, these will be the ones I look at. Some other readers may have Tamron and Tonika lenses, but I have read the reviews on these and whilst they appear to often give good performance for the money they cost, I'm looking at getting exceptional quality even if I have to pay more, this will prove itself worthwhile time and again when I'm looking to upload stock images, produce sharp images for weddings etc.

Even having narrowed the lens selection down to two manufacturers the list of lenses to pick from is large. I'm only going to look at zoom lenses, I like the freedom of being able to zoom in/out, sometimes it's an absolute necessity. |Once I have the full range of high quality zooms, I will probably buy a couple of exceptionally fast prime lenses in the ranges that I use most frequently.

So lets start the process of figuring out which lenses have potential. Here is the entire list.

Canon
Zoom lenses:
EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM
EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM
EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
EF 20-35mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
EF 24-105mm f4.0 L IS lens
EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II
EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 V USM
EF 28-90mm f/4.0-5.6 II
EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM
EF 28-105mm f/4.0-5.6 USM
EF 28-105mm f/4.0-5.6
EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6
EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM
EF 28-300 f/3.5-5.6L IS USM
EF 35-80mm f/4-5.6 III
EF 35-350mm f/3.5-5.6L USM
EF 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II USM
EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM
EF 70-200 mm f/4.0L IS USM
EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III
EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS USM
EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III USM
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
EF 80-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II
EF 90-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM
EF 90-300mm f/4.5-5.6
EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM

Primes:

EF 14mm f/2.8L USM
EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye
EF 20 mm f/2.8 USM
EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM
EF 24 mm f/2.8
EF 28 mm f/1.8 USM
EF 28 mm f/2.8
EF 35 mm f/2.0
EF 35 mm f/1.4L USM
EF 50mm f/1.2L USM
EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
EF 50 mm f/1.8II
EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM
EF 85 mm f/1.8 USM
EF 100 mm f/2.0 USM
EF 135 mm f/2.0L USM
EF 135 mm f/2.8SF
EF 200mm f/2L IS USM
EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM
EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 300mm f/4L IS USM
EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM
EF 400mm f/4.0 DO IS USM
EF 400 mm f/5.6L USM
EF 500mm f/4L IS USM
EF 600mm f/4L IS USM
EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM

Sigma
Zoom Lenses

10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM
10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM
12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG HSM
17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC MACRO
17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC MACRO OS HSM
18-50mm f/2.8-4.5 DC OS HSM
18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC Macro
18-125mm f/3.8-5.6 DC OS HSM
18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC
18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS
18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM
24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro
24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG IF HSM
50-150mm f/2.8 EX DC HSM II
50-200mm f/4-5.6 DC OS HSM
50-500mm f/4-6.3 EX DG HSM
70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro HSM II
70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO DG Macro
70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG OS
70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG Macro
100-300mm f/4 EX DG
120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM
120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM
150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM
200-500mm f/2.8 EX DG
300-800mm f/5.6 EX DG HSM

Prime Lenses

4.5mm f/2.8 EX DC
8mm f/3.5 EX DG
10mm f/2.8 EX DC
15mm f/2.8 EX DG
20mm f/1.8 EX DG
24mm f/1.8 EX DG
28mm f/1.8 EX DG
30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM
50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM
50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro
70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro
105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro
150mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro HSM
180mm f/3.5 EX DG Macro HSM
300mm f/2.8 APO EX DG
500mm f/4.5 APO EX DG
800mm f/5.6 APO EX DG

The first cut

Using my preferences We can whittle this list down, here are the prefs.
1) Must be suitable for a full frame body as well as digital crop.
2) Must be a zoom because right now I don't know what primes I would want to settle on.
3) Constant. I want a maximum aperture that stays constant even when I zoom in.
4) I am strongly tempted by Image stabilisation as this add's several stops of extra handhold-ability (Did I just make that word up?) - this one is optional if the price is right and the lens is well reviewed.

The whittled down list with best current online price shown:

Canon

EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM £866
EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM £955
EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM £465
EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM £750
EF 24-105mm f4.0 L IS lens £785
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM £770
EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM £1125
EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM £575
EF 70-200 mm f/4.0L IS USM £750
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM £1025 (this is referred to as arguably the best canon long zoom)

Sigma
24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro £325 (I already own this lens)
24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG IF HSM £550
50-500mm f/4-6.3 EX DG HSM £790 (Kept in the list as it's an infamous lens - The Bigma)
70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro HSM II £510
100-300mm f/4 EX DG £765
120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM £1755
120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM £530 (Kept as I'm looking at long alternatives to the Canon 100-400)
150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM £588 (As above)
200-500mm f/2.8 EX DG £16,000 (Yes, you read that price correctly!)
300-800mm f/5.6 EX DG HSM £4780

This is the first time I've seen the full list with prices grabbed from the net (Gotta love Froogle). Interesting viewing...

I'm looking at these lenses in four categories and aiming to pick the one that best suits me from each range. I don't want to spend money on lenses that massively overlap, but sometimes that's necessary. I'll make seperate blog entries for each category as this is getting long and rambley.

Wide angle
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM £866
Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM £955
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM £465

Portrait Lengths
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM £750
Canon EF 24-105mm f4.0 L IS lens £785
Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro £325
Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG IF HSM £550

Telephoto
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM £770
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM £1125
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM £575
Canon EF 70-200 mm f/4.0L IS USM £750
Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro HSM II £510

Long Telephoto
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM £1025
Sigma 100-300mm f/4 EX DG £765
Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM £1755
Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM £530
Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM £588
Sigma 200-500mm f/2.8 EX DG £16,000
Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 EX DG HSM £4780

Happy Valentines Day.

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:01:00 +0000

An image I produced for my fiancee some years ago. I loved her then and I love her still, I hope you are all as lucky. And if you aren't yet, you will be eventually, so relax and enjoy the day anyway.

Rooftop Action

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:02:00 +0000

In the run up to Valentines day I wanted to bring you this image, shot a couple of months ago on the roof of the now derelict Crown Car Parks.

This is my fiancee who agreed to let me drag her to the top of the car park and subject her to a little flash photography. The plan was to use bounce flash on a nearby brick wall on the roof top to side light Ange's face which is much mroe flattering then straight on flash. Added to this, I knew the brick wall would add a warm colour cast, which was fine because I knew the church in the background was lit with extremely warm lights. I set the colour balance to tungsten to give me an approximate colour balance.

Both the bounced light from the wall and the light from the church are warm, meaning they bring a yellow tint to the image. By setting the colour balance to Tungsten I am telling the image to expect lots of yellow in the light coming in, and correct for it. If I had shot in "Daylight" white balance, this yellowing effect would have been exaggerated (Because daylight is more blue, less yellow and therefore the camera would basicly get the colour input wrong).

I hope you like, and I hope you're all cuddling up to someone you love.

And to my patient (lol!) and beautiful fiancee, thank you for being with me. I love you.

More on Stock Photography

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:11:00 +0000

Feeding on from what I was saying about stock photography in a previous post, I spotted a little something discussed in one of Damien Lovegroves latest blog entries. There he talks about how stock photography was a significant income for him in his early days and still to this day.

"The money started to roll in and with just one day a month dedicated to photo library work I was already adding thousands of pounds to my annual income."

Give it a read.

Do you think about light?

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:06:00 +0000

Do you think about light? Perhaps it's better to ask do you look at light. I mean really look.

I do, I look at how light is falling on objects and how various sources of light combine to create a desired lighting effect. "Of course" you're saying to yourselves, most of you are photographers and as such if you're creating good/great images by now you should be looking at light.

But it's more then just how light is falling on your model, it applies to anything in your daily life. Anything you can see is being exposed to some level and combination of light.

In my day job I work in an call center. All day every day. I found myself gazing contemplatively at the lead from my headset. A picture is worth a thousand words they say, but as I've no camera to hand and no way of getting the picture online now if I did, you'll have to put up with the thousand words. This headset lead is a tightly coiled stretchy lead which I happen to have drapped over a partition between my desk and my neighbours. Why I do that is to do with the lead always dangling off the desk if I don't, if you work in a call center can I get a hell-yeah!

We're talking about this sort of thing

Anyway, the point is that the lead hanging over the partition means it was lifted up off the desk, allowing light to get in at it from various directions. The lead hanging nearest to me is side lit by the 3m x 1m windows in the office which are about 5m away and the office lighting offers a weaker fill light. The window light casts a fairly hard shadow onto the partition that it is up against. The result of this is that on each loop of the phone wire nearest the window there is a little catchlight in the direction of the window. Why is there a hard shadow I asked myself? Because the source of light isn't particularly big and IS relatively far away. The further away your light source the harder it becames (obviously if it was a flash and you moved it away you'd be needing to turn the power up as you moved away, but you would still be creating a harder light. Instead of diffuse light spreading everywhere you'd be "beaming in" the light.

Okay, I've decided maybe it's too hard to describe in a manner that can be technical and keep your interest, so here is a diagram I've just put together. You may mock my paint skills, it's encouraged.

Now for the more interesting side that really caught my attention. The lead hanging more losely on the side of the partition furthest away from me. It was not lit by the window (which is the strongest source of light in the room). Instead it has a more dynamic light set up. The Ceiling lights are giving the the side and tops of the coils a slight rim lighting effect, the lighting is also reflecting from the highly reflective desk and giving a fill on the underside (with a warmish caste I notice from the yellow desk). Then there is the weakest general fill from the soft light diffusing around the room.

All in all it gives the side furthest away from me a far more 3D modelled shape (well it is 3d as it's reality, but if I photograph is, that 3D lighting will carry through) and it is nicely seperated from it's background, whilst the window light dominated shot has a flatter look. I wish I had a camera on my right now.

The point is this, whilst what I have done here is a contemplative look at a mundane object around me, the basic principle of LOOKING at your light, how it's formed, how you could alter and improve it or wrestle it back under control by blocking sources (or upping other sources) is vital to get the basics of if you ever want to truely produce good images. The greater control of your lighting, the better your photo's are going to get. After all a photograph is a record of light falling on an object of sometime, be it landscape, model or on the mist between the tree's.

Where's the money

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:25:00 +0000

I see a lot of people moaning about the lack of ability to make a living from photography and the lack of opportunities to make money from their passion. I see a lot of this and I think to myself "Bollocks!
If you set your sights on just one thing and will only work in one area then yes, it is very likely that your chosen area will be highly competitive, people will be pricing cheaper then you and your earnings will suffer (if you were already established) or you'll fail to take off in the first place.

Now this post isn't to talk about how much you should charge in your chosen area, but is rather to look at the number of channels you can put your work out to. Diversification is key!

I'll look at the options as I'm aware of them, some real to me and some researched (real to others).

Take a look at this.

It's by no means an exhaustive list, but it's all the obvious ones to spring to mind that aren't incredibly niched (I mean, if you are determined to be a fashion photographer and nothing but a fashion photographer then you don't need to see this, you just need to get on with networking your way into the fashion world and taking great shots), no this is aimed at the general shooter who wants to know all the avenues open to him or her to sell his/her work.

Portraits
We all love shooting them. Don't we? Well I do anyway and lots of you do. You've probably been shooting all your friends for practice and turning out some nice results which you've been giving to them. Perhaps you're further along then that and now you only pick up your camera when you get to shoot a carefully lit portrait. Either way, there is the opportunity to make money from portraiture. For high street photographers this is their bread and butter (though many make a living also shooting weddings, the lucky so and so's!). Look at your work, it has value does it not? Your portfolio is by now showing off your ability to take stunning portraits and it's time to earn some money. Put yourself out there, let everyone know you are a photographer, every time. When asked what do you do, don't tell them your boring day job first, get straight in there... "Hi, I'm Matt, yes thats right I'm a photographer, here is my card!" You don't have business cards? If you don't mind the spam they will send you, Vistaprint is a good source of cheap business cards and I can vouch for pretty good customer services from them.

Portfolios
You've been shooting portraits for a while now, get them online, show off your portfolio. Get into the online model/photographer networking sites like Net-Model or Purestorm. Some also enjoy Flickr and the likes, but I've so far not registered. Deviant Art is also a place worth looking into, especially if you're of a creative bent and do wild and wonderful things in and to your photographs. Once you're online showing off your portfolios and approaching people who's photos you would like to take (I hesitate to use the word models, some are, but many are just girls out for a free photo set, which is fine as I/you may just want to take more photo's).

The point here is, at some stage if your portfolio is developing nicely and your attitude is coming across well you might well be one of the lucky few who start to get paid to create models portfolios. It's rare, but it happens. More commonly though, you can take the free or cheap practice of taking all these photos and the onsuing development of your people skills and bring it back to the real world. Online it's a tough industry, so much TFP (Time for prints) exchange goes on that there isn't much money to be had as a photographer, but bring that same passion for creating strong portfolio images to your local community and you find that this area only enhances your portrait taking skills and money may start to come in.

Weddings
If you love shooting people rather then landscapes and you can handle the hectic pace of a day shooting someone elses big day, followed by the pressure to quickly turn out attractive proofs, stylish albums and exceptional prints and do it all with a big grin on your face then wedding photography is for you. And it's going to be a big source of income for you if you can get your marketing skills sharpened and get yourself out there. Weddings may come to you as a result of you shooting portraits and portfolios, getting yourself known to the brides and grooms of the future who enjoy your style and want you to shoot their big day. They may come as a result of heavy advertising, or paying your money for a space at a wedding fair, which I hear is very effecting but hard to get into.. I've not yet tried this. Word of mouth and advertising, it's your two main routes into getting weddings.

Events
Leading on from Weddings but a seperate entity in themselves, event photography covers a wide plethora of places, locations and themes. There is corporate events, end of school proms, sporting events (fierce competition from the other photographers there guys!) I've been trying to get into shooting party nights, small scale events following a group of lads around town watching them have a great time... it's a really fun way to shoot casually and relax, however not all events are the same. If you're working for a company shooting all their employee's I would imagine it's going to be pretty formal, whilst a drunken 6th form prom will be more relaxed... or maybe that was just me at the end of 6th form!

Commercial
Much like shooting portraiture, you get into this by starting small, doing the odd job here and there. Maybe you have a friend who really needs his stock photographed for his website. Reputation might land you with a larger project and better pay. One thing you'll want to figure out early on is your day rate. It's a trick to master. Set your price too low and you're going to get used and abused and it's not worth your time. Set your price too high and you won't get the job. Or will you.. figure out what price you are willing to work for and perhaps double it... it'll give you haggle room and who knows, you might get accepted. Do your research (which is pretttty much true for any area you want to work in.)

Stock Photography
As with all things in photography there is contention about how much should be charged against how many jobs you can pick up. I won't get into that on these other topics but stock photography is a particular example of this in action.

Stock photography these days falls into 2 real categories, one is micro-stock and for want of a better phrase, the other is macro-stock. Stock photography is this: A supply of your work and hundred/thousands/millions of others work, all kinds of stuff, clever stuff, basic stuff, cheap and expensive stuff, all photographed and uploaded to the stock website. This is the basic fact of all stock websites. The big issue is in their selling methods.

Microstock websites (such as iStock) work by selling your images for tiny tiny prices. A small sale might net you $0.23... about £0.16 when you finally get to cash out your earnings. Macrostocks sell your images for much more significant amounts of money. Alamy is the UK's biggest macrostock website. They sell your images for a lot of money and give you 50%, the cheapest file they sell is £15 and thats for a tiny tiny image... the best prices...well I don't have time to go through all the options, but I currently have on screen a file for £13,110...

How the issue is of course that microstock is cheap. People buy it easily, perhaps a download or two for a brochure mock up or to appear on a short running leaflet, maybe after picking a couple they will reject most and just use the one.. They've still paid for it. Your images will sell and fairly often and all those $0.23 to $2.40 add up until you get to cashout. With Macrostock sites I have to assume that the purchasers are going to think much more carefully before they pick and purchase. Every file is going to be purchased with the full intent and knowledge of where it's going to be used. If and when you ever sell a picture it will probably make you m ore money then you've made all year on the microstock site(s)... assuming you ever sell one. Get enough content one to one or the other and stock photography can become a useful additional income.

Shoot for fun!
Got an idea, mad and silly? Then you wonder whats the point, there's no money in it and the camera stays in it's bag. Bear this in mind: In 2007 I did a project that was, in my estimation, a complete failure and I've never shown off any of the images outside of my college course. However one of the voulanteers from the project liked the way I worked. I apparently have a very relaxed, friendly and funny personality, not to mention being an outrageous flirt... so she asked me to shoot her portrait. I quoted a rate and she accepted. Paying work from a silly project. 2 years later she asked me to shoot her wedding. I quoted a rate and blow me down if yet again she didn't say yes.

The images you produce from your silly ideas might also be suitable for stock photography. Read that section if you've skimmed past it thinking you know better. :)

Selling Prints
Of course, anything you shoot and print might be of interest to others. People buy prints of all kinds of things, but landscapes, abstract details and pretty people are always going to be of interest. There is the possibility (on top of looking at stock sites) that you could print your images and sell them direct to consumers, maybe via art markets or orders placed on line.

You could opt to print a new image each time an order is placed and this will work fine and if you somehow manage to market yourself well it might be a nice little earner. Of course, one thing to think about when doing prints, if you're taking your time and effort on them is that the more exclusive the shots are the more money you might be able to charge. Would you pay £100 for an A3 landscape print supplied in a roll tube? If you were too, wouldn't you much rather pay that £100 for the print mounted in some manner, possibly signed on the rea along with an indication of how many prints there are of that image... you own number 3 out of 10... well thats a little exclusivity. If you build a name and a reputation for providing high quality prints in limited runs you might well find the demand for your work becomes greater, as long as the right people are buying. Mass produce the image and flog it for £10 and you'll take the same gamble as you do in stock photography... whilst you in theory make the same money selling 100 prints for £10 each as you would selling 10 prints for £100 or 1 print for £1000... but will you find that single buyer when you start out willing to pay £1000 for it... and can you find £10 punters willing to lay down £10... perhaps the middle ground of finding 10 customers is the way for you right now? Maybe it's not, that's down to you.

Magazines
See, check the diagram, this one isn't there... there are plenty of other ways to try and push your photographs on others... magazines frequesntly need content. Not just photography magazines, they have such a captive audience of people like you and like me who want to be recognised and will submit their images for free publication. It might feel great, but it is unlikely to pay. But maybe a girls magaine or a country and home type magazine would be interested in that lovely shot you've just taken? Give it a tr. you can pick up a book every year stuffed with contact details for magazines and their submittion requirements for articles, photo's etc.

Sorry for the rambling nature of the post, but hopefully that might prove helpful to a few of you.

Daisy

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:40:00 +0000

Here we have a daisy...

and here we have... something else. If you can name it please let me know.

Close up - Petals

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 22:39:00 +0000

Red Admiral - Butterfly

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:35:00 +0000

I believe this is a Red Admiral, but I don't profess to me an expert so I could be wrong. Shot on my old Nikon 8800, so the quality is not as high as I would like now, but it's still a shot I enjoy looking at.

Grasshopper

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:35:00 +0000

Grasshopper on Walton Beach

It was an odd place to find the grasshopper, amoungst the rocks on Walton beach, some distance from the grass.

Meerkat!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:29:00 +0000

I'm planning a return trip to Colchester Zoo as soon as I am able to purchase a longer lens and then I'm going to sstalk these meerkats (and the rest) better then ever. Of course, I would love the opportunity to shoot them in the wild, but that's a long way off yet.

Dandylion Clock

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:28:00 +0000

Dandylion Clock

Details: Grave-stone and Moss

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:03:00 +0000

I trekked to a local church (I confess, I've forgotten the name of the village where we encountered this particular grave-stone). I was taken by the age of the stone, the moss slowly creeping over the wording and the way the light was dappled due to it's low angle coming through a shield of leaves.

Details: Rust and ruin

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:00:00 +0000

Taken as part of a project looking at decay and reclaimation of the land by nature, this image made a fantastic starting point for a more detailed project I have planned recording the interior and exterior of derelict buildings.

Details: Stained Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Taken whilst on a snoop around the somewhat derelict County Hall in Ipswich, I came across these stained glass windows and loved the details in the glass. After a little contemplation of them, I set up on a tripod and shot these images. I cropped in tight to get the glass only as I had no flash with me to bring up the insides (withouth blowing the details in the glass).

Details: Gear and Chain

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:01:00 +0000

This was taken on a trip out to saxmundham in an old shed, covered in cobwebs and with rain coming in through the roof.

Scanned from Film

Red Admiral - Butterfly

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:37:00 +0000

Damsel Flies

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Taken in a suburban garden. I stalked these all around the pond!

Taken using a Kenko extender tube that reduced the focal distance but also massively reduces the depth of field in the image.

Interiorscapes

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Topping up on my 'scapes posts, here is small sample of my favourite interior shots of recent times.

Endeavor House, Ipswich. Conference room. 2006

Endeavor House, Ipswich. Solar Panels in the glass ceiling. 2006

County House, Ipswich, 2007

Saxmundham Farm, 2007.

The last shot was a risky one as I had to lay on a rotten wood floor and put my camera through a hole in the floor with a wide angle lens. I could feel the floor beneath me flexing a little. The small risk was worth it though, don't you think?

Cityscapes

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Staples) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Continuing on with my posting some of my classic 'scapes, I bring you a small selection of images shot in urban settings. I chose to divide my work into Landscapes (for rural shots), Cityscapes (for anything featuring modern urban living) and Interiorscapes (for when I'm hunting out larger scale interior feature (see my next post for a couple of examples).

Below are my favourite cityscapes.

Shot as a test for a modelling shoot at Crown Car Park, Ipswich, 2007

Tower Bridge, London, 2005

Abandoned shop front, 2006

Reflection at dusk on the award winning Willis Faber building, 2007

Bradford Power Station, 2006

Eiffel Tower, 2006

Orange Sky over Harwich port, 2009