Rob Brooks Photography » 10-20mm

Gone South

Rob — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:48:44 +0000

Here’s a couple of images from a recent weekend at Catamaran, near Southport and Cocle Creek in far South Tasmania.

The beach is basically private, with only two or three properties having access to it, abundant with fish, abalone, rock lobster and even Calamari squid.

Absolutely perfect location for a lazy day by, or on the water, in one of the most untouched parts of Tassie.

McGinniss Wedding Reception

Rob — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:22:37 +0000

Here are a few shots from the wedding reception that I shot for some good friends of mine.
The entire day was a great learning experience for me, and hopefully I’ve captured some important memories for them to look back on in the future.

NOTE: If any friends or family would like to purchase prints of any of the images from the day, just contact me @ brooksrl@telstra.com and I’ll be happy to discuss the options.

Prints will be sourced from my un-compressed, high-resolution original files. And are available in a number of different sizes, finishes and products.

© Rob Brooks Photography, 2009. Unauthorised use and/or duplication and/ or distribution of this material without express and written permission from the creator and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

First wedding shoot, pretty pleased

Rob — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:59:37 +0000

On the weekend just passed I had the pleasure/ challenge of shooting my first wedding for some friends of mine, although it was only the reception and some family portraits beforehand.
Given the constraints I had from time for shooting, the large amount of people and combinations that they wanted, and dealing with weather conditions (quite windy and late afternoon sun) I’m relatively happy with the raw results from the camera.
I would have liked extra time to get a lot more creative with the arrangements, but a late start, lengthening shadows and a schedule to stick to stiffled that a little.
However I am with the performance of the gear that I had at the time, and it has been a great learning experience for me in many ways. From the technical aspects of dealing with exposure metering, flash compensation and controlling depth of field to efficient arrangement of subjects and keeping things looking natural and not too posed.
Given the fact I have a close relationship with many of those I needed to shoot, made the job of ordering them around to do what I wanted a lot easier than it would have been with a bunch of strangers. And also being able to keep the whole experience pretty casual for us all made for some very natural shots.

The only real issue I had with my gear on the day is the gap in focal lengths I have between my 10-20mm and my 28-135mm. Due to the space I was working in and the group sizes I had, I found that I really need a lens covering the 17-40mm range if i’m going to continue doing this style of work. Also something with a wider aperture (F2.8 ) would have also given some nicer results in keeping the background out of focus a little more and making the subjects ‘pop’.
I found that I shot the majority at 28-40mm, but needed to change lenses to get a little extra width at 20mm on a couple of occasions.
**(also remember that I’m shooting with a 1.6x cropped sensor DSLR, so all focal lengths mentioned are multiplied by 1.6)**
The only other small issue I encountered was using “partial (centre 7% of frame) metering” in conjunction with “aperture priority” mode initially, which are my usual/ everyday-type settings. This gave me some over-exposed backgrounds as I had quite a lot of shadows on the subjects to deal with, which were within the metering zone of the camera.
A quick switch to fully manual control and evaluative metering soon brought things back into shape. This was also due to me having limited previous experience in using the speedlite in real world situations, and understanding fully the differences needed to gain correct exposures when using a speedlite.

Anyway, enough of a novel from me, as I have over 500 photo’s from the event to sort and edit, but all in all it was an enjoyable learning experience for me and I believe the happy couple will be pleased with the final results.

A few preview shots will be posted in due course…

Quick Edit and update:
Slowly getting there with the editing and should have some results by the end of today..
I NEEEEED a faster machine

UPDATE 2:

Editing is now completely complete, and i’m impressed with how the majority have come up, upon further inspection it appears that one person in the wedding party (the damn groom) is quite sensitive to the speedlite’s pre-flash.
but that was only on the occasions that i did not use the FEL function (Flash Exposure Lock)
some of the indoor shots lost a little detail in noise as I had to shoot at ISO 800 and a couple of times at 1600, but nothing that will stand out when printing at normal sizes.
Faster glass and better body will solve those issues in the future
A couple of sample images will be uploaded soon, once the couple have viewed them.

Has been a great learning experience for me, and I now know what I need to focus on and improve on next time around.

Sigma 10-20mm First Shots

Rob — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:41:34 +0000

These shots were taken at lunch today, around Hobart’s waterfront.
Obviously not the best lighting at midday, but i wanted to see how the wide angle coped with some upward shots with overhead sun.
I must say, I can see this lens getting a lot of use. I love it’s width, and it doesn’t seem to suffer from any “softness” that is reported with some Sigma lenses. (Only out of correct focus, which was my fault for usinf a larger than intended aperture setting)

All in all I’m very happy with how the images turned out. Very minor post processing was carried out (using Picasa. grrrr!…) and the images here were jpegs to begin with (some dopey person forgot to switch back to RAW after taking happy snaps!..).

The only thing i can pick is some slight colouration in the shadows of the second image, but the sun was directly behind the top of the building.
I have been warned by other users of the 10-20mm lens that this can be expected when pushintg the lens into the sun such as I have done (on purpose to see the extend of the “flare”/ colouration??). None of the same colouration was seen in any of the other images that I shot.

So for the intended purpose of this lens, it’s overall cost and my skill level, i’m happy with my purchase and look forward to using it much more in the future.
It’s sturdily built and feels nice and rugged in the hand, AF operation is fast and silent and the manual AF override works well.
Highly reccommended for those who’d love the Canon EF-S 10-22mm, but can’t justify $1K+.