It's a bit of a backwards blog here, in that I bought the flash and first of all took THESE pictures, before the dripping tap and squirrels. More for a bit of fun than anything else and to see if the Wotan Servo SC-18 actually worked at all! I decided it was worth putting them on the blog after looking through the memory card and deciding they weren't all that bad.

They do illustrate a point I made when talking about the photos I took of Alys' squirrels, and in the dripping tap blog as well. It was hard at first to try and get the flash looking natural, these all have VERY harsh shadows. There's something to like about that though, it's easy to spend your time worrying about getting light 'soft' when a few harsh shadows can help a photo.

There's been an ongoing series of photos with this poor frog, when I first got the Sigma EX DG 24-70 I spent a while practising semi-macro photos and trying to get a good focus separation using the lens at f2.8. The above photo is f3.5, occasionally I find that the Sony a200 and the lens are a little soft at f2.8.

It's unlikely that i'll use the flash like this for weddings, most people prefer softer and more romantic lighting for the detail shots. In all honesty, it would be something of a faff to lug around a second flash by myself as well as spending the time making sure it was at the right distance and bouncing of the right bit of wall. It's normally very possible to use natural light or bounce the main flash of the ceiling to get the right look. As you can see in the photos of the squirrels though, it will be a very useful tool for studio photos, either portraits or product photography.

Alys had made some of her fantastic door-stop squirrels to exhibit (and hopefully sell) at the Midcentury Modern fair in Dulwich and it was the perfect opportunity to try out the main and slave flashes for product photography.

This is the link to the Midcentury fair, there are always some fantastic pieces there and it's well worth a look.

http://www.modernshows.com/docs/shows/midmod/index.html

It took a while to get the lighting to look right, as I said in an earlier post when photographing dripping water, it's very easy to get harsh shadows. These look fine for the moody shots I was going for last time but wouldn't look right for these little guys.

It was a good chance to try out some (nearly) macro photography and the Sigma 24-70 EX DG lens really pulled out the stops for me. I had a bit of a problem at first getting the focus in the right place, but a lot of that was due to me trying to take these pictures while lying across the lounge floor. It's not completely happy wide open but seems to behave very well stopped down to about f4 although, saying that, shots at f2.8 are always usable.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with these photos. It was a really basic set-up, I used a roll of paper table cloth for the backdrop (you can see a bit of texture in the paper at the bottom of the squirrels and pincushions) and a jessops 360AFD flash on the sony alpha 200 to trigger the venerable Wotan SC 18 servo flash.
To soften the light I pointed the on-camera Jessops flash at the wall on one side and the Wotan at the wall and ceiling on the other. A reflector and/or soft box probably would have meant that I had a little more control but the white (and fairly low) ceiling meant that it worked out ok.
The jessops flash was a bit more powerful so I dialled it down a fair bit to match the Wotan's output. It's worked out quite well though and shows of Alys' latest creations very well I think.

In fact, I think it shows that an entry-level Sony Alpha 200 camera with some pretty basic equipment can take some very usable pictures. I'm happy with these and the full-size images (these have been compressed by me and probably by blog spot as well) would look good printed to A3 at least.

I picked up a VERY cheap slave flash a while back, it doesn't have anything really in the way of controls unless you count the "computer" that apparently meters the flash. It's brilliant, an SC 18 Wotan Servo flash, and even came in the original packaging, all for a tenner from Arundel Photographica.

http://www.arundel-photographica.co.uk/

It's a brilliant shop if you've never been and great fun to visit and browse through some really rare and unusual photographic equipment.

The best part of the package is the fact that it was designed as an 'off-camera' flash and has a screw fitting on the bottom to attach to a plate screwed to the bottom of your camera. This fits the standard tripod screw thread so I've stuck it on my gorilla pod tripod where it looks a bit war of the world-ish and fits anywhere where I need a spare flash.

Anyway, I gave it a whirl and decided to photograph water dripping from a tap. It took a little while to get the flash and light levels right, I used an on-camera flash as a trigger for the Wotan because the pop-up flash can't be convinced not to do a pre-flash. The second problem was balancing the light output from the Wotan through a combination of aperture and moving it further away. As far as I can tell the light metering computer on the Wotan doesn't do anything so I left it covered, the instruction manual would have you believe it's an amazing next step in flash technology which is charming, but it doesn't really do a lot.

It was more of an opportunity to play than anything else, but lots of fun and I tried a slow shutter speed of 1/6 s, a narrow aperture of 32 and iso 100 to see if the flash could freeze the action and leave a little bit of blur.

The first few pictures I tried (some earlier pictures of flowers not shown here) had fairly harsh shadows so I bounced the on camera flash (a jessops 360afds) of a nearby white wall and this filled out those shadows quite nicely. I later bounced both flashguns of the ceilings and walls and while a bit soft for these water photos it will be handy for product photography and possible weddings.

This picture shows the benefit of using a slow shutter with flash, you can see the trail from the water drips as well as a couple of frozen drips in mid-air. It took more than a few shots to get the splash as well as the drips but it was a fun experiment and it's good to see a couple of bits of 'water shrapnel' flying away from the splash.

Finally I turned of both flashes to see what a fast shutter speed could do and although the Sony a200 and Sigma 24-70 struggled to find a focus point on the water I liked the result. I've given it a LOT of contrast in photoshop and it's not as sharp as I would like but it's a decent black and white.

Some of these pictures will be appearing soon on my website;

www.edwardbryan.co.uk

After being asked to look after my Niece and Nephew for the night on Friday we were praying for good weather on the Saturday! (please excuse the repeated picture, the small one above displays properly on the RSS feed)

Luckily it didn't disappoint and Chichester pulled out the sun for us for our day out with the kids on Saturday. It was a great opportunity to try taking a few outdoor portraits as well so I was really pleased that we could head of into the West Sussex countryside and visit the Weald and Downland open air Museum.

It's a great place if you haven't visited before, they have a selection of houses and buildings from early medieval times to the mid-nineteenth century and all have been restored faithfully and built into a hamlet/farm you can have a walk around. What's really fantastic is that there are very few roped of areas, you feel able to stroll anywhere and ask any of the volunteers as many stupid questions as you can think of, which is what we did.

This is their website;

http://www.wealddown.co.uk/

With the duck pond, old buildings, horses and fantastic April sunshine, we weren't short on photo opportunities for the day and I could see what the Sony Alpha 200 with the Sigma 24-70 EX DG was capable of.

For an entry level camera, I think the Sony is an excellent camera. The focus seems to be a little off at times, you can see in the picture above that it's not quite sharp on the girl running and I have always have had a bit of a fight with a little front/back focusing. The Sigma 24-70 EX DG was a gigantic improvement over the kit lens in terms of sharpness but I'm hoping an upgrade to the Alpha 700 will help. The next tricky step is convincing my wife that it's essential!

It's almost a compulsion amongst people with cameras, but if an animal stands still long enough, it has a photo taken. I watched it happen to a peacock at a friend's wedding and the poor thing ended up mobbed by men armed with Nikons. Anyway, I like the duck above, the colours are good and it's on it's own having a good pose.

This photo I much prefer, they had chased the poor things around for a bit trying to get them to eat some seeds and I'm not sure this one was hungry at all.

Eventually we found some that were hungry and didn't mind being fussed about with a bit which allowed the children to get a bit closer and me to get a couple of feeding-action shots! A wider aperture might have been a bit nicer to look at but it's sometimes safer to stop down a little, this one was taken at f4.5 and 1/1000.

This chicken was giving me a brilliant death-stare and I felt compelled to take a picture. It also shows why I use RAW, I left the camera on the wrong setting after coming out from inside and it looked very over-exposed. I don't think a jpg would be have usable but a quick tweak in lightroom rescued it. I'm also well aware of what sort of bird it is, so jokes on a postcards please.

Seeing the horse was a very exciting moment, his name was Neville and he was the dustbin lorry for the morning. The children kept asking if they could have a ride either on the horse, or in the trailer. We weren't sure that bouncing around next to bin-bags would have been an experience to remember and I don't think I could have reached to get one on his back. He was a HUGE horse!

I really like the little details they put out in the houses, a wider aperture would have separated the pot from the background better but I still like the photo, it doesn't really look like a museum here.

And finally, a good texture photo. I love these walls and the weathered wood makes a great contrast with the red brick.

Goodwood GRRC Spring Sprint

It was a pretty busy Easter weekend in the end. Lost for things to do on Monday, Alys had a quick look online and we found an event at Goodwood, near Chichester in West Sussex. It was free, which is always a good start, and a motor racing event which is something I've never tried to photograph before.

The event was the GRRC (Goodwood Road Racing Club) Spring Sprint April 5th 2010 and it was an excellent day out. They had a real mix of cars ranging from a 1907 Wolseley-Siddeley Coppa Florio racer to the latest Lotus 2 Eleven. I couldn't find much out about it online except here on this forum;

[http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=511569]

I started of with my Minolta Beercan (70-210) expecting not to be able to get very close to the action but eventually found a spot just after the starting grid where I could stand right behind the tyre wall. This was a lot closer, and at track level so I was able to put the Sigma 24-70 EX DG back on the Sony and get testing the limits of the auto focus on my Sony Alpha 200.

I was trying to get a feeling of movement in the pictures so used a shutter speed of 160-200, set the iso to 100 and stopped the lens down to f11. Even at this setting the background isn't as blurred as I would like but I might have a little play in photoshop later this week and see if I can't do something about that.

Very excitingly I spotted the GT40 and an AC Cobra there along with some classic 80's touring cars and even two Teslas which I wasn't expecting to see.

We were allowed to have a walk around the paddock as well, in fact the whole day was really relaxed and friendly which is credit to the organisers and club members. This allowed me to get up close to the cars and take some more abstract and detailed pictures of them. If i'm honest, I think I was in safer territory taking detailed photos because that's what I tend to do when photographing weddings and I'm a little happier with these. This also means that I need to get myself out to a similar event soon and try to take some more action pictures to develop what I learnt from the GRRC event.

Glorious Goodwood is on the way and there are bound to be a few more motor racing events (including the Festival of Speed and The Revival!) so next time I'll see what I can do with an even slower shutter speed.

Two of the better pictures that suit the size format of my website will go on there;

www.edwardbryan.co.uk

All of the pictures I'm happy with will go on the Edward Bryan Photography Facebook page;

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chichester-United-Kingdom/Edward-Bryan-Photography/109356655759592?ref=ts

Visiting the pigs at Funtington

Well, on a slightly more cheery Easter Sunday we decided to go and photograph the free range pigs in Funtington. I fancied the challenge of photographing something that isn't commonly photogenic.

For such massive animals they were pretty tricky to get close to and the zoom I'm currently using (Tamron 70-300) doesn't like being used fully zoomed out. Even stopped out to f8 it's a bit of a pickle so we had to wait a little while for the bacon factories to get used to us.

It was worth the wait though, with the wind blowing towards us, some of the piglets felt brave enough to come and have a sniff and allowed me to get a few portraits. It's always a bit tricky to get sharp pictures of small animals that like to run everywhere, but we persevered and a few came out quite well. The picture you can see above I'm really happy with, I don't mind the mud behind and the piglet has a great expression.

The symmetry of this one works well, it's bit of a pity that the wire's in the way because I wanted to try and remove any sense that they're on a farm and really try and get a "free range" picture. The photo below shows more of what I was trying for.

This one was a bit of a brave pig and came right up to us, I did have a frantic scramble for my Sigma 24-70 but that scared them of and it took a long time for them all to come back, by which time I'd put the zoom back on... I managed to get this shot of him and his friends playing follow-my-leader through the grass while they wandered up to us which was very considerate of them.

A few even had a bit of a rumble while we were there, I took a fair few pictures of the pigs taking it outside but only a few showed their faces and there really is nothing attractive about a pig's bottom.

Hinton Ampner

On a truly foul Good Friday we decided to visit the house and gardens at Hinton Ampner in Hampshire

The National Trust were very understanding about photography and as long as I hid the flash there was no problem.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-hintonampnergarden

It's a worth while visit, a bit pricey if you're not a National Trust member but very interesting and a good chance to try some low light photography and see what you can do with a wide aperture.

I used the trusty Sigma 24-70 EX DG lens, bought just before Christmas and put the camera to iso 400, above that I start seeing that little bit of shadow noise creeping in. It's the sort of situation where you'd want a really wide prime lens really but the Sigma didn't do badly at all.

The weather cleared up enough to get outside and take some pictures of the grounds, the light wasn't brilliant, April in England though, you can't expect miracles.

I'm pleased with these overall. I enjoy photographing things on an overcast day, it's a challenge and makes you try slightly different settings. Interestingly, I tried shooting a couple of these on 'p' and the camera over-exposed so I went straight back to manual. I'll keep an eye on that methinks.

Getting started

It's been a busy few weeks but I've finally managed to get a website up and running. We'll see if many people stumble across it but in the meantime it's an easy way for people to see what I do.

www.edwardbryan.co.uk

To be honest, it wasn't all that painful to get the website going. The program I used sorted out all the pictures for me, I'm not hugely happy about how some have been cropped but a quick attack in photoshop seemed to sort them out. The layout's good, simple and shows what I do, hopefully!