We wandered to the woods near West Stoke last weekend and had a great time taking a few shots of the wee ones. The old adage about not working with children or animals rang true once or twice but they were (mostly) fantastic and we managed some good shots.

 I didn't take much equipment beyond the camera and a few spare lenses, I really couldn't see the camera staying on a tripod! Some extra light could have helped and I'll think about an wireless flash next time. It'd help fill the shadows a little.

 It's true, actual sun in the uk! We did take a few props such as the balloons and chair etc.

 These two turned out really well :) Just having a few clicks after we thought we'd finished and they turned out to be really nice shots.

 The Sony alpha 77 and tamron 17-50 are turning out to be a solid partnership, I don't think that lens has left the camera in a long time now. Fast autofocus, very reliable and great IQ at all f-stops.

As always, I'm finishing with a personal favourite!

Who'd believe that it's already March! It's been so busy with house moves, Christmas and all sorts going on that the blog's been somewhat neglected. But anyway, here are a few pictures of two lovely (and pretty lively) Labradoodles shot a short while ago.

It was a busy shoot as they were very enthusiastic dogs, but we found a dark bit of curtain to shoot against and lots of doggy treats to distract them. Getting the lighting right was the hard bit as they were so mobile but with the flash on remote and off to the side pointing at the ceiling it worked fairly well.

As always, I was using the Sony Alpha 77 matched with a Tamron 17-50 and it's performed a sterling job, you need a fast and reliable auto-focus with animals and I have to say that it performed very well!

These last few images are my favourites, the lighter wall works really well with the dogs and gives them a great colour.

On a sunny day in August we wandered over to the Arundel Wetland Centre for a day out with some friends and the wee one.  It's a great place with a huge variety of bird life and if you're in to twitching there are some pretty rare species to be found there. 

http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit/arundel/

 This was an accidental shot of a bird (small, enjoyed eating nuts) at a bird feeder.  The light was pretty poor under the trees and as I had the camera on aperture priority it chose a really slow shutter speed.  I normally have the camera on manual but the clouds were moving fast and the light was changing a lot so I popped it on aperture for convenience. The bird feeder's blurred a little but the movement of the bird has really been picked up!

 There were a lot of swans there and clearly used to being fed, we made sure the little one was out of reach while they wandered over.

 The Minolta beercan (70-210) wasn't quite long enough to capture anything too far away so I distracted myself by trying some insect shots.  The autofocus struggled a little here but the depth of field is really tight and we're venturing into macro territory so I'm not surprised.  The Sony A77 has a funky 'focus peaking' function for manual focus though which is brilliant.

 As long as you're fairly quick and the bee/wasp/insect of sorts is content to hang around it can give better results when you use the manual focus than rely on the auto focus.  The focus peaking highlights in red the areas of the image in focus so you can see the focus plane move around the image.  Really handy for these shots.

 I think the last one here is my favourite insect shot.  If you view it large you can see the pollen that's already been picked up.  Click on the picture to view a slideshow.

It's always pretty cute when they follow their mother around, there were a few ducklings and similar (no idea of the species, sorry) and I managed to get close enough to photograph a few.

 I liked this little fellow bobbing around on his own, he looked like he had a plan of action.

It's worth a visit if you're near Arundel, we even saw a watervole having a nibble but they're really shy and he vanished before I could get anything like a decent picture.

After getting a bike fixed I decided to take the camera on a short pedal along Salterns Way..

http://www.conservancy.co.uk/page/cycling/346/

... which is a pleasant and flatish route from Chichester to the Witterings.  It's a decent length at about 18km and ends up on West Wittering beach so perfect for a summer pedal and picnic. (It's where I proposed a few years back :).  It's in no way a demanding ride (I took a road bike on it once) but very pleasant.

Blogger seems to have changed how images are displayed, so if you're keen to see the pictures larger than they are here just click on one and you'll get a nice slide-show to click through.

I didn't get as far as West Wittering on this pedal, it was beginning to get a bit dark by the time I got to Itchenor so that was as far as I went.  

The crows obviously knew what to do when someone pointed a black tubular thing in their direction, I wanted a shot closer to them but they all flew away almost the second I stopped.

 The house boats by the sailing club are always lovely, and I realised that the last time I was here it was hours prior to Milo being born and we were on a medically-advised stroll to ease the contractions.  This trip was a little less tense and I was glad I didn't bump into the petrified biker who offered to help last time.

 It was pretty windy so there were a few people out sailing the clouds scudded past quickly which led to rapidly changing light and what I thought were good conditions to use the Sony A77 with the Tamron 70-300.  I took a Sigma 10-20 with me as well but found that I didn't really use it on this trip.

 I quite like the yellow tint that the camera has given these pictures, I was shooting straight into the sun and I think it upset the auto-white balance.  This is never a problem anyway as I shoot in RAW but when I fixed them to have a more 'natural' colour I found that I preferred the originals.

 I hoped for a dramatic sunset but unfortunately this is as good as it got, clouds obscured the sun shortly after this shot and it clearly wasn't going to happen.  On the upside, I made it back from Itchenor in half an hour. That's nine miles on a mountain bike at an average speed of 18 mph, not shabby!

www.edwardbryan.co.uk

The new alpha 77

Well, an investment was made and a new camera was purchased!! I went for the Sony Alpha 77 in the end after so many good reviews and reports.

http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/sony_a77_review/

It's only been with me for a short while but has been used already for a few practice shots at work and around town. I haven't shot a wedding with it yet, frustratingly it turned up in time for a wedding, but I didn't want to risk using a brand new and untested camera on the day.

It's brilliant to use though and will be out and about in time for the next wedding, above is a quick shot from Priory park in Chichester (in March, where's that sun come from?!). I'm fully used to the EVF (Electronic ViewFinder as opposed to an optical viewfinder) already, and although I wasn't sure at first I'm coming around to it. The image above was shot as a jpeg and I've changed the contrast in photoshop because it was a very hazy, warm day (again, March!!). I would agree with a lot of reviewers that the jpegs are a little over-sharpened out of the camera but I will be shooting in raw anyway for assignments so that won't be an issue.

I've already found it really easy to use, partly because I've come from the Alpha 700 (the successor to the Alpha 77) but mostly because it's very well thought out. It appears to work perfectly with my Sigma 24-70 EX DG and communicates wirelessly with my Metz flash very well. The 'focus peaking' feature is already becoming VERY handy for manual focus and I've surprised myself by enjoying the various creative styles it has, which I normally ignore on a camera :)

In short, watch this space for more photos from this camera!

Gemma and Mourad's wedding

I was asked to photograph Gemma and Mourad's wedding on a sunny (ish!) Saturday at the start of the summer and had a real blast. They had chosen a fantastic venue and made the most of it with a great band, brilliant details, a magnificent buffet and a fantastic mix of friends!

There was a slightly challenging start when it began to rain in a fairly serious fashion just as we all left the registry office but I had taken a white umbrella for the happy couple to use and left the flash on. They turned out as some of my favourite confetti shots in the end!

We couldn't go outside for a little while once back at the venue but it was a chance to use the flash a little creatively, and I'm pretty happy with the above photo. There's an argument for getting another flash at some point but the one light gives a great effect.

We got the gents outside for a "Groom and the boys" photo and i'm pretty fond of this set-up, it works well with the groomsmen.

It cheered up and turned into a really nice evening in the end, this gave us the chance to take a few 'couple' photos around the grounds as well as capturing a few guest photos as they all arrived.

It was good to get out into the grounds and the sun really came out for the evening!

I've been keen to get this photo to work for ages, it's pretty hard when you're pressed for time at a wedding and the ring won't stand up in the book. It's often a copy of the bible however in this case we used a copy of the Q'uran to reflect the groom's religion. With a little bit of careful flash bouncing I managed to create the heart-shaped shadow.

It's great when you spot a bit of detail or a little bit of the venue that photographs well and this shot of the bride's shoes on the window sill worked well.

There was a pause between the ceremony and the reception so Gemma was able to take a bit of time to get ready again (it also gave me a chance to photograph details and make-up!).

The reception was great fun and everyone there made me really feel as though I was one of the guests, the band especially was brilliant. Which gave me a chance to play with the iso and have a go at some low-light photography.

It really was a great wedding and I had a brilliant day!

A short trip to Pagham

On a sunny day in June, a friend and I went for a short walk around Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve, mostly to photograph some wildlife around the area but also to give her new lens it's first walk in the country. (a Canon 100-400 L which is VERY nice http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-100-400mm-f-4.5-5.6-L-IS-USM-Lens-Review.aspx)

It was also a chance for me to have a go at using my relatively new Sigma 10-20 EX (http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/sigma_10-20_4-5p6_n15/), I've been very keen to properly get to grips with this lens for a while since buying it and this felt like a great chance to have a good play.

The weather was amazing, but I found it difficult to take landscape photos that I was genuinely happy with. I think the cloudless sky took some of the drama out of the photos so I kept swapping lens over and using the Tamron 70-300 Di (http://www.photozone.de/pentax/281-tamron-af-70-300mm-f4-56-ld-di-macro-pentax-k-review--lab-test-report) which clearly isn't a patch on the Canon glass but copes well enough on such a bright day.

The advantage of such bright sun can be seen above, the swan's paddling around in some fairly murky estuary water which manages to look inviting here. The sea was a fantastic colour and remarkably clear, especially when we wandered further round the coast and away from the muddy bits. The tide was coming as well which must help.

I was surprised by the photo above, I took a few photos of this bird (which is NOT a Reed Bunting but er, something else) and most of them were pretty soft and not great. This one came out fairly in focus and although it wouldn't crop in any further it surprised me that the lens managed to get as sharp as it did.

Obviously this photo doesn't come under the definition of 'wildlife' but after taking some photos of pigs a while back (http://edwardbryanphotography.blogspot.com/2010/04/visiting-pigs-at-funtington.html) I think that taking the odd photo of livestock is just fine. I'm quite happy with it as well, the zoom isn't a bad portrait lens when all's said and done.

The Sigma 10-20 did get an outing during the afternoon for the photo above, I thought the rotten lumps of wood were interesting and the water's a great colour. With a little more going on in the sky this picture would certainly have more interest but it's a lens that I need to keep working with to get the best out of. Viewed big, it's not a bad picture.

It's a nice touch that the Tamron has a macro setting and I thought that the dandelion would make an interesting (if not that unusual!) subject. It's come out pretty well, although a specialist macro lens would be a little sharper.

One from the archives here and these photos were taken on a walk around Chichester, it was a bit of a dull day but definitely felt a bit more like spring so I thought I'd have a go at getting some pictures of spring on it's way.

Always keen to try out the macro settings on the Sigma 24-70 EX DG it seemed like a good chance to get up close and personal with the moss and try and get some of the different colours and textures it has. There's a little bit of post-processing in lightroom going on there, I've boosted the vibrance because it was a bit of a grey day and turned up the yellow and green a teeny bit to give it a little bit more colour.

This one represents a bit of a crazy moment seeing how far I can go making a black and white image, it's a bit too saturated and the contrast slider's pretty much gone to 11 but it started out as a so-so picture of a leaf so at least it's got a bit more interest now.

This picture was more about the out of focus areas than the railings themselves, I wanted the spring colours to pop out a bit from the blurred areas. As above, I've boosted the yellows and greens and upped the vibrance a little to enhance the colours. Next time, I could find a bit more interest on another railing, maybe a sign, or bit of different coloured moss to give the picture a bit more drama.

These flowers were just starting to peek through, a little bit of tweaking in lightroom has made the flower heads glow a little, I could have added a bit of diffuse glow but that sometimes looks a little bit Disney for me.