Lake District Photography Itinerary: The Best 3-Day Trip for Stunning Shots

Visits to The Lake District are often far more fleeting than you might want them to be, especially given that a lot of us are working full time and stays often last just a few days. I’ve been living here and photographing the eternal beauty of this place for over two years now and have used some of this time and the benefit of my experience to create a 3 day photography itinerary for this incredible part of the world, so that you can grab some social media worthy shots whilst exploring the dramatic landscape this place lays out right in front of us at every single turn.

I’ve worked this into a three day itinerary, but it doesn’t need to be done over the course of three consecutive days. You might want to cram all of these into one trip, but could just as easily spread these out over the course of a week, or over several visits, the choice is yours!

What I have tried to do here is to combine some easy what I like to call “walk up shots” where you can park up and walk the shortest of distances to the car, with some longer walks and more interesting terrain.

As with many of these blogs, it’s essential I give you some of the key safety information, especially if you’re travelling alone. Always make sure someone knows where you are, where you are going what time you expect to be back. Mobile phone and battery pack should be charged before you set off, your head torch should be charged and packed even if you think you might not need it - especially if you’re cutting it fine to get back before nightfall and if you’re out in the hills, you must have your map and compass with you. Appropriate footwear, clothing and enough water are also a must. If you’re trying to plan and you’re not sure where to start, my blog about Must Have Apps for Photographers will come in handy!

So what about the photos? What about the locations and what about the subjects? I’ve laid this out in 3 days below, do them in any order you like, do them in one weekend or one week or spread them out over the course of a few weeks or even across the year, the choice is yours.

Day One - Angles and Structure

Sunsrise: Derwentwater.

One of the smaller major lakes in the The Laker District, it’s in the northern part of the National Park and is really close to Keswick. Derwentwater is over looked by Catbnells and Skiddaw, and at just over 3 miles long, it provides homes to kingfishers and otters as well ospreys over the summer before they head south to overwinter.If you head into the surrounding woodlands, there’s a good chance of seeing a red squirrel or two. Sci-fi fans may recognise parts of the landscape from Start Wars - the scenes on Takodana were filmed at Derwentwater.

<— LEFT: The view from Surprise View, Keswick.

There are plenty of photo opportunities dotted around the lake, but head to The Theatre by The Lake for sunrise. From here you can shoot back towards Catbells. This is a popular spot amongst photographers shooting the sunrise, so get here early to secure a good spot! Head to Crow Park for this one, what3words //////driveways.trails.teachers will get you in the rough area, you’ll just need to fine tune a little bit when you arrive.

When you’ve captured your sunrise shot, there will be a bit of time to explore Kewsick, plenty of good places to eat and relax here, as well some great outdoor shops if that’s your thing. If you are looking for a spot for lunch, then The Round is fantastic - amazing burgers and cocktails (if you like them!), but you can’t book and just have to turn up - good luck!

During the Day: Around Keswick and Derwentwater.

Suitably refreshed, the next stop on your itinerary is Ashness Bridge (what3words ///nation.custard.reinvest), a short drive from where you were for sunrise. This is an iconic Lake District Location and is one of the most photographed packhorse bridges in the entire national park. These were built for horses carrying heavy loads to enable them to cross the water.

You might want your ND filters for this location, it looks great with some motion captured in the water, especially if the water levels are good following the rain (we get a lot of that up here)!

Once you’ve visited here, you should head up the road to Surprise View (what3words ///heartened.coconut.cork. - this will get you to the National Trust Car Park, the viewpoint is a 30 second walk from here) This is an incredible location over looking Derwentwater, with Bassenthwaite lake in the distance. The views over the Borrowdale are amazing, and were popular with the Victorians and the Romantic Poets. Take care, there isn’t a safety rail, but there is a huge steep drop.

Sunset: Friar’s Crag.

Once you’re done at Surprise View, you can start to think abuout sunset and I am recommending Friar’s Crag for this. You can find the location at ///itself.surcharge.truck. We’re headed back to The Theatre by The Lake for the start of this one, walk past with the theatre on your left, keep the lake on you right and head towards the end of the tarmacced road, when the tarmac runs out, follow the track until you reach the bench at the end and hopefully you’ll be rewarded with some amazing golden hour light as the sunsets and you look across the lake towards Catbells.

Top tips for day one:

Pack your ND filters to help manipulate your exposure times, especially at Ashness Bridge and make sure you have your polarisers to deal with the reflections coming off the water. You’re probably going to want a tripod and I’d recommend both a wide angle and a zoom lens so that you can experiment with as many compositions as you want.

Day 2 - Mountains and Panoramas.

Sunrise - Buttermere.

We’re heading southwest from day ones adventures and to the Beautiful Buttermere. There’s a bit more walking involved today, as the parking isn’t quite as handy, but the views are well and truly worth it. You’ll also need to cross your fingers for a calm morning. Buttermere on a still morning is renowned for its mirror-like reflections, which are a photographers dream.

Park at the National Trust Car Park (///promises.parsnips.smoker), and then it’s a bit of a walk down to the lakeshore. This should take you about fifteen minutes, some of which is on the road with limited footpaths so dress accordingly and make sure you can be seen.

Once you’re by the lake shore, the walk is very easy and nice and flat, if a little boggy underfoot at times. Head for the lone pine tree for a classic Lake District Composition with Fleetwith Pike in the Background. If you’re there in Spring/Summer then head for the bluebells for an extra pop of colour.

You’re surrounded by mountains at this location, with Haystacks, Fleetwith Pike, and High Stile all beautifully reflected in the water.

Once you’re by the lake shore, the walk is very easy and nice and flat, if a little boggy underfoot at times. Head for the lone pine tree for a classic Lake District Composition with Fleetwith Pike in the Background. If you’re there in Spring/Summer then head for the bluebells for an extra pop of colour.

Buttermere in the depths of Winter —>

You’re surrounded by mountains at this location, with Haystacks, Fleetwith Pike, and High Stile all beautifully reflected in the water.

Once you’re done with your sunrise shoot, circular walk around the lake is a lovely one to get under your belt before heading into the village for a cup of tea, or something stronger if that’s your thing (and you’re not driving!) and something to eat before you move on.

Daytime - Honister Pass.

A word of warning, that if you’re not a confident driver then this might not be for you. Some of the roads are very steep, very narrow and very windy. Pay attention to the weather forecast, if it’s snowy or particularly consider whether or not you actually need to drive along it - opportunities to take photos will be there tomorrow, make sure you are too! Take your time, drive within your limits and make sure you’re looking well ahead of you.

Now that the serious stuff is out of the way, this is a great road to take photos on - there are sweeping views across the Lake District Fells and valleys, and you can also spend some time at the Honister Slate Mine, learning about the rich history of slate mining in the area.

Having your long lens in this area is going to help you get some great compression and layers into your shots. There are places to stop and get out to shoot/walk to find compositions, but be considerate of other road users, your own safety and especially considerate of the farmers who work their sheep in these hills - don’t block their gates or the entrances.

You’ll see plenty of small, picturesque waterfalls as you drive along this picturesque mountain pass, if you’re stopping to take pictures then the above rules still apply.

Herdwick sheep roam freely in this area and they make great subjects, but they aren’t renowned for their knowledge of the green cross code, so make sure you’ve got your wits about you!

Sunset - Wastwater

England’s deepest lake, with an average depth of around 80 metres. It’s bordered by Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain )at its northeastern end), but parts of the lake are below sea level - it’s got both extremes all in one beautiful location. The view is so beautiful that it won a public vote in 2007 to be named as Britain’s Best View.

You’re going to want to follow the road along the western shore of the lake, where you can scout for compositions. Favourites look towards the north with Scafell Pike looming large in the background, Great Gable being frame across the lake and the screes on the steep slopes, which have been formed by millions of years of geological activity.

You’ll usually find Wast Water much quieter than spots like Windermere and Derwentwater owing to its much more remote location.

Top tips for day two:

Check the weather to see if you’re in luck with a calm day at Buttermere, if not, pack your ND filters to try and smooth out some of that water and to get some movement in any clouds. Pack some variation in your lenses - wide angles to capture some stunning pano’s and dramatic shots and then something longer to get some compression in layers in the shots along Honister Pass.

I’d rely recommend doing the circular walk around Buttermere. The views are incredible and that walk is a great way to find more compositions and work up and appetite for some cake in the village!

Day Three

Morning - Rydal Water and Rydal Cave

Park in the village and follow the signs! The path to Rydal Cave is well way marked and provides great views over Grasmere, Rydal Water and Grasmere village.

This is not natural cave, but was made by quarrying in during the 19 Century and were part of the Loughrigg Fell Slate Quarry, which provided stone for building.

Inside the cave you’ll find a cathedral like structure which provides a home for bats, the water in the pool makes an idea home for frogs and newts if that’s your kind of thing.

The water inside the cave can be crossed by stepping stones, which create a great leading line, but if you want to shoot this, go off season or when you can see it isn’t busy. This cave is not a hidden gem, and as such it does get very busy, especially during peak tourist season.

Looking out of the cave, lots of the surrounding vistas can be framed in an almost window-like composition, using the cave entrance as a natural frame.

Once you’re done here, I would recommend heading down into Grasmere village and getting in the queue for gingerbread - I can almost guarantee it’s the best gingerbread you have ever tasted, all served by people in traditional costume!

Daytime - Tarn Hows

Once you’ve filled up on Gingerbread, hop in the car for a drive of around 20 minutes to Tarn Hows. The closest car park is at National Trust Tarn Hows. Free parking here if you’re a national trust member. There’s a lovely circular walk here and it looks amazing during the autumn. It’s about 1.5 hour walk around the water with compositions aplenty and some great reflections if you catch it in the right weather.

Once you’re done here, you can head back into Grasmere or can choose something different and head to Ullswater.

Sunset - Choose from Grasmere or Ullswater

Time to catch that final golden hour! Your choice here is between a 30 minute drive back to Grasmere or you can opt for a longer drive (around an hour) up to Ullswater at Pooley Bridge. My preference here is for Pooley Bridge, especially if you’re leaving the area to go home as it’s much close to the M6 and to the Rheghed Centre, where there is a place which sells the most incredible ice cream (the rhubarb and custard is my favourite, or if you’re feeling adventurous, how about brown bread and lemon curd?!).

The sunsets at Ullswater are incredible if the conditions are favourable, and stopping in Pooley Bridge puts you in amongst a lot of amenities, including pubs and restaurants as well as small number of other shops.

The famous composition here is The Duke of Portland’s Boathouse, it looks great in the golden hour light, but the views across the Far Eastern Fells (including Arthur’s Pike, Bonscale Pike, Loadpot Hill, Hallin Fell, and Place Fell) are fantastic and the people using the lake for paddle-boarding, swimming, boating etc. can provide a real sense of scale and drama in your images.

Once you’re finished shooting, I would say that after today, you have definitely earned a spot in one of the local hostelries (you’ll need this if it’s winter as it gets really cold!) and a bite to eat before you head home for the day.

<— Paddle-boarding at last light, Ullswater; this image is available to buy as a print in my shop

Final Words:

So there you have it, a 3 day photography itinerary for the Lake District, which you can complete all in one go, or split across several days or visit to The Lake District. I have listed some of my favourites in here, so I hope you have found this useful and that you enjoy making images in this incredible landscape just as much as I do.

Best Places for Sunrise and Sunset Photography in the Lake District - Updated for 2025 with map!

The Lake District wears light like nowhere else. At dawn, soft mists drift across valleys and still waters mirror pastel skies. By evening, the fells glow with the last fire of the day, their silhouettes falling into shadow.

Whether you’re planning a full day of shooting or just chasing that golden hour, here’s a guide to some of the best sunrise and sunset spots across the Lakes — grouped by region so you can plan your route.

I have also included a map at the very bottom of the page to help with route planning as well as a downloadable sunrise and sunset compass. The pins on the map will get you to an approximate location for each of the shots I have listed, but you will have to scout for the absolute best location for your shot depending on the local weather conditions and the time of the year.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of places to see the sunrise and sunset in The Lake District, there are hundreds, if not thousands of places you can seen these awesome feats of nature, these are just of my favourites, which are also some of the most easily accesible.

Sunrise Photography Locations

North – Keswick & Surrounds

• Latrigg – Wide views over Derwentwater and Borrowdale, often with morning mist.

• Castlerigg Stone Circle – Prehistoric stones silhouetted against pink skies over Blencathra.

• Friars Crag & Crow Park – Gentle lake scenes glowing with early light.

• Catbells Ridge – Sunrise washing the ridge with warm colour.

• Bassenthwaite Viewpoint – The sun edging around Ullock Pike, lighting the water below.

West – Buttermere, Crummock & Wasdale

• Buttermere (SE shore) – Reflections of Fleetwith Pike and Haystacks at first light.

• The Pines at Buttermere – An iconic dawn composition.

• Wast Water – Morning light catching the Screes in dramatic style.

Central – Langdale, Grasmere & Rydal

• Blea Tarn – A still tarn reflecting the Langdale Pikes in the soft morning glow.

• Loughrigg Fell – Overlooks Grasmere and Rydal with sweeping sunrise views.

• Rydal Water – Misty, atmospheric mornings.

• Elterwater & River Brathay – Meandering water leading the eye to the Pikes.

East – Ullswater & Helvellyn

• Ullswater (Glencoyne Bay) – Calm waters and pastel skies at dawn.

• Gowbarrow Fell – An accessible fell for broad sunrise panoramas.

• Helvellyn – Striking drama over Red Tarn and Striding Edge at daybreak.

South – Windermere & Coniston

• Orrest Head – A gentle climb with a classic view of Windermere at first light.

• Helsington Viewpoint – Sweeping southern panoramas at sunrise.

• Coniston Water (north end) – Morning sun spilling across the lake.

Sunset Photography Locations

North – Keswick & Surrounds

Surprise View & Ashness Jetty – Derwentwater glowing in evening light.

• Catbells – Looking west into the warm dusk sky.

• Bassenthwaite Viewpoint – Last light over Ullock Pike.

West – Buttermere & Wasdale

Buttermere (Gatesgarth side) – Evening alpenglow on Fleetwith Pike.

• Wast Water – Great Gable and the Scafells framed in fiery dusk light.

Central – Langdale, Grasmere & Rydal

• Blea Tarn – Sunset behind the Langdales, dramatic reflections and silhouettes.

• Rydal Water – Warm reflections as the day fades.

East – Ullswater & Helvellyn

• Pooley Bridge – Sunset stretching along Ullswater’s length.

• Helvellyn – High-level colour falling over Red Tarn at dusk.

South – Windermere & Coniston

• Gummer’s How – Big, open views down Windermere at sunset.

• Tarn Hows – Still waters glowing with evening light.

• Helsington Viewpoint – Wide skies as the sun dips towards Whitbarrow.

This map shows the locations which have been discussed in this blog. The locations are approximate, but will get you in the right area. Red pins represent sunrise and the blue ones represent sunset

Planning Tips for Photographers

• Keswick Sunrise Loop – Latrigg, Castlerigg, and Friars Crag make an easy trio for first light.

• Orientation Matters – East-facing tarns (like Blea Tarn or Ullswater) reward early risers, while west-facing valleys (Buttermere, Wast Water) shine at sunset.

• Quick Wins – If time is short, Surprise View or Ashness Jetty are drive-up classics for the evening.

Downloadable/Printable Sunrise and Sunset Compass.

This is only approximate guide to help you on location. To use it, orient the “compass” north/south and you will be able to see roughly where you can expect to see sunrise/sunset at your location. There will be some variation depending on the time of the month/year that you are using the compass and it is more accurate the closer you are to the central Lake District.

If you’re struggling to download the file, then you can right click and “download linked file” or whatever your chosen browser’s version of this is and this should enable you to download the file to a location of your choosing.

For accurate information about sunrise and sunset, you should consider using some of the apps in my essential apps for photographers blog.

Want more guides like this? Join my mailing list for photography tips, behind-the-scenes shoots, and exclusive print releases straight to your inbox. You’d also make my day if you could head over to Instagram and drop me a follow!

Must Have Apps for All Landscape Photographers

I have a lot of apps on my phone. Most people would probably say that I have too many, but one thing I have found is that many of them benefit my photography in some way or another.

As a landscape photographer in The Lake District, I am constantly using these apps to plan my shoots, to know what ungodly hour I need to set my alarms for (or how late I am going to have to stay up at night), see whereabouts the RAF and USAF are flying their jets and try and second guess if they will be coming through LFA17 where I can photograph them, decide whether I need to take a waterproof jacket or whether I need to make sure I have a hot drink available.

This isn’t intended to be a comprehensive guide to each of these apps, but just a quick overview of what it does and why it deserves a place taking up memory on my phone.

Let’s go!

Photopills

This is probably one of my most used apps, not just during the planning phase of my shoots, but also when I am out in the field.

Photopills is one heck of a useful app, and I think it is a must if you are taking your landscape photography seriously. It is loaded with a whole host of great features and these can do things such as calculate exposure times (really useful if you’re using ND filters to try and extend your shutter speeds), it will help you to calculate minimum focussing distance or hyperfocal distances and will help you to work out angles of view based on a number of variables.

The tools I use in here most however, are the planning tool and the map. These are really useful to identify places to go and shoot, especially if you are looking to shoot sunrise or sunset. These sections of the app allow you to see where the sun will rise, the arc it will travel through and where it will set. You can change the dates to see where it will be at a certain time in the future and then use this to help you plan. It also has a display that will show you where the Milky Way and the galactic core will rise and set, so if astro photography is your thing, this is a vital tool to help you to plan.

Another really useful section of this app is the “Sun” section, and this gives you at a glance information about when golden hour and blue are, as well as sunrise and sunset times for your location. I’ve included a screen shot of this to the left.

You can see the the yellow line for sunset, the orange line for sunrise and the path of the sun illustrated by the dotted, curved line. You can scrub through the time line at the bottom to get super accurate locations for the sun at any given point of the day.

This is a paid app (£10.99 one off purchase), but in my opinion, it’s worth every penny!

Lightroom Mobile

This offering from Adobe just keeps improving and it’s becoming quite the powerhouse. It makes editing on your phone much easier, clearer and quicker with each update. A lot of the things you are able to achieve in Lightoom on your computer can now be achieved just as easily in your phone. I have used this on phones with a variety of screen sizes, and must concede that the process of editing on your images is much better and much more accessible if you’re using the app on your phone. I have a Pro-Mac version of my current iPhone and this is about as small a screen as I would really like to use this app on.

Photoshop

This is another entry for Adobe into the list and again, it’s one that just keeps improving and getting more powerful. Whilst it is a great app, I don’t find it useful for doing things like drawing complicated masks or cutting out things with the pen tool. That said, if you want to use it to throw overlays on your images, or want to apply something like a gradient or just use the AI masks like sky and object selection then it’s nice to be able to do it on the go, but I must admit, I tend to break out the iPad and Apple Pencil to carry out anything that needs some finer detail applying as doing it on a phone is a bit too fiddly.

This a quick screen recording of photoshop mobile on an iPhone 14 Pro Max so you can have a quick look at some of the interface (no sound).

Weather Apps

I am going to lump these all into one section and will compile a list so you can see which ones I use. I don’t use all of them all of the time, but there a some which offer different bits of information that the others don’t. Even if you look at the same time on the same day on three different apps, they all might say slightly different things depending on where they get their information and how they put all of this together to display to you.

I used to really favour an app called “Dark Skies” as this adjusted what it was saying based on information it received from weather agencies as well as live user information about current conditions. Unfortunately, this app no longer exists as it was bought by Apple a number of years ago and much of the tech now appears within the Apple Weather app.

I’m based in the UK and we do love to talk about the weather, this I think is, in part, due to how changeable and unpredictable it can be!

Some of the weather apps I am currently using are: BBC Weather, Apple Weather, Clear Outside (really useful as it tells me the dew point), Ventusky, The Met Office App (this is the the largest weather agency in the UK and is where the BBC gets its weather data from) and I have also recently installed Weather and Radar, which I am really enjoying using as it has some great, clear radar information which you can play through to check things like rain patterns and where cloud cover is going to appear, and when it will get there. I have found this to be really useful.

You can see a screenshot of ‘Clear Outside’ on the right.

Although it’s not an app per se, I do have a shortcut to the Mountain Weather Forecast. Landscape photography in the Lake District could potentially be dangerous if you don’t check this app and you’re heading out climbing Wainwrights! The weather at ground level could be incredibly different when you’re high up in the hills and I would always recommend checking this out before you go out walking, especially in the fells. You can see from the screen shot on the left, even in the summer (this was taken on 17/8/2025) there is a 10mph difference in windspeed between the valley and then at 900m, so imagine what the difference can be be like when the bad weather has set in for the winter.

If you’re out doing landscape photography in the Lake District in the winter months, then you should also be checking the fell top assessor’s reports. These are compiled by experienced mountaineers, who climb to the top of Helvellyn every day, so that we can have accurate information about the state of the fell tops. You can see their reports by clicking here.

Space weather alert is another one I use, but more just to notify me about any solar flares or any other solar activity which may lead to the Northern Lights being visible near to wherever on the Earth I am. I don’t solely rely on this, but it triggers me to check some other sources. I am very lucky where I live to be part of a Facebook group which is run by some very knowledgable chaps who have achieved a level of ‘nerd’ that I can only aspire to and who are incredibly good at interpreting solar information from a number of sources.They use this to create clear and concise information if they suspect that there is a good chance you’ll be able to photograph the aurora, if you’re lucky enough to have clear skies!

Finally, if you’re a coastal photographer and like to get down onto the beach, then you should definitely have a tide times app for your locale on your phone and if you’re out in the same place regularly then you should buy a copy of the official tide times for that area, you can get these from most fishing shops or newsagents in places that are near the sea, and a lot of places will have them posted on noticeboards near to locations as you walk to access them. You don’t want to get caught out and be cut off by the tide, especially if it’s a fast moving one such as the one at Morecambe Bay or the Severn Estuary, and then need to be rescued. Be safe out there, you’re much more use as an alive photographer with no photos than what could be the very worst outcome.

And on that note, let’s move on.

Peak Finder

This is one of my favourite apps; it’s an augmented reality type app which helps you to identify which hills, fells, mountains, Munroes, Wainwrights etc. are laid out in front of you. All you do is install the app, and then when you’re on location, open the app, point your rear camera at what you’re looking at and it will scan the scene and label all of the major, named peaks in front of you.

I have found this really useful, particularly with some of the less well known fells and it’s helpful when I am writing engaging captions for my Instagram posts.

You can grab a screenshot of what you’re seeing on the app and save this for later when you’re editing and curating your social media captions.

Sky View

This is essentially the same process as Peak Finder, but this time you are identifying things in the night sky. Probably especially useful for astrophotographers, but my interest here is purely as a hobbyist. I do find it fascinating to see all of the satellites as well as the planets, the moon phase and the space station. Point it at the sky and watch the app label everything that you’re looking at, and follow the arrows/lines to see new things that are in view above the horizon.

Nisi Filters App

I see this as a little bit like “PhotoPills light”, it purely exists to help you to calculate exposure times when you’re using ND or VND filters. Just plug in the the correct information and hey presto! Your exposure time will be calculated right in front of you - not necessarily ground-breaking, but great for quick and easy to input/read information to help you to nail your exposures.

Unsqrd

Unsquared is an app which I have found particularly useful given Instragam has so much hype about how its algorithm is working at the moment. What this app does (at least what I primarily use it for), is take panoramic photos and divide them up for you, into Instagram-friendly formatted images that are constrained to Instagram’s square crop ratio. This allows you to create a seamless carousel style post which will allow your followers to enjoy your image (almost) as you intended.

However, this does mean that you will be posting the image as a carousel style post if you’re sharing it on Instagram. According to most of the information I am seeing online, carousels are a great way for you to leverage the algorithm in your favour as it means that people will spend longer on your post. Instagram themselves have said that they will be updating their insights panels soon too, this will give you a better understanding of how people are interacting with each of the images that you are sharing as part of this carousel.

Flight Tracking Apps

I have the Flight Radar 24 app installed on my phone, but find myself increasingly reaching for ADSB exchange. I am lucky enough to live in a part of the world where the RAF and USAF do a lot of low level flight training, and even luckier to live somewhere that regularly sees planes flying low right by my house.

Having access to the information which allows me to see where and what these aircraft are (usually Typhoons, F15s and F35s, Hawks, Texans, and less frequently the huge cargo style planes such as the C17 Globemaster and if I’m really luck, The Red Arrows).

I haven’t taken any aviation shots that I am happy enough with to share yet - I still need more practice, but having this information at my fingertips lets me know when I might get a lucky shot if I can get out in to the garden to shoot.

ADSB exchange has become my most frequently used app of this type in the last 3 or 4 months as it has easy to set and remove filter options which makes the military planes easier for me to predict.

The screenshot on the right is from adsbexchange.com. Clicking the ‘U’ button at the top filters out everything bar military flights and then clicking the aircraft icon for a particular flight opens up the panel in the bottom left corner which tells me exactly which plane I am looking at and gives me some more information. Bear in mind that this is the military so not every single flight they have going on is going to display in this app!

I’d also recommend checking social media for groups that are local to where you live or where you shoot as you can get up to date information from aviation photographers who are often at airbases watching them take off and scanning the frequencies to see where the pilots are headed based on their radio conversations!

Blackmagic Cam

This is my go to for when I need to record video and I want some more control than my camera app gives me. It does a lot of stuff that the iPhone camera app does, but the controls are much more easily accessible when you’re shooting with this app, so you can change shutter speeds to match what you’re doing, or to try something more creative.

This app also allows you to add codecs to your video and includes HEVC, (H.265), H.264, all of the standard Apple Pro Res codecs, all with bit rates up to 54MBPS.

You also get a choice of colour spaces - rec.709, rec.2020-HDR and P3 D65.

I think the thing I like most about this is that all of the controls are on the screen, along with a clear histogram and an audio level so that you can make sure that you’re audible but not clipping.

Using this app when shooting on a gimbal, for me, makes my life a bit easier by virtue of the fact that I am able to access the settings quickly, to get the exposure and the effect I am looking for.

I don’t shoot a ton of video, (I should do more), but having something which is this easy to use makes it much more straightforward for me when I do.

There might be better apps out there, but this is one that suits me and that’s why it gets to stay on my phone. It is also a Blackmagic app, so the integration of the files with DaVinci resolve is seamless, making the editing a bit of a dream.

It doesn’t shoot a true log profile, check out Filmic Pro if you want something that gets close to that, but this does come at a cost of £9.99 a week or about £30 for a full year’s subscription.

So there you have it…

These are some of the apps I have on my phone that I use in my day-to-day when doing landscape photography in the Lake District (and beyond!). Some of them get a lot more use than others, but they are all a vital part of my workflow. The important thing with these apps is to find what works for you, we all have different preferences and ideas about what we want to get out of our apps, and we all use them in slightly different ways. The apps I have written about are what work for me, you’ll need to find what works for you!

All of the apps I have talked about here are installed and up to date on an iPhone Pro Max on 17/08/2025.

If you’re heading to the Lake District and want to test out PhotoPills at sunrise or sunset, then be sure to check my blog on where to shoot sunrise and sunset in The Lake District.

Things in my landscape photography bag that just make sense.

Welcome to another blog, which I think might end up being uncharacteristically short, but I want to talk about some of the things that are not strictly related to photography but (I think!) make sense.

This isn’t going to be a huge entry, it isn’t a massive list, but there are some things on here that I think are quite important to have with you, some of it straight forward, some of it a bit unusual, but I hope that its all helpful. Let’s jump in.

1) Head Torch

This is a vital piece of kit for shooting sunrise and sunsets, generally, it’s either dark when you get there or getting dark when you leave and you need this to be able to find your way back to the car.

It’s important that you know where it is, that it is bright, comfortable and is always fully charged or has some decent batteries in it - the torch on your phone ins’t going to do the job! The one I have is the Victoper Head Torch, which I got on Amazon. It has great battery life, charges quickly via USB and it’s bright enough that anyone walking towards you is going to think they’re heading towards a BMW. It also has a red light mode, which is great for all of the astro shooters amongst you. You can check it out by clicking this link.

2. Disposable Shower Caps.

Yes, you read that correctly, disposable shower caps. I always keep a stack of these in one of the pockets of my bag, and I have a bulk supply of them in the studio to replinish the ones I use. Why though? Quite simply, because they make great, cheap and lightweight rain covers for your camera. They slide over the top and across the back, the touchscreen still works and you can still work all of the buttons and see what you’re doing. These aren’t going to weather seal your camera, but they are great in a pinch when you caught in a brief shower but still need to get the shot. I got mine from Amazon, and there’s a hundred in the pack for less than a fiver!

3. Small Rig Camera Tool

Small but mighty is how I would describe this. It’s got all of the common attachments to do any of the jobs you might need to do to your camera/tripod/other when you’re out in the field. It’s great for tightening up L-Brackets, Arca Swiss plates, tripods… the list goes on. I like its versatility, small form factor and light weight. Definitely something you should pick up. You can get them here on Amazon.

4. Battery Packs

I have two of these, and they are both made by Belkin. I got them on a whim from Costco during a visit there as the price was too good for me to miss out on. There are two different sizes, one is 10k mAh and the other is 20k mAh. They are fairly lightweight and so far, they have proven to be rugged - I have dropped them more times that I can remember and they are still going strong. If I had one complaint about them, it’s that they take a long time to fully charge but if you leave them overnight, they are usually full by the morning. Having two sizes is good, as if I’m going somewhere overnight and won’t have access to power then I can take the larger one, saving the smaller one for shorter trips. I can’t find a link to the exact ones I have, but you can get a twin pack of the 20k ones by clicking here and heading to Amazon.

5. Pen/Sharpie/Notebook

I actually carry a pen and a notebook most of the time, so this one feels like a little bit of a cop-out, but suffice to say, these items always come with me on shoots.

Thank Peter McKinnon for this one, his use of journalling and carrying a notebook is a habit I have developed following his video about it.

I use a small field notes book, which I keep tidy in a leather sleeve, both of which came from Amazon. They’re handy to have with you when inspiration strikes and you need to make a quick note so you don’t forget that incredible idea that you’ve had. I also use mine for shots lists and general reminders as well. I use Pilot pens to write in them and I keep one of these with the notebook.

I like to have a sharpie with me, not entirely sure why, but the amount of times it’s come in handy is untold, and so it remains a part of the contents of my bag.

6. Cables

This could be an endless list, but generally I will have a USB cable, a USB C cable, a charging cable for an iPhone and probably a spare phone charging cable, just incase (those things never seem to be able to take much of a beating). These aren’t the most exciting things, but they are always useful, especially on longer walks/trips when it’s great to be able to charge things up when you’re taking a break or getting in your sleeping bag for the night.

7. Water Bottle

Probably an obvious one, but you should always have some water with you, especially if you’re going on a longer hike and if you’re not carrying a load of water then maybe some water purification tablets as well. We’re not short of flowing water in the Lake District, but you shouldn’t just be drinking it straight from the source! I like this Nalgene one as it's tough and fits neatly in the pouch on the side of my bag.

8. OS Map + Compass

This one is dependent on where I am going, and what I am doing. If I’m heading to the local nature reserve in the fog and walking around the nice safe, way-marked boardwalk, which is about a mile long, I’m not taking the map and compass. If I’m going out in the fells then these two things are definitely coming with me. I like the Ordnance Survey ‘Landranger’ series for walking, and I buy the waterproof ones, they’re a bit more pricey, but by the time you’ve ruined three maps in the rain, it makes them a sensible investment.

Please don’t just rely on the OS app and/or Google maps to get you home. You can’t guarantee your signal and you also can’t guarantee your phone won’t die. Always have a map with you.

For compasses, I have the Silva Ranger Compass, it’s well made and easy to read/use.

9. Toss Up! Game

This one is a bit of a left field choice, but sometimes, there is a lot of waiting around and if you have someone with you, or you’re out for the night then this can be a good way to pass some of the time, especially if you’re not out with another photographer who doesn’t enjoy your photography chat! It took me a long time to get hold of my copy of Toss Up!, but it was worth the wait, it’s fun, small, light and gets oddly competitve for a dice game. If you can’t get your hands on a copy of Toss Up! then a pack of cards is just as good but weighs about the same!

10. Money!

Fairly straightforward this one, but I always have my card with me, but also cash to around the value of £20. This can be handy for any number of things, but some places don’t accept cards and it’s also nice to support small businesses by paying with cash too! Just don’t blow it all at the start of your walk, you never know when you might need it!

Having cash hasn’t saved my life yet, but it has furnished me with numerous coffees and ice creams when I have ‘needed’ them!

Stock Image credits: Night sky head torch: @cikstefan (unsplash.com), sharpie: @charlesdeluvio (unsplash.com), map and compass: @henrikmorkel (unsplash.com)

Gear Review: Canon EF 16-35mm F/4L - Still Worth It In 2025?

I am REALLY late to the party with my purchase of this lens, it was released in 2014, way before I had even picked up a camera and started to take it seriously for the first time, but it is a lens I have wanted to get my hands on for a long time, so when I found a “Like New” copy of this lens on MPB.COM, it wasn’t long until it was on its way to me. I did however, order late on Thursday and missed the deadline for next day delivery, but was pleasantly surprised to be told that it was going to be delivered on a Sunday.

This lens has been on the market for well over 10 years now, and what I want to explore and try to answer in this blog is the question of whether or not you should go and spend your money on this lens in 2025?

So, why buy the f/4 version, when the f/2.8 MK III version exists and people rave about it? There were a number of considerations for me here. First of all the weight, I am carrying this lens about with me a lot and every gram/ounce of weight I can save is really important to me, the f/4 comes in at 615g, which is over 150 grams lighter than its wider apertured counterpart.

I also don’t need the extra stops of light/depth of field that the wider aperture will afford me. Like I said in my blog about Landscape Photography in Lake District vs Cityscape Photography in London, I am less focused on shallow depths of field and much more concerned with getting images that are sharp. This lens still gets me the shallow depth of field when I want it, but there are some obvious caveats as to how I am able to go about it.

There’s also the price difference, we all know that faster lenses = more expensive, and the difference between these two lenses is in the order of £420, when you look at lenses in ‘like new’ condition. Brand new, the f/4 version is still being sold by Canon for in excess of £1400 so if you can buy second hand and find a decent condition one, there is a huge saving to be made.

Finally, the f/4 version of this lens boasts up to four stops of image stabilisation, which is something that none of the three iterations of the f/2.8 lens are equipped with. This is a real boost for some of those handheld shots where you just don’t have the time (or the inclination) to get out the tripod!

I’m going to be using this lens on the front on an APSC crop sensor (Canon 80D, with a crop factor of x1.6), so in effect, the lens is going to have a focal length of 25.6-56mm. This still gives me good coverage across the full range of focal lengths when held up to the rest of the lenses in my arsenal. The bonus here is that when I finally get round to upgrading to a mirrorless full frame, I will still have a great set of lenses to use on my new camera, which will work in combination with the camera and an EF to RF mount converter.

One thing I did find difficult when I was researching this lens before buying it was trying to find some sample raw files to have a look at, so I’ve linked some at the end of this blog that you can download and have a play around with before you decide to commit if you so wish.

The files still have the exif information in them so you will be able to see what settings they were taken with.

What’s in the box?

You’ll get the lens itself, a bag to store it in (I like these bags that Canon supply, and they provide another level of protection when it’s getting knocked about in the hills), the EW-83 lens hood, lens caps for the front and rear of the lens and an instruction manual.

As you would expect from Canon, the lens is well packaged and everything arrived in one piece!

Please remember that this lens was purchased in ‘like new’ condition. This means that it came with the original box and all of the original accessories. What you receive is going to be dependent upon the condition of the item you buy - do your research and make sure you’re not disappointed with what you receive.

My experience with the lens.

This is a well made lens which feels great in the hand, has a solid, metal lens mount, as you would expect from Canon ‘L’ series lenses. It’s also (in my opinion!) a really good looking piece of kit! I’m impressed with how light it feels. It’s all well and good having the weight displayed in front of you on a screen, but to hold it and experience how light it is really brings it home.

Some of the quick stuff: it fits well on the mount on your camera, it is really well made and the autofocus system is great, if a little noisy at times, which could be annoying if you are using this to shoot a lot of video, especially if you have a microphone mounted to your camera. Everything feels good in the hand, the focus and zoom rings are easily reachable and have good grips on them to get you to where you need to be. The buttons on the lens to turn on/off the autofocus and I.S. are situated where you would expect and function in the same manner as every other lens with these options. The distance scale is clear and easy to read.

The supplied lens hood has a fairly slim profile when it’s attached to the lens, is easy to fix in place and pops off quickly with a quick-release ‘switch’.

I’ve taken some shots with this, both indoors and outdoors and had a good level of success with some of these images. I’ve shot it wide open, stopped it down as far as it will go to f/22 and at a variety of focal lengths. At f/8 you get the lens at its sharpest across the whole range of focal lengths, there is a good balance of edge sharpness and centre sharpness at this aperture.

As you get down below f/16, you do start to see some diffraction in the finer details. I haven’t noticed a whole lot of chromatic aberration with this lens, which should mean that any that you do encounter (my research tells me you might get some in particularly high contrast images), should be easily fixed in post. The lens profiles for this piece of kit are built into Lightroom, and they’ve had well over 10 years to perfect them!

One thing I haven’t been able to test is the weather sealing, we’ve been having an unusually long dry period here in The Lake District, so I can confirm that I have been out in the dustiness of my local nature reserve and the dust proofing has held up well, but not even I am silly enough to sit and purposefully throw/spray water at my new favourite toy!

Whilst this isn’t a dedicated macro lens, it does a have short minimum focus distance of 0.28metres (just over 0.9 feet). This means that you’re going to be able to get some great close ups. If you’re thinking about this lens just for macro photography then there are better options out there, unless you’re going to invest in extension tubes but this will be at the expense of losing this lens’s great autofocus.

Wide open at f/4, you can still get bokeh, if that’s your thing, but you will need to get much closer to your subject than you would if you had a wider f/stop. The quality of the bokeh however, is great - you’re just not getting the buttery smoothness you would from a wider aperture.

There is some slight vignetting when you use filters on this lens at wider angles. The filter thread is 77mm (if you own a 24-105mm f/4 already then you probably already have this size in your kit) and works well - no cross threading issues so far. The vignetting it easily removed in Lightroom with no adverse affects on your final image.

Who’s it for?

This lens is going to be valuable to anyone who is serious about their landscape photography. The sharpness across the whole focal range is fantastic (I think only my primes are sharper), especially at f/8 which is something which I really appreciate. The I.S. is solid and will allow you to take handheld shots at longer shutter speeds that you may not have been able to achieve previously - I wish my 70-200mm f/4L had it as well!

Interior and architectural shooters will enjoy the lightweight feel of the lens, alongside side the well controlled distortion (barrel at the wide end and pincushion at the narrow end) means that getting solid, straight and even lines is something which is quickly and easily achievable.

The focal length is great for vlogging, giving you a wide enough angle to be able to get context in your shots, with the ability to punch in for that all important close-up! The light weight of this lens is going to mean that it’s easily balance-able on a gimbal and isn’t going to push you too close to its weight limit.

Videographers and vloggers will appreciate this lens, but should be aware of the noise from the autofocus and IS motors, so an off camera mic is likely to be required to completely eliminate it.

Should you buy this lens in 2025?

Yes. It’s quite a straightforward answer for me. I like that to an extent, it is ‘futureproof’ insomuch as if you upgrade to another Canon (mirrorless) system, you will still be able to use it, but will need to by the RF mount adapter. But hey, when you’re switching, it’s nice to have a set of great quality lenses ready to go with only the added expense of the adapter ring to buy.

If you’re looking to add something to your lens setup to replace your kit lens, then this is a great option, but it won’t give you the reach you’re used to with the 18-55mm. If you’re looking for tighter compositions, you might want to keep hold of this for the time being or have plans to invest in something which will give you that extra reach at the long end.

This is a sharp lens, especially in that f/8 sweet spot. You’re not going to be disappointed with the sharpness of the images you’re going to be able to capture. You’ll love the feel of it, the build quality and the autofocus. Oh, and it looks insanely cool on the front of your camera!

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Light weight

• Fully weather sealed with Fluorine coated front element.

• Lower Price than the f/2.8, especially when buying second hand.

• Super sharp across the whole focal range.

• Image stablisation (4 stops) supports hand-held shooting at longer shutter speeds.

Cons

• Some users, especially those who shoot in low light conditions often may find the f/4 aperture frustrating/constraining.

• Less light gathering for astrophotography work.

• The autofocus and IS motors, despite being engineered to be silent, are often audible and this could impact work, especially if you are shooting video using autofocus modes.

• Some minor vignetting when using filters at wider angles.

The Nerdy Stuff

• Focal Length: 16–35 mm (full-frame compatible)

• Maximum Aperture: f/4 (constant across the zoom range)

• Minimum Aperture: f/22

• Lens Construction: 16 elements in 12 groups

• Angle of View (Diagonal): 108°10′ – 63°

• Focus System: Inner focusing with ring-type USM for fast, silent, and precise AF

• Closest Focusing Distance: 0.28 m (0.92 ft)

• Filter Thread Size: 77 mm

• Image Stabilisation: Yes – up to 4 stops of correction

• Weight: Approx. 615 g (21.7 oz)

• Dimensions: 83 mm max diameter × 114 mm length (4.4 in)

• Coatings: Anti-ghosting coatings plus fluorine on front and rear elements for dust and water resistance

• Weather Sealing: Yes – dust and moisture resistant for outdoor shooting

Example Raw Files

You’ll need to right click each link and select “download linked file”, to save this file to your computer.

Raw Files 1-6 are images of a toy car taken in my studio against a blue backdrop and ISO 2000

Raw Files 7-12 are landscape shots.

Street vs. Landscape Photography: A Personal Perspective

Moving from London’s bustling streets to the peaceful landscapes of the Lake District transformed my approach to photography. In this guide, I share practical tips for making the shift from street photography to landscape photography, including composition techniques, gear recommendations, and how to work with natural light.

It’s been almost 2 years since I made the move from London to The Lake District, and in that time I’ve had to learn (and will continue to learn) a lot about landscape photography, what it is, what it means and how to capture successful images. In this blog, I am going to break down some of the things that I have learned, some of the stuff that I have changed and what has had to stay the same as I continue on this landscape photography path in The Lake District

One of the things that I have learned, is that I need(ed) to adapt what I was already doing. As with so many things, there are a lot techniques, “rules” and conventions that apply to the landscape photography I do now in Cumrbia, that were also important things to remember in street and cityscape photography.

I am aiming to break down some of these below; I hope you find it interesting and maybe learn something as you read!

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links and I may receive a small kickback if you decide to make a purchase using one of them. 

Light is Key - Lessons from The Lake District.

Yes, light is key to both styles of photography, but (in my opinion, and certainly in the way I work) you see it and use it differently. Perhaps, for me, a big part of this is that I shoot far less in low light now. There’s not a whole lot to photograph in the hills at night time unless you’re an astrophotographer (something I am yet to have a ‘proper’ go at), or you love super long exposures!

For me, the biggest difference in how I use light, is that when I am doing landscape photography in the Lake District, the light becomes the photograph, it is the subject and it is what generates a lot of the interest, especially when it’s dappled sunlight across the Fells. In my days shooting in the city, I used it in a different way, often finding interesting coloured lights and then using really wide apertures to force these out of focus to create wild bokeh style backgrounds, usually with interesting foreground texture (more on foreground later), often by the way of drain covers, or leading lines.

Golden hour, and blue hour, are important to both styles. Golden hour, the period before sunset and the period after sunrise, and blue hour, the period after sunset and before sunrise, often provide some of the ‘best’ light for both styles of imagery. In the city, I used it to photograph buildings, in the landscape, I use it to photograph entire scenes, or parts of them.

Many photographers see this as the ‘best’ light, but it does mean, especially as a landscape photographer that you are subjecting yourself to super early starts or late nights, waiting for it to arrive.

Harsh light, i.e. when the sun is high in a clear sky can make landscapes much more of challenge, whilst street photographers will likely see more opportunities with this kind of light, which creates strong, harsh shadows can make for some really interesting compositions, but because of the way that the landscape photography environment is made up, these opportunities are often fewer and further between.

Ultimately, and this feels like a bit of a cop-out, you have to be outside to experience any kind of light, you make your own opportunities, and you can’t shoot any images in good or bad light, if you’re sat in the house!

Composition in Landscape Photography vs Street Photography.

This could, and probably should be a blog all of its own, but I will ‘quickly’ touch on some of the similarities and differences that I have found whilst making the switch, this isn’t a ‘how to’ guide, but will look at some of the similarities and differences which have affected me as someone making the switch into predominantly landscape photography vs street photography.

There’s a lot of differences and a lot I have had to learn, change and adapt. I think that perhaps the biggest shift I have had to make is how to decide what to do with what’s in front of me. In the city, the environment is very much on top of you. In a city like London, where I did the majority of my photography, everything is close to you, if you walk through Canary Wharf or around parts of the City of London, then huge skyscrapers ascend above you and horizons can be non-existent. The environment limits how much you see and almost forces you into certain compositions in particular locations.

Contrast that with being out in wide open spaces, often on top of the highest point for miles around. This comes with its own set of challenges and of course, the temptation just to shoot the whole scene, or to photograph the whole of the sunset or sunrise over Derwentwater. This has been one of the hardest things for me to adapt to, especially when photographing in The Lake District, when there is a stunning vista laid out in front of me, with an amazing sunset kicking off in the background.

I have done a number of things to help me with this; I have looked at a lot of work by other photographers, (but have tried to avoid looking at other Lake District Photographers so that I don’t end up just taking everyone else’s photos), watched YouTube videos, practiced, and finally, have gone on shoots with just a longer focal length lens (usually my Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L), as this takes the wide shots out of play and makes me pick out what I think are interesting features in the landscape. It makes me look for different compositions, different subjects and more creative ways to work with the light that is in front of me.

I don't always go out with just one lens, I often take something which is a bit wider (like a 24-105mm) or sometimes, something super-wide (like my Canon EF 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6), but I do try to think more carefully about my composition when I am shooting with a wider lens, which leads me neatly onto my next point about foreground interest.

When I was shooting in the city, I would use foreground interest to force background lights out of focus to create bokeh, and this kind of foreground interest is something I am trying to include more of in my landscape photography.

I just have to look a bit harder for it, and I’m also not trying to force my images to have out of focus elements (more on focus stacking later). In the city, there are interesting textures, in convenient places, everywhere. There are tons of interesting textures in the country as well, but getting them in the right places, with the right background and a pleasing composition which leads the eye through it, is much more of a challenge, but foreground interest is often key to a successful image. It could be something as simple as a boulder or a patch of heather, but having it there makes a huge difference to your images.

Weather Conditions in Lake District Landscape Photography

No blog about UK landscape photography would be complete without a mention of the weather, but it is something that I have found impacts what I shoot, where I shoot and when I shoot it way more than it did when I lived in the city. When I lived in London, the weather was any combination of hot, dry, wet and/or humid. Occasionally it snowed. Going out to shoot in good weather was a no brainer, going out to shoot in the rain or just after it, was even more of a no brainer - cities look awesome in the rain and in low light - reflections, bright lights and extra textures. You were also never very far from the warm shelter or a shop or a tube station.

I’ve become a bit obsessed with the state of the weather since landscape photography became my biggest focus - will there be rain, how cold will it be, how bad is the wind when I get further up and into the hills? Is there any lightning forecast? What are the chances of a cloud inversion? Is there going to be mist?

The answers to all of the above will influence where I go and shoot and when I decide to go there. If you’re new to photographing in the Lake District, apps like Clear Outside, Ventusky, the BBC Weather App, and the Met Office Mountain Weather Forecast are essential for planning sunrise or sunset photography trips.

There’s some great apps to help you stay on top of this, don’t just rely on one, have a look at what they are all saying, some of my favourites are Clear Outside, Ventusky and the BBC Weather App. If you’re heading out into the hills, the you should always check the Met Office Mountain Weather Forecast. The last thing you want to be is stranded half way up or at the top of fell when the weather closes in, putting yourself and others who may have to come and fetch you down in danger.

Focus Stacking

This has been a real game changer for me, but it has taken some practice. Focus stacking is essentially a different version of exposure stacking, something which I had done in my city photographs to enhance the dynamic range. If you’re trying to achieve pin-sharp images of the fells from foreground to horizon, especially during golden hour, focus stacking is an essential technique for Lake District photography.

Focus stacking, on my camera at least, is a far more manual process. What focus stacking does is to combat some of the physical limitations of your lens and allows you to have all parts of your image either acceptably sharp or pin sharp. Essentially, you take several exposures of the same scene, with your camera mounted on a tripod (this is important, as if you move the camera, your attempts are over before the have even begun!), with each exposure focused on a different point. So, for example, you may focus on the foreground, take an image, then the mid ground and take another image, and then the horizon line and take another exposure. Three generally works well, you could do more, but this can make things more complicated in post production.

When you get back to your computer, you can do all of your light room edits etc. and then export the images to layers in Photoshop. Once in photoshop, you can ask it to automate this process for you, or you can use masks to have full control. It’s slightly more involved than that, and I will do a tutorial on this at some point in the future, but in the meantime, there are lots of tutorials on YouTube that will talk you through the process

I did far less focus stacking in the city than I do in the country, I think largely because my style has shifted and I want more of the scene in acceptable focus than I did in the city when the goal was often bokeh balls.

Slowing Down Your Process

This has been a big adjustment for me. In the city, everything moves a lot quicker, no one is taking their time. Opportunities for images can be fleeting, gone in seconds and won’t come back.

Thats’s not to say that things don’t change at all in the country, but there is more time to let a scene develop. You can stay in one spot and see various stages of light, see patterns change and wait for light to move to where you want it, especially if you’ve got some great dappled light illuminating the hills above Ullswater.

<— Not me in the image, I’ve used a stock image here!

When I was doing much more street photography, I always felt like I needed to be moving, whereas with landscape photography, you have time to slow down and take things in and wait for the opportunities to present themselves, photographing the scene in front of of you as it changes. The big difference is that sometimes, it can take a long time (and a lot of effort) to get to where you want to be. In the city, hop off the train or get out of the car, and generally you’re in amongst it. The country is often a lot more uphill and not as easy to access, but that’s all part of the fun!

You don’t limit yourself by staying in one place, you have time to explore what is in front of you and enjoy the way it changes - as the light moves, so will your eyes and you’ll notice things that you hadn’t thought about capturing only moments earlier.

Gear

This isn’t going to be a ‘does gear matter’ section, but a comment on the type of gear I’m using.

I used to rely heavily on fast lenses - I was using wide apertures for shallow depth of field and often needed the extra light for shooting in low light conditions. I have come to realise that I don’t need a plethora of fast lenses for what I am doing now. I am more concerned about image quality and sharpness, which helps with the cost of things as well - fast lenses are much more expensive. Take the Canon 16-35mm L series lens, there is a difference of almost £300 in the price of the F/4 version when compared to the latest version of the same lens with a maximum attitude of F/2.8. The F/4 versions are also a lot lighter, which is great in terms of carting it around with you all day.

I do still have a couple of fast lenses, namely an F/1.8 nifty fifty and an F/1.2L 85mm Prime. The 85 is a unit of a lens, weighs almost 2kg and is incredibly sharp. These two lenses also hardly ever come out with me unless its for a portrait session or I have a genuine use case for them in the field - 2KG is a lot to carry around all day and then not use! The 85mm was a staple of my bag in London, because of that shallow depth of field, and it was great in low light as the front element is like a bucket.

The lenses that tend to come out with me now are a 10-18mm EF, 16-35mm f/4L, 24-105mm F4/L and my 70-200mm F4/L. These save weight, cover the whole range of focal lengths and give me all the flexibility I could ever need.

Some things are a given for both styles - a sturdy tripod is a must, if it’s light weight, then even better, but expect to pay good money for the privilege. The other item that has been really useful is my Peak Design Camera Clip, which whilst a little pricey for its size, is a must have for when you are out walking, but you might want to get it back in your bag when the terrain starts to get a bit trickier. Better to break a tumble with your hands and not your camera and expensive lens!

What bag you put it all in is very much a personal choice, but for short walks, I like the LowePro Fast Pack , (you can read my review of the Lowepro Fastback here), and for longer walks I take the LowePro Protactic 450 AWII. The latter is a much bigger bag and it comes with hip straps, which make longer days much more comfortable, but it does lack space for your non-camera gear like a jacket or something to eat!

In Summary

I think it’s clear that there are a lot of similarities between the two different styles I have shot, but in short, we’re still taking photos, we’re still telling stories and we are still doing it using similar equipment. We are, to an extent very reliant on the weather but for different reasons.

For me, the biggest difference is the tempo that things move at in the landscape photography world, it’s slower and at times more methodical, with a greater need for focus stacking if you want that front to back sharpness in your images.

Which one would I choose? Well both of them. I still do some street photography and still really enjoy it; I enjoy the dynamism and the change of pace it offers from the much more pedestrian pace of landscape photography, but regardless of what I prefer, I just love being out with camera, taking images, sharing images and telling stories!

If you’ve enjoyed this, then please consider signing up to my newsletter, you can do that by clicking here or head over to my Instagram to see some of my latest work and what I am up to!

Gear Review: Pocket Dispo Lens

There seems to be a pretty booming market for this type of lens at the moment and I have wanted one for a long time, this type of lens being a disposable camera lens mounted to fit your mirrorless of DSLR body.

The problem (for me at least!) has been that they have been largely targeted at the mirrorless market, leaving us DLSR ‘dinosaurs’ feeling a little bit left out and unable to join in the fun. I love a bit of lo-fi tech.

That was until a couple of weeks ago, when I found out that Pocket Dispo now sell lenses which are made for DSLR cameras (be quick, they have been quite open about the fact that there is a limited number), and had brought out a model which fits on to my Canon EF-S lens mount, and I couldn’t have been happier about it!

The version I have, for the EF/EF-S Mount is priced at £45 when it’s at full price, but I got mine in the promotion they were running in the run-up to the 4th July celebrations (7/4, or 4/7 depending on where you are reading this), so I managed to secure a bit of a discount, which was great when you consider that the postage is £15.

That said, you do have to bear in mind that they are shipping this from the USA (I’m in the UK), and considering it arrived in less than a week and with no customs issues, I would argue that this isn’t too much of a price to pay. I also bundled in some presets for £8, which was a discount of almost 50% against full price, which brought the total of my order to £57 (around $US78 (exchange rate correct at 02/07/2025)) and for the money, I think I managed to get a reasonable deal. I suppose this also clears up the point that this is an unbiased review as I have paid for this with my own money.

The Nitty Gritty

Price - £45 (I paid £34 in a promotion)

Presets - £15 (I paid £8 in the same promotion)

Tech Specs: 35mm focal length at fixed f/11

Material - 3D Printed ASA

Where to buy: https://pocketdispo.com

<——— The Pocket Dispo DLSR lens has a small form factor, is light weight, but in spite of this, it’s rugged and the recessed lens helps to guard against scratches.

So what do you get? What’s it like?

The lens arrived well packaged and in one piece following its transatlantic adventure. In the package there was a velvet-style pouch to keep the lens in, the lens itself and a little information leaflet with a QR code to a video and a focus map showing where the sharper parts of the lens are.

The lens itself feels solid. I love the fact that they are using genuine disposable lenses (I don’t know if these are recycled, but extra bonus points if they are), and the aim, I suppose, is to reduce the amount of disposable cameras we buy by replicating the lens and then duplicating the film with the presets (I will talk about these later).

The whole thing (aside from the lens element itself) is 3D printed in ASA. This is supposed to be more UV resistant, so it should be more durable and not degrade too much if you’re using it in the sun all the time. It is however, petroleum based and will take forever to break down, but you are buying a piece of plastic so you should know what you’re getting into anyway. Spoiler alert, I won’t be throwing mine in the bin any time soon! The material also helps to keep the price down - if you want one made out of aircraft grade aluminium, then that’s great, but expect to pay for it!

I like the feel of the lens, it is lightweight, but doesn’t feel fragile or like it’s going to break in a slight breeze or if it gets bumped around in your camera bag. I love that when the folks at Pocket Dispo have designed this, they have made the conscious decision to recess the lens into the plastic, which means that it is going to be far more durable and less prone to scratches.

It is easy to mount to your camera, and doesn’t fill you with dread that it’s going to cross thread or get stuck on your camera. The threads for the mount are solid, and there are useful marks on the rim of the lens that help you to line it up to your mount. It pops off just as easily.

What are the Images Like?

The lens itself has a fixed aperture of around f/11 so you’re getting good depth of field. According to their website, everything beyond 1.5 metres will be in focus. This seems to hold pretty true and you get some fall off in sharpness towards the edges, which, if you are after recreating that true disposable camera look, is what you are looking for.

The focal length is ~35mm, which is what you would expect from this lens on a crop sensor. 35mm, I suppose, could be described as a ‘classic’ focal length, and allows you to achieve a good balance between subject and context. It gives an almost journalistic feel to your images, furnishing them with a certain air of familiarity.

The f/11 aperture does mean that you need to be in a really well lit room if you want to use it indoors, or you need to be near some good natural light.

If you wanted to add some more ‘truth’ to your aims of recreating that true point and shoot look, you could mount a flash to your camera and fire it directly at your subject!

Remember that with this, there is no autofocus! This may seem a but obvious, but you’re buying a repackaged disposable camera lens, most of everything is in acceptable focus anyway, and besides, this isn’t really the point; we’re not trying to create technically perfect images with this. This is about nostalgia and having fun, and the latter is certainly why we do photography. The vignettes are cool, the edges a slightly soft - embrace the imperfections and nostalgic feel!

The Presets

You get 10 of these in the pack that you can opt to buy with the lens, at a cost of £15:

• CineStill 50D

• CineStill 400D

• CineStill Double-X(Black and White)

• Fujichrome 264

• Fujicolor 400

• Fujicolor Superior

• Ilford FP4 (Black and White)

• Kodak Ekatchrome

• Kodak Gold 200 (I love this, as this was the film I always used to shoot on as kid)

• Kodak Portra 800

I suppose you could argue that these are film simulations, and I think this is what they have set out to achieve when they have created these, though I can’t say how well/how truly they have created these film stocks as I don’t shoot enough film to have a solid basis for comparison.

I’m not usually a fan of presets, as I want to edit everything from scratch and have full control over the edit from start to finish, but I like these ones, they feel like they should be a part of your image making process with this lens. Usally if I use a preset, it’s one I have created, but I might use these ones more than I would normally as they feel like a part of the fun of the process of recreating the feel of the kind of images we want to produce with the Pocket Dispo. I’ve made a gallery of examples for these presets at the bottom of this post so you can have a look at what they do to the images you create. I’ve not made any changes to these other than some exposure adjustments so you can see exactly what you’re looking at.

Remember though, presets are a starting point and won’t solve all your editing issues or save you all the time you might think. Don’t rely on them to do one hundred percent of the work for you - there’s not any fun in that anyway!

Keep your eye out for the link to download your presets when you get your confirmation text/email, I nearly missed mine!

Who is this lens for?

I would say that this lens is for all photographers who want something a little bit different, that isn’t going to break the bank and who to enjoy the fun of disposable camera photography, without the guilt of all the disposable cameras going to landfill. It’s great if you haven’t been ‘feeling’ photography or you’re having a bit of a creative burn out.

I’m having a lot of fun with mine, and it has been a a great addition to the bag at a time of year when I am tired and struggle to want to go and shoot (I’m a school teacher in the real world, and it’s almost the summer holidays - we’re all shattered by this point, and I promise we’re not counting down the days…)

Where to buy?

I got mine by heading direct to https://pocketdispo.com. I haven’t found any UK retailers that are selling lenses from this manufacturer, so go ahead; buy direct and support them!

In Conclusion

This lens is great fun, and whilst it might seem a bit pricey, for me it’s worth the money. Do I wish it were a bit cheaper? Of course I do, we all do with anything we buy, be it for our camera or not. It’s a durable piece of kit, which gives your environmental conscience a bit of a boost, it’s easy to use and did I mention it’s great fun!?

It’s light, fun, and a great way to reset your photography mindset. Personally, it’s helped me push through a bit of creative burnout.

This lens isn’t going to win technical awards — and it’s not meant to. What it offers is sheer photographic joy in a tiny, clever, and surprisingly sturdy package.

Pros:

• Good build quality and small form factor.

• Constructed from durable materials which feel like they will last.

• Easy to use and mount/unmount

• 35mm focal length gives the classic point and shoot vibe.

• Hours of fun!

Cons

• If you’re not in the US then postage is a bit steep if you buy outside of a promotion.

• There can be a bit of a wait for delivery.

• At full price, they are a bit expensive so be prepared to take a small hit.

Want more gear reviews and photography tips? Subscribe to the mailing list here.

Preset Gallery:

As mentioned previously, these have just had some exposure adjustments applied, everything else is done by the preset itself.

Top: Original (Exposure Adjustment only), CineStill 50D, CineStill 400D, CineStill Double X

Middle: Kodak Ektachrome, FujiChrome 264, Fujicolor 400, FujiColor Superia,

Bottom: Ilford FP4, Kodak Gold 200, Kodak Portra 800

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

What’s wrong with my photo?

A beginner's guide to reviewing your images after your shoot and diagnosing what’s not quite right in the bad ones!

---

So you’ve got your camera and you’ve chosen a lens, you’ve read my blog about the exposure triangle and you have taken some of the information from 10 Things I Wish I Knew as a Beginner Photographer, you’ve been out on your first shoot and now you’ve had a look at the images in your editing suite of choice.

You’ve managed to secure a few shots that you’re really happy with and you’ve got a few others that have got issues, they might be blurry or noisy or out of focus. You know there’s something that you should have done differently, but you’re not sure what changes you need to make.

We’re looking at some technical stuff in this one, some of which will be specific to your camera so you might want your camera and its instruction manual to hand when you’re reading this. An open YouTube tab might be handy as well.

This blog is going to aim to show you some common mistakes, what they look like and what you can do to stop it from happening again!

Blurry Images.

This image was taken at night, outside my old flat in London and it’s blurry. Really blurry.

There are different kinds of blur in photography, but the two we see most of in camera are motion blur (where the subject is moving) and camera movement (where the camera has moved as you take the shot).

This image hits the jackpot as it has both! The tree is blowing in the breeze and the camera has moved as I have taken the shot.

So what’s caused this?

There’s a couple of issues here, both related to the amount of light available. It’s a night shot, so lots of light needs to hit the sensor to properly expose the shot. To let enough light into the camera means the shutter needed to be open longer. In the case of this image, the exposure length was 0.5seconds which isn’t massively long, but certainly long enough to cause the issues that we can see.

This image was also taken hand held, i.e. not on a tripod and without a shutter release cable. When I pressed the shutter, the camera moved and in the 0.5 seconds the shutter was open, I also moved and as a result the camera moved even more. It was also a windy night, so in the same 0.5 seconds, the wind has blown the tree and this has been recorded as blur by the camera’s sensor.

As a general rule of thumb, if your shutter speed is longer than the focal length you are using, your camera should be on a tripod. So for example, if you are shooting at 50mm and to correctly expose the shot you need a shutter speed of (for example) 1/10 then you should be on a tripod.

There’s other things you could do as well that could be useful if you don’t have a tripod. You could try increasing the ISO - this would make your sensor more sensitive to the light, so you could reduce the shutter speed, but remember his could introduce noise to the image.

You could also try increasing the size of your aperture but remember, this could impact the sharpness of the image (lenses are usually sharpest towards the middle of their aperture size) and will have an impact on the depth of field of your image. This shot was taken at 50mm with a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second and an ISO of 100 - I could have increased the the ISO but it would have introduced too much noise into the image so the tripod would have been the best way to go here.

By contrast, the skyline shot above was a 30 second exposure, 15 times longer than the night image of the tree and the house, and the whole thing is pin sharp. It was shot at f/8 with an ISO of 100 at 70mm so the above rule regarding focal length and shutter speed comes into play here; this would have been impossible without a tripod!

Underexposed and Over Exposed Images.

The image on the left is one that we would use the phrase “blown out” to describe the sky. The shutter has been open for too long.

This means that when this image was taken, the shutter was open for so long that enough light hit the sensor to “overload” the photosites that it’s made from.

This means that effectively, no data has been stored in them, there is no detail there and the image shows a patch of complete white. No amount of editing is going to sort this out unless you replace the sky in Photoshop.

By contrast, the image on the right is under exposed, so the opposite is true. The shutter wasn’t open for long enough to let sufficient light into the camera to hit the sensor and so the photosites on this image are black, but this presents the same problem - there is no data present in those parts of the image.

Fortunately, the solution to under and over exposed images is simple and doesn’t require any extra kit to solve it (unless of course you are needing such a long exposure that you need to crack out the tripod). It pays to get this right in camera!

An over exposed image needs a shorter exposure time and an underexposed image needs a longer exposure time.

You should always check your exposure using the light meter which is built into your camera making sure it’s as close to the centre as possible.

You can also turn on the zebra stripes/similar in your camera. Check the manual to see how to do this, but the premise is simple, if you have over/underexposed areas of your image, the LCD screen will flash to show where the problem areas are. This a great way to see these areas at a glance and its really helpful when you’re starting out if you don’t know how to read your histogram or aren’t confident with the light meter.

But what about images that high dynamic range, and what is high dynamic range?

Images that have high dynamic range have really bright elements and really dark elements in them. You can often find these sorts of scenes at sunrise and sunset whilst the sun is rising/setting and parts of the scene are falling into darkness or haven’t been lit up in the morning light yet.

There is a way around this, and it’s called exposure bracketing. To do this, you need to take a correctly exposed image, an under exposed image and an over exposed image (you’re going to be exposing for the highlights, shadows and “midtones” in the respective images). Most cameras have this function built into them, and it will be called Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB) and you should consult your manual to see how to do this with the model of camera that you have. Once you’ve got this set up, you can capture the images and then blend them in either photoshop or Lightroom to get yourself an image that is perfectly exposed! In most models, if you change the shooting mode to “burst” it will take all three images without you having to touch the camera and risk introducing any movement into the image.

Spots

More precisely, sensor spots! I have highlighted some of the ones in the image to the left although they’re already quite small and the size of this image isn’t helping, but they’re there! If you look closely, you will find even more.

These aren’t uncommon, especially if you’re changing lenses a lot and if you’re not changing them in a way that can help to prevent it.

The good thing is that they are easy to deal with using the clone stamp and/or spot removal tool in photoshop and/or the clone tool in Lightroom, depending on what you prefer. Both programmes will provide good results.

Whilst these are easy to get rid of, if there is a lot of them in your image then they can be time consuming and you always find more when you start to look for them. You might also find that they appear in some images and not in others, even though they were taken seconds apart. This is because the focal length you are using and the aperture size you are using can impact how many, if any at all, appear in your image.

These tiny, yet terribly irritating blemishes are caused by tiny dust particles settling on your camera’s image sensor and are easy to prevent and minimise if you do a couple of things . Firstly, never leave your camera without either a lens or or a body cap over the mount. This prevents the sensor being exposed to the open air and dust.

Secondly, whenever you are changing the lens on your camera try to have it pointed with the lens mount facing the floor. Dust tends to fall down and not up, so by doing this, you minimise the risk that you are exposing your sensor to. The more you change lenses, the easier this task will become as you build up some muscle memory.

You should also make sure that you keep your sensor clean. You can do this, or your can pay someone to do it for you. It’s not a difficult process, but it is a very delicate one and you’ll need a steady hand. If you’re not confident in your own ability to do this then most good, local camera shops will have a sensor cleaning service. You can buy packs of sensor cleaning swabs on Amazon and they are fairly cheap. I have linked the ones that I like to use here. You’ll pick a whole pack of these up for less than half the price of a sensor cleaning service in a shop but be warned that if you cause any damage to the sensor, you have set yourself up for a pricey repair and in extreme cases, you could completely write off your camera.

Always consult the manual for your camera and the manufacturers instructions for cleaning your sensor prior to having a go at doing it for your self.

Soft Images

Or, in the case of the image to the right, soft subjects.

When we talk about soft images, what we are talking about is an image which is out of focus. Or at least the subject of the image is out of focus or “soft”.

In the image of Chaffinch on the right is out of focus, or at least the subject is. What we have is an image where the camera has focussed on the wrong part of the image, you will see that the grass and debris in the back ground is much sharper!

The grass in the foreground is also out of focus, but in a shot like this (were the subject in focus!), could actually be desirable and help to draw the eye to the subject, but as we don't have the focus in the correct place, this is a moot point.

This image is unusable and unrecoverable. Were this the only shot of this bird I had, it may have been disappointing but fortunately, I managed to get one that was in focus!

Thankfully, again, this isn’t a difficult one to sort out, but the way in which you go about it is something which is going to be partially dependent on your camera brand and you’ll need to consult the manual, or YouTube to get the right settings.

You will need to familiarise yourself with the different autofocus modes in your camera, and make sure that you have the focussing indicators turned on so that you can see, through your viewfinder, or LCD screen exactly where the camera is focussing. This will help you in most cases to ensure that you are nailing the focus on the subject.

The autofocus in many newer cameras is powerful enough to detect the subject, recognise what type of subject it is and focus on it, if you have an older camera, you won’t have this luxury so you’re going to need to practice.

The image above was also shot at an aperture of f/4, which means that the depth of field is quite shallow, stopping down to f/8 might have help to save this image and given a deeper depth of field with more of it in focus, but this would have also mean slowing down the shutter to a speed which isn’t practical for shooting faster moving subjects.

If you’re shooting fast moving subjects like birds or sports, then you also might want to explore back button focus as this can make your life a bit easier - again, the way in which your camera is able to do this is going to depend on the make and model so consult the manual and consider watching some model specific videos on YouTube which will show you how to do this.

It can be slightly different in landscape photography and still life photography, or indeed any other genre where your subject is moving very slowly, or not moving at all, as you are likely to be using manual focus. The rubber duck above was shot in a studio using manual focus and a smaller aperture to give a greater depth of field.

Manual focus gives you complete control over where you focus and how you focus, within the limitations of your equipment and settings. When you have focussed your image, use the functions on your lCD to zoom in and check that you are completely pin sharp! You could also turn on focus peaking if your camera supports it as this will give you a further visual signal as to if/when your subject is in focus.

With any discussion about focus, we should remember that lenses have limitations. They have a minimum focus distance (how far away a subject should be before the lens is physically able to focus on it) so you’ll need to be in the right place to get the subject to be “focusable”. You’ll find this information printed on the lens you are using. You can also use the tools in PhotoPills to help you calculate hyper-focal distances. This can be quite complicated, so work on the basics first and then about going down this rabbit hole!

Grainy/Noisy Images

Sometimes, when you get your photos into Lightroom, you will be able to see that they have a kind of texture to them, almost like they have been printed on sandpaper.

What we’re dealing with here is digital noise, which is introduced into images when the ISO setting is cranked up, this amplifies something called “photon shot noise”in your image which leads to the grainy feel that you can see in the grass in the image on the right hand side.

This is one of the easiest things in this list to sort out, you just need to know your camera and be familiar with how well it deals with high iso. For example, on my Canon 80D, I know that I can get the ISO up to around 6400 before the grain starts to become an issue, but this varies from camera to camera, there is no hard and fast rule. You will need to do some experimenting to find out where the red line for you is and how much grain you are willing to accept in your images.

Remember that if you reduce your ISO, you will need to adjust shutter speed and/or aperture to compensate for this. If you are working at higher ISO’s then you really need to nail the exposure in the camera, as if you try increasing the exposure too much in Lightroom you’re really going to exacerbate any noise in your image and could end up with something that is unusable.

The other way that you can deal with some noise is in post production. The latest version of Lightroom has a noise reduction function built into it and this is pretty good at removing noise, but the trade off is that you can end up with images that look a but un-natural if you use it too much or if there was a tremendous amount of noise in the image to begin with. Other tools which can do this are available, but you need to be aware of the same issue and you should check the cost of these bits of software too!

To wrap up, understanding and avoiding common photography pitfalls is all part of the journey to improving your craft. With a bit of practice and attention to detail, these issues become easier to spot—and even easier to fix. As with most things, it comes with practice, and sometimes a lot of patience.

If you’ve found this guide helpful or have any questions about your own photography challenges, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to drop me an email, or connect with me on Instagram and Facebook for more tips, inspiration, and behind-the-scenes content. Happy shooting!

10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Photography.

Beginner Photography Tips from Someone Who’s Been There

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

I have been working on a lot of things for beginner photographers in the last few weeks and a few people have had a read of my blog from last week, Essential Photography Gear for Beginners: What You Really Need to Get Started. https://chriskendrickphoto.co.uk/blog/what-gear-do-you-need-as-a-beginner-photographer

To this end, I thought I would go one further and think more about beginner photography and this led me to think about the things I wish I knew when I started taking photos. 

This turned into quite a long list (with some repetition!), which I have tried to distil into ten points below. I will try and keep it short and simple, but I do have habit of trying to share as much as possible - it’s all about helping each other. I’m not a gate keeper! 

So let’s jump into 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Photography…

---

1. You Don’t Need an Expensive Camera to Take Great Photos

This one kind of touches on the “Does Gear Matter Question”. The answer to that, as we know, is yes. But also a resounding no. But, it does a bit and “categorically no”. 

Ultimately, what matters is that you have some gear AND you know how to use it. Some of the best time you can spend as a photographer  is time getting to know your camera (or the camera app on your phone!), what the buttons do, and more importantly, where they are. You will miss shots if you’re spending ages trying to remember what the buttons do and where they are. Its also well worth learning your menus, where to find things and what they all do.

But this doesn’t answer the question. The main point in the previous paragraph is “that you have some gear”. It doesn’t matter what that gear is, as long as it works and you know what you’re doing with it.

You can take a great photo on any camera. It doesn’t matter whether its a Hasselblad X2D or an Canon R5 MKII. Breson didn’t have either of these. Gilden doesn’t use one. What they do know how to do is to frame a shot, when to take the shot and how to edit the shot to make it exactly what they want. 

If you have camera that uses older tech, or you have a camera that is more basic, or you’re using your phone, you can take a great photo. 

Good photos mean something. Good photos say something. Good photos tell a story. You achieve a photo that does all of these things with any camera, be that the latest offering from one of the big companies, or a 20 year old DSLR. What matters is what or who you are taking photos of. 

This is one of the most important things I have learned. When I started out, I bought the best camera I could afford and paired it with a kit lens. I still have that camera now. I have added more lenses, but I still have that camera and use it most days. 

Another way to think about this. In “real life” I am a teacher and I have taught photography at A-Level. The best photography student I ever had, the one who took the best images was the student who had the cheapest camera (not just in their class, but across all 4 classes I taught) and they created some images that were genuinely first rate images. I always remind myself of this when I am looking longingly through the window of my local camera shop. 

2. Manual Mode Isn’t as Complicated as It Seems

It really isn’t. It might seem it, but it’s not. I promise. The thing you need to master is the exposure triangle. Conveniently, I have made a blog about the exposure triangle, which you can read here. https://chriskendrickphoto.co.uk/blog/a-beginner-photographers-guide-to-the-exposure-triangle

If you can master the basics of shutter speed, ISO and aperture. Get the hang of this, then you can start to think about white balance and picture profiles (if your camera supports them) and maybe go one step further and start to explore things like long exposure photography and ICM (Intentional Camera Movement). 

You should also look into aperture and shutter priority on your camera and learn to use these too.

3. Light Is the Most Important Part of Any Photo

It’s the name of what we do… The word “Photography” is taken from two Ancient Greek words “Photos” meaning light and “graphé” meaning to draw or write. Photography literally means “writing or drawing with light”. 

So yeah, light is kind of important! Without it, we can’t take images. 

But then we have low light, good light, bad light, soft light, hard light, specular light… and many more. 

A good space for us to start is Golden Hour. This is the light we have after sunrise and before sunset. The term  Golden is a bit of a misnomer, it can be about an hour, it can be 15 minutes and it’s also really dependent on the weather and atmospheric conditions where you are taking photos. If you’re covered in thick grey cloud, you aren’t going to get amazing golden light, but you will have some lovely soft light to work with.

It doesn’t have to be soft light though. Hard shadows can work really well and add drama to your photos, just look at the work of someone like Fan Ho, for example. He used harsh shadows to great effect in a lot of his work (he also shot on a dual lens reflex camera, not a mirrorless or a DSLR, because they hadn’t even been thought of at this point!) 

As you get more confident with your camera, you will find new ways to manipulate the light with long exposure and exposure stacking and this will produce you some awesome results!

Use your weather apps and maybe look at experimenting with apps like PhotoPills. They will help you to decide what the weather might be like at the location you are visiting and will tell you where the sun is going to be in the sky and this will enable you to pick the right place to make the most of the light. 

I’m going to include reflections in here as well, because they’re made of light too, right? Reflections are some of my favourite things to include in my shots; I used to live for a good reflection when I lived in the city, and the same is true now I live out in the sticks, they just tend to be a bit bigger in the countryside that in the city. But you don’t need a tarn in the Lake District with the reflection of a mountain, a puddle and tree can work just as well!

4. Composition Can Instantly Improve Your Photos

This is one of the most important things and one of the easiest ways to improve your images, quickly and cheaply. 

Composition as both a topic and a concept is HUGE. As a beginner, I didn’t know much about it, let alone the different types of composition. When I started out, I was just taking pictures of things I liked and sticking them in the middle of my frame. 

Then I learned about the rule of thirds, leading lines and the golden ratio. There’s more than this, but these are the three that you will hear the most about. You should go and find out about them and start using them - the difference you will see is huge. 

5. Editing Helps — But Subtlety Is Key

Editing is one of my favourite things to do. You need to know that it takes practice and you are constantly learning. You can never know everything about editing. 

When you first start out, one thing you are likely to do (I know I certainly did!) is to find the saturation, virbance and clarity sliders in Lightroom and drag them all or most of the way towards the right hand send. This will make your colours unnatural and it’s not a desirable look for your photos. 

Take your time, practice, look at other photorgapher’s work, watch YouTube videos to learn, but keep it subtle and let it look natural. 

When it comes to editing, less is more. Just like this section of the blog!

6. You’ll Take a Lot of Bad Photos — and That’s Fine

Time for clichés. 

We learn by making mistakes, so go out and make them. The only stupid mistakes you make are the ones that you don’t learn from (2 clichés already!).

But joking  (and clichés ) aside, embrace your mistakes, establish why it’s a mistake and then go out and try again. Rinse and repeat.  

(I’ve used stock images in this blog, but this one is mine, it was handheld and the exposure was too long for this method of taking the image, so it’s blurry and there’s camera movement!)

7. Stop Comparing Yourself to Everyone Else

“Be yourself, everyone else is already taken” Oscar Wilde. 

This was on the wall in a school I used to work in and it’s stuck with me. It works for so many things in life, but in this instance, it works really well. 

Don’t sit and compare your landscape shots to Ansell Adams’ work. Don’t compare your portraits to Annie Leibowitz and don’t compare your still like/commercial photos to Scott Choucino. These are well established professional photographers, have years of experience and have forgotten more about photography than most of us will ever know!

But aside from those I have mentioned above, don’t compare yourself to other photographers on social media. You’re not them and they are not you. Work on your own images and discover your own style!

8. Consistent Practice Beats Occasional Perfection

Use it or lose it. If you’ve ever played and instrument, you will know that you need to practise to get better. Stop practicing and it takes longer to learn the piece. If you’re a sports player and don’t train, you lose the skills you are developing and your fitness decreases and you don’t perform as well.

The same is true with photography. If I go out to shoot and haven’t done so for a couple of weeks, I really notice it and I find that it takes a while to get my eye in and I don’t always know where the camera controls are - this leads to missed shots and missed shot can’t be a good shot or a bad shot!

9. You’ll Start Noticing the World Differently

This sounds like a bit of a cop-out, but it’s true. You’ll notice leading lines, you will notice good light and you will notice that you don’t always have your camera with you when you wish you had - but we all have a camera in our pocket these days anyway, don’t we?

I have lost count of the number of times I have been driving home and have seen amazing light on the fells. The number of times I wish I had my camera with me or the the numbers of times I wished I wasn’t driving at 70mph watching the world zip by the car window is huge. 

If you look hard enough, everything can be a photo and as you practice more, you will begin to see that you can find images where you might not have thought there could be one. Even in harsh sunlight (which isn’t always the photographer’s friend), you will see that you start to see shadows that will make a great image!

10. Enjoy the Process

What is the point in doing it if you don’t enjoy it? It’s probably going to be difficult at times, but what you experience in difficulty, you will more than make up for in sense of achievement. 

Go out there and take lots of bad photos! Learn from the mistakes and use them to improve. Enjoy getting frustrated at the edits but having something beautiful at the end of it. 

I’d also recommend getting your photos printed. I print my own images but if I’m not printing them to hang on the wall or want smaller images, I use services such as Free Prints and get a stack of 6x4s delivered direct to the door for about three quid! It completes the process and brings everything full circle from scouting to shooting to editing, to having those prints in your hand - it’s nice to have a tangible reward at the end!

Photography is great fun, if at times it can be challenging and occasionally frustrating. It can be your best friend and your sanctuary, and it can also, at times, be your worst enemy and some subjects will become your nemesis, but it wouldn’t be fun if it were easy, right?

---

Thanks for sticking with me through this post — I hope it’s helped you feel a little more confident on your photography journey. If it has, why not stay connected? You can follow me on Instagram and Facebook for regular tips, behind-the-scenes content, and new work. And if you’d like more beginner-friendly photography advice, early access to blog posts, and exclusive updates, make sure to sign up for my newsletter here. Let’s keep learning and creating together!

What Gear Do You Need As A Beginner Photographer?

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

So you’ve decided you’re going to take your photography more seriously and you’re in the market for some new camera gear! But what is the best gear for beginner photographers? What gear do you need as a beginner? What gear can you do without? In this blog I will outline the things that (in my opinion) are the essential and highlight some of the stuff you can do without, and a couple of things that you might want to completely avoid.

I’m going to come at this from the point of a landscape/travel photographer rather than a studio/still life photographer. I will explore the latter in a different blog later in the year as it can be a bit of a different ball game. 

I will try to look at different set-ups for beginner photographers on a variety of budgets. This is probably going to have a bit of a Canon bias, but I will do my best to offer suggestions from across different eco systems. I will also try to untangle some of the jargon for you!

The first thing to explore is new camera gear vs second hand gear that you can purchase from a variety of sites, such as MPB.com; this can be a great way to get more for your money. Using a site like MPB means that you’re getting the item that you see on the screen as they photograph every item and don’t just show you a generic pack shot of the camera/lens/other that you are buying. Buying from a reputable retailer also means that you’re covered by some kind of warranty (check with the individual seller). I have also made purchases from CEX and from my local camera shop; both of which have been completely hassle free. The other advantage is that buying from somewhere reputable (rather than the minefield that is Facebook Marketplace), is that you’re going to get some kind of warranty which will vary depending on the country you are in.

One of the great things about your local camera shop is that you can get some great advice and at the same time, can support local business. You also get to feel the camera and get a sense of what it feels like in your hands. The drawback is that you often find that there is a more limited choice of items on offer and this can mean that you end up buying online anyway. 

So what do you actually need?

A Camera

This one is a bit of a given! You could use your phone, but if you are reading this, I am guessing that you are someone who is looking to buy a dedicated camera that doesn’t make phone calls. I have awlways maintained that modern phone cameras are great, but they don’t offer the flexibility or a mirrorless or a DSLR.

Len(es)

You’re going to need a lens to put on your new camera. Most camera bodies won’t come with a lens, unless you are buying brand new and they have bundled a kit lens with it. There’s lots to choose from, but which one(s) should you get to begin with?

Tripod

Because we’re talking about landscape and travel photography, you’re probably going to want to buy a tripod to keep your camera still for long exposures and also to help you move it more accurately and smoothly for some of the panoramic applications that you might find yourself doing with it. 

Camera Bag. 

You’re also going to need a camera bag so that your new kit is protected when you are moving it around. Some people will tell you that you don’t need one, but my attitude is that although your new camera is ultimately the tool that you are using and you can’t ‘baby’ it, you also don’t want to break it beyond repair by throwing into a rucksack and letting it rattle around inside there when you are moving it from point A to point B and then to point C and so on. 

So, let’s unpack some of these and try and find something that suits your budget.

Cameras

This can be a bit of a minefield of technical jargon - megapixels, APSC vs Full Frame vs Micro 4/3, medium format, mirrorless vs DSLR Canon vs Sony… the list goes on. 

All of the latest cameras that are being pushed at you online, are likely to be full frame ones - Things like the Canon EOS R series, Sony A7R5 and Nikon Z6. These are all full frame mirrorless cameras.

The ‘mirrorless’ part refers to the fact that these cameras don’t have a mirror which reflects the image through prism into the viewfinder of the camera. Instead, you have an LCD screen in the electronic viewfinder (EVF) which shows you what the camera is looking at. This makes the camera lighter and also means that there are less moving parts to fail on you as the camera gets older. 

I would urge you to go for a full frame option as this is the direction that camera manufacturers are heading and the APSC stuff is going to start falling by the wayside (it does mean that lenses are cheaper though!).

Medium format cameras are often extortionately priced and are also not something I would recommend for someone who is just starting out - you’re unlikely to use it to the fullest of its capabilities. 

Mirrorless cameras are also a bit smaller and a bit lighter as they don’t have to house the mirror to reflect the image to the viewfinder. This is great if you’re doing a lot of walking around with it. 

If I were to write about all of the idiosyncrasies that each of the brands and various models have, this would turn into a super long blog (it could be a post all on it’s own), so once you think you have settled on a brand, do some research and make sure that you get something that is right for you. 

Cameras to consider:

• Canon EOS RP

• Sony A7 II

• Nikon Z6

All of these come in at under £500 on MPB.COM and could be cheaper deepening on how you feel about the cosmetic condition of what you’re buying.

If you want to go for something which is cheaper still, then something like the Canon 80D, which is an APSC camera (it has smaller sensor than a full frame camera) is a great option and has been my workhorse for a number of years!

Don’t be blinded by the megapixel count of the camera, most images these days are viewed on a screen and the cameras I have recommended above have more than enough resolution to produce images that you will love! The only execution being if you’re hoping to shoot (with a camera!) a lot of wildlife and need to crop in - if this is the case and you don’t have a lot of resolution then you are quickly going to see some image degradation.

Lenses

This is another area which can be absolute nightmare. There are thousands of different lenses available in endless focal lengths and apertures, colours and specifications. 

Things you need to know about lenses:

The focal length of the lens refers to its field of views - the smaller the number, the wider the field of view. For example, a lens with a focal length of 10mm is going to take in much more of a scene than a 600mm focal length which is going to be zoomed right in and is usually used used to take photos of things such as birds/wildlife and sports; things where we can’t always get as close to the subject of the photograph as we would like. 

Aperture: This refers to how wide the iris of the lens opens. The lower the number, the wider the aperture will open. This is usually indicated in a format such as f/2.8 or f/3.5-5.6. This is know as the f stop. The smaller this number is, the wider the aperture will open. The wider it opens, the more light it can let in, and this can influence your shutter speed and will affect the depth of field. You can read more about this in my Exposure Triangle Blog. Lenses which have a low f/number and let in lots of light, are often referred to as “fast lenses”. 

Prime/Zoom. This one is an easy one. Prime lenses have a fixed focal length. This means that a 50mm prime lens takes photos at 50mm and 50mm only. It doesn’t zoom in or out. A zoom lens, such a 70-200mm lens takes photos from 70mm and can zoom in to a 200mm focal length, meaning that your subject is brought “closer” to you. Prime lenses are often much sharper than zooms but they are also often more expensive!

It’s a nice idea to have a couple of lenses when you start out so that you have some flexibility in what you do snd how you do it. I love my 70-200mm lens for landscape photography as it allows me to pick out details in a scene to create different compositions, so this can be a good starting point. I also really rate the Canon 50mm prime len (as do millions of other photographers) and the great thing about them is that you can pick up a second hand one for around £60-70!

A 24-70mm lens is also a really nice to have in the arsenal and again, gives you some flexibility and a wider field of view than the 70-200mm lens. 

Most camera companies will offer what’s called a “kit lens”. This will be a zoom lens, and will usually have a focal length of somewhere around 18-55mm and a variable aperture (the more you zoom in, the smaller then minimum aperture size available becomes) and these are a great starting point. You’ll often find them bundled with new cameras so that you can get started. A lot of people will tell you that kit lenses are rubbish, but I have taken some of my best and most favourite shots with mine; there’s even an image taken with a kit lens available in my store!

Again, if I listed lenses from every manufacturer here, this would be a massive list, but some focal lengths worth considering are listed below. 

• 18-55mm - Gives some flexibility for wider shots and allows you to punch in to find some different compositions. 

• 24-70mm - similar reasons to the 18-55mm but what you gain in zoom, you lose at the wider end of the scale. 

• 70-200mm - probably my go to for landscapes these days, makes me think more creatively about compositions and the reach at 200mm encourages me to pick out interest in the landscape that’s in front of me. Can be a useful one for some wildlife photography, if you can get close enough.  

• 50mm prime - a great lens which is cheap, light and will make you think creatively. These are a great thing to have in the bag. 

You don’t need to buy all of these lenses at once! If I could only pick one of these to suggest to a beginner, it would be the 18-55mm kit lens; this will give you the most flexibility for the cheapest price and will allow you to figure where you want to go next as a beginner photographer.

Tripods

This one is much more straight forward. If you want sharp images, want to take images that are shot with longer exposrure times or you find yourself doing a lot of panoramic shots, you need a tripod. The great thing is that they can be as cheap or as expensive as you want them to be.

A good tripod should be, sturdy, steady and not too heavy. The lighter you go, the more money you can expect to spend.

You also want to make sure that your tripod has a decent head on it. If it’s a bit naff, you will end up with camera movement and potential breakages which can lead to your camera breaking. Consider the weight of your camera when you’re thinking about this. 

I like to use an L-Bracket on my camera rather than relying on the tripod to do this bit of work for me, as I find that it’s quicker for me to get set up and I have more confidence that my tripod will do its job and not break when I am using it. My L-bracket practically lives on my tripod and I use a ball head from K&F concept.

Some tripod options to consider:

• Amazon Basics Tripod

• K&F Concept 79” tripod

• Smallrig 72” Tripod

• 3 Legged Thing - L Bracket

Camera Bags. 

The camera bag market is crazy and most photographers will have a small collection of bags and even then won’t tell you that they are 100% happy with their preferred option. Unfortunately, bags are something which is very much a personal preference. Online shops are packed with a million and one offerings and then a million and one more. As a beginner photographer, you don’t need some crazy lightweight bag with all of the latest tech inside it. You need something comfortable that you can get in and out of easily, which keeps your gear safe and allows you to carry your camera gear in a way that works for you. I have four bags and I use them all for different things.

Some bags ideas here:

Lowepro Tahoe 150: This was the first camera bag I had and is great value for money. It fits in a ton of stuff, is comfortable and full of padding. I do wish it had a waterproof cover, but you can pick one up on Amazon for a few pounds. It’s a great bag when you’re setting out. 

Lowepro Fastpack: I’ve had this for a little over 12 months and absolutely love it. It’s great if your going to spending time out and about walking and I have written an in depth review of it here. 

Editing your images

I always recommend shooting in raw format as opposed JPEG. This means that there is more information for your editing software to use to aid you in enhancing your images in the edit. 

When you’re first starting out, it can seem a bit crazy with the amount of options that are available to you, some are paid, some are free. 

When you first start out, consider using things like Photopea or GiMP. These are free applications that will allow you to edit your images in much the same way you would in photoshop. 

When you’re ready then take a look at the Adobe website and see what works for you. As a beginner, the photography package, which includes Lightroom and Photoshop will be more than enough to start to get to grips with. There are tons of tutorials on YouTube.

You could also consider Capture 1 Pro, but this only has colour grading functions so you might want to think about whether or not you want the more in-depth options that photoshop offers.

Things you don’t need to buy as a beginner photographer.

Instead of buying these things when you first start, maybe consider investing this money in some of the stuff I have mentioned above.

Drone - learn to compose shots and edit them first, then think about taking aerial shots with a drone. I have one and love using it but don’t use it anywhere near as much as I thought I would. They’re great for video but take things slow and take this leap when you are ready.

Lens Ball - gimmicky to the point that I have four of these. One I bought myself and the others were gifted to me and have hardly been used. I have taken one photo using one of these that I actually like. Buy one and say hello to your new optically engineered paperweight. If you’re going to buy one of these and don’t have a 50mm prime, then buy the prime lens instead. You can thank me later. 

Filters - As you develop your skills and learn about photography, you will definitely want to learn about filters and how and when to use them. Not having them won’t cause you any huge issues when you first start out and will help you to get to know your camera. You can use exposure bracketing to manage scenes with high dynamic range rather than reaching for an ND filter.

Gimbals - Unless you are planning on making a ton of video content then there is no need for one of these. I have a mobile phone gimbal which I use now and again to create timelapses but haven’t used it anywhere near its full capability! 

Other things to consider buying when you buy your first camera

SD Cards (you can never have too many of these), spare batteries (especially of you’re buying a Somy camera or you think you are going to be shooting a lot of video - make sure you get the right ones for your camera), lens cloths, rocket blower and if you’re a landscape photographer, a head torch!

When you’re buying SD cards, buy the biggest you can afford, but check the read/write speeds on your camera specs. There isn’t any point spending money on a superfast card when your  camera isn’t able to write as quickly as the card can handle - you won’t notice any difference. 

Another thing I would consider is a shutter release. This is a simple bit of kit which allows you release the shutter on your camera without touching it. This can be important when you’re shooting on a tripod, and even more important if you are shooting on a tripod at a long focal length. No matter how hard you try, when you press the shutter button on your camera, you are going to introduce movement into your image. Movement often results in either blurred or soft (out of focus) shots, and that’s often not what we are aiming for!

Final Thoughts

I hope that you have found this useful! Buying a camera can be a bit of a nightmare as there is so much choice and the way cameras are marketed makes it even more difficult to make what is the right choice for you and not what is the right choice for the camera manufacturers. Don’t get sucked into spending money that you don’t need to.

Make sure that you look at the second hand websites as I said at the start of this blog. The second hand market for camera is awesome and given the current global economic situation, this is only going to continue to save you some money and the great thing is that when you’re ready to upgrade in the future, you can sell them back to where you got them from and have something to put towards your new purchase!

If you have any questions about what is in the blog, or if you buy new gear and want to learn how to use it then drop me an email with a question or to discuss a photography workshop in the Lake District where I can spend a day or half a day with you showing you how to get the most out of your new camera gear!

10 Things I Love in My Studio that Make My Life Easier

This blog is about 10 things that I have in my studio which make my life easier, or more enjoyable when I am here working.

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

I spend a lot of time here either shooting or working at my desk editing, doing paperwork, writing blogs, updating my website and speaking to clients. These are the things that I use most often and make working here much easier. 

I haven’t included computer equipment as I find that’s quite a personal choice depending on what operating system you like to use. For the sake of just putting it out there, I edit using an M1 Mac and a BENQ monitor. 

Here’s a list of ten items, plus one bonus which I have found have made my time in the studio, and at times, more enjoyable!

Paper Backdrops and Roller System. 

Before I had these, I was using a backdrop stand with cloth backdrops and occasionally would use one of those curved photography tables that you can get to create an infinity curve but getting the backdrop system has been a real game changer.

The first massive difference it has made is that the amount of floor space I have has been drastically increased as I don’t need to have a pair of tripods set up all the time to have the backdrop cloths hanging, and furthermore, I don’t have steam or iron the backdrops every time I take one off the shelf that hasn’t been used for a while. The paper ones pull down and then roll away really easily when I have finished with them.

The first massive difference it has made is that the amount of floor space I have has been drastically increased as I don’t need to have a pair of tripods set up all the time to have the backdrop cloths hanging, and furthermore, I don’t have steam or iron the backdrops every time I take one off the shelf that hasn’t been used for a while. The paper ones pull down and then roll away really easily when I have finished with them. 

I have a whole range of colours available to me which when they aren’t being used, can be stored out of the way in a cupboard where they are protected and not in the way. There are three of them permanently on the rollers and the rest stay neatly tucked away. 

I also have a choice of which roll sizes to buy, which can help with the cost as the smaller ones are much cheaper, so if it’s one I might not use as often, I am often tempted to buy the smaller one as it makes more sense from a cost point of view. I do however, tend to buy the longer ones and then cut them to size (I lose about 10cm on the end of the roll).

The pros of these are that they are easy to install, are sturdy and provide a good, even solid colour to the images and they are reusable until you have worn them out. Look after them and they will look after you.  

The drawbacks are that they aren’t portable, so I can’t do away with the cloth back drop system for now, but as most of my work is studio based, this isn’t a huge issue for me. 

Links to the ones I use are here:

Neewer Backdrop Roller System

Backdrop Rolls

Metal Support Tubes 

Canon Pro 1000 Printer. 

This is one of my favourite things I own, especially when it comes to being able to print my own images for sale. The process of shooting, editing, printing and sometimes framing means that I feel the photographic process is complete and I have something tangible at the end of the process. 

I also love the fact that printing my own images has been one of the ways in which I have been able to improve my own photography, especially in the edit, as it has made me pay more attention to detail.

The downsides here are the initial cost, which is around £1000 and then the inks are expensive to replace (£500 for a full set), but this is offset by print sales and the fact that printing images, even at A2 size doesn’t use as much ink as you would think! 

I have linked the printer I have in my studio and a smaller, slightly cheaper alternative if you budget won’t stretch to the PRO 1000 model:

Canon Pro 1000

Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 A3

Trolley

This has been one of my best purchases and was something I picked up in Ikea, but you can find similar ones all over the internet at a similar price point (around about £40). 

The one I have is on wheels (this is important as you want to be able to move it easily) and has three, deep trays where I can put things and move them around the studio with me, rather than having to keep going back and forth. I keep it well organised so I know where to find things quickly when I need them and it means that I know where things are and that I have them to hand when I need them. 

It can take a couple of days shooting to get the contents really dialled in as everyone’s needs are going to be different so get one, experiment and see what difference it makes to your workflow!

I got mine from Ikea, but a similar one on Amazon is much cheaper and almost identical:

Storage Cart 3 Tier Metal Trolley

Capture One Pro

This was an absolute game changer for me and my studio shooting. The tethered capture on here is far superior to the one in Lightroom and it makes file organisation an absolute breeze!

Shooting tethered capture in here is an absolute dream, the live preview is awesome and the whole process is STABLE!

There is also a course that you can complete to allow you to develop your skills in the software, which is led by industry experts so you know that you’re getting the best knowledge from people who use it on a day to day basis. It has transformed the way I used the software, and best of all, it was free!

The software is being constantly updated and I don’t resent one penny of the monthly subs because of how easy it makes it to shoot and organise my photos. 

Full disclosure, I still edit the shots in Lightroom. This isn’t because I think it’s better, it’s because I have a workflow in here that I know and the process is much quicker for me. One of the things I want to do over the next couple of months is to learn the editing side of this software so that my workflow is even more streamlined. 

You can download a free trial of the software here. 

Tether Block

Probably the cheapest and possibly the dullest item on here, but also one the most useful.

The tether clip attaches to your camera and holds the tether cable in place.

This means that the cable isn’t 1) Wiggling about in the port on your camera pulling it away from what attaches it to the insides and 2) stops you from yanking the cable out of the cable accidentally and causing severe damage to the port.

There's not a lot else to say about this other than it could potentially save you a lot of money!

Get yourself a tether block on Amazon!

Trestle Table

This is something that I get a lot of use out of. I paid about £40 for a folding trestle table from Amazon. It’s six feet long, fold downs flat and halves in length, making it easy to store and transport. It has a really small footprint when it’s folded so you can stash it away well out of sight.

This is where I set up the majority of my shots in the studio. It has plenty of space, is sturdy, lightweight and it is easy to move around and store and doesn't break the bank. 

Again, there isn’t a lot to say about this, because ultimately it's just a big folding table, but it's a very useful one that has already paid for itself. 

They come in smaller sizes if your space or budget is limited. 

You can see the one I have here.

Spring Grip Clamps

These are cheap plastic grips which I got from Amazon and they are used all the time in my shoots. Their biggest use was previously to pull the backdrops taught on my stand but now, they tend to be used to hold paper rolls in place when I am shooting on the table.

They can also be used to keep cables out of the way, hold flags in place, hold reflectors in place and also to prop things up when they keep falling over. 

The ones I used are linked here.

Speakers

Maybe this is a weird choice for a photographer, and technically I didn’t buy them for this purpose as they are a hangover from my music production days but they have been a real benefit when I am editing video and doing things like making reels for social media. 

I have a pair of KRK Rokit RP5’s which are mounted on stands at ear level, either side of my desk. These are powered speakers so you’ll need a power source close by to where you place them. 

I sometimes edit using headphones/ear buds, but sometimes you don’t want to do this and your ears can get fatigued when you’re using them for a long time and at times they can be uncomfortable if you’re using them for a long time. 

They are also great to have on when I’m shooting and want to have music going in the background!

You can find the latest version on Amazon, here.

Graphics Tablet

I have the medium Wacom Intuos Pro and the pen that comes supplied with it. 

This is probably, after the printer, the thing that has made the biggest difference to my editing. Before I had this, I used to wonder how people managed to edit photos and retouch things just by using the mouse or trackpad so I researched some options, tried a couple out and then settled on this one. 

The difference it made was huge. One thing I used to hate having to do was to clone out all of the blobs of chewing gum on the footpaths in some of my low angle and street portraits in London. It was always the last thing I did in the edit; it seemed to take hours and was just, quite simply, a nightmare. 

The first thing I tried when I got the tablet set up was try doing the very thing that I hated, and within 5 minutes, it was done, such was the difference I found it made. 

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The tablet is fully customisable from the size of the work area (meaning that you only use a portion of it and don’t have to move your hand so far across the page), the soft keys are fully programmable to Lightroom and Photoshop shortcuts (you can have them set up for both and the software knows which programme you’re in and changes them without you having to do anything), the scroll wheel makes zooming in and out of images a breeze and there are even buttons on the pen which you can assign shortcuts to.

My pen shortcuts are set up to undo actions and it makes things much quicker and easier!

If you’re editing skin then retouching is a dream and for everything else, you can just be so much more accurate that you can with a mouse.

Mine has been worth every penny.

Notebooks

Something completely non techy here but I always have a notebook with me in the studio (and at most other times of the day!) and there are a number of reasons for this. 

I don’t use it just for photography (but that's a big part of it), but it has to do lists, “done lists” and other things like how much water I’ve had that day or what the weather was like, I supposed kind of like a diary, but not one that I have a one way correspondence with!

I think for me, it’s just a great way for me to write down ideas as they come to me, without having to pick up my phone - the less I have to interact with my phone the better as more often than not, I don’t just open up the notes app - it’s checking mails, it’s replying to messages or it’s scrolling on Instagram. By the time I have finished these things, I have forgotten why I picked my phone up and the original idea is a distant memory. 

This means that when I have an idea for an image, or for a blog, see something I want to shoot when I am out and about and don’t have my camera, I can quickly write it down and then get back to what I was doing, the idea safely written down and my brain not fried by more social media exposure!

I like one that’s small enough to fit in my pocket, like it with lined or squared paper as this helps me to stay more organised and a soft cover as this means I can fit in most pockets. 

The American “Field Notes” books are a great size and come in some awesome designs, but they are very expensive to buy in the UK, whereas Amazon sells “Site Notes” books much more cheaply - they’re also much more plain but do look quite retro. I use a Pilot HiTech V-Point pen and have a soft leather case to keep it all in.

Find the things I use on Amazon, here:

Field Notes Book

Site Notes Book

Leather Case

Pilot Pens

Bonus Item

Finally, a bonus item as it doesn’t really serve any purpose in terms of my photography, but it is (used to be) a camera and it looks great. 

This is my Box Brownie lamp which I got from a maker's market somewhere and it sits atop one of the speakers I have in here and it looks fab with its little Edison bulb throwing out some warm light!

There lots of these around if you take a look at site like Etsy.

So there you have it, ten things which make my life in the studio much easier and at times, a little more enjoyable, especially when I am deep into editing!

I hope you find something you like and I will see you in the next one!

If you enjoyed reading this then don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter so that are notified when I have a new blog post out, to get hints and tips straight to your inbox or to find out when I have offers running in the store.

10 Photography Lessons to Improve Your Own Photography

In this blog I am going to share 10 tips/lessons I have learned since starting photography 8 years ago. That’s more than one tip per year!

I am going to cover lighting, being patient, why composition matters in photography, why you should shoot with other photographers and why it’s important to ask for help when you’re struggling. 

So let’s get into it… 

Gear Doesn’t Matter

Really. It doesn’t matter. Good cameras don’t take better photos. Better photographers take better photos. Better compositions make better photos. Better light makes better photos. The list goes on!

Think of the cameras that we have at our disposal today. Take the Canon EOS R5 MK 2 for example; 45MP sensor, 30 FP, 8K raw video,  Digic X processor. The list goes on. Give it to an absolute beginner and unless they’re some kind of prodigy, they probably aren’t going to take great pictures, perhaps not even good ones… maybe, not even average photos.

Then compare this to the cameras that some of the greats used, Ansel Adams shot much of his body of work on simple large format cameras, Bruce Gilden uses a Leica M6, Ernst Haas shot largely on Leica Rangefinder cameras. All of these are great cameras, but they’re not as technically advanced as some of the stuff that we have at our disposal in 2025. The reason you have heard of these greats of photography is that they know how to compose, how to capture a moment, how to work with the light, when to shoot, when not to shoot and how to use the cameras that they have!

Don’t be fooled, just because you’ve spent thousands on a camera and lenses, this doesn’t mean that you are going to go out and capture images that are great or good. 

Instead of investing money to get better, invest in time working on composition, learn the rules and when you know the rules, learn to break them! Spend time getting to know your camera: know what the buttons do, know the menus and know where the buttons, dials and switches are - you don’t want to miss shots because you’re fiddling around with buttons trying to adjust settings. 

Finally, if you’re going to spend money upgrading your camera setup, upgrade your glass and not your camera… some of the best improvements I have seen in image quality (not the standard of my photography!)  have been when I have got a new lens, not when I have got a new camera!

Light(ing) Does Matter

It might mean getting up at stupid o clock in the morning for golden hour, it might be staying out in the hills until late in the summer for sunset, it might be waiting patiently waiting for the right day of the year for the sun to be in the right place to create the exact shadow you want to frame a subject or it might be hours in the studio agonizing over flash power, modifiers, reflectors, flags and negative fill but not matter what it is, it matters. 

It might mean walking around a subject to find the right angle to shoot it from or positioning your model/talent in the right place to get the most flattering light. 

Light matters!

I used to shoot almost exclusively in low light and loved skulking around London in the small hours of the morning with the streets to myself and then when I decided I was going to start shooting more during the day, I really struggled with it. Struggled to the point that I almost gave up on ever getting a shot I liked during the day. 

What I learned was that it wasn’t me being unable to do it, but that I wasn’t using the light in the right way.

Getting the lighting right and having it in the right place will help to transfer a “meh” image into a “wow” image.

Composition over Settings

Composition is going to trump settings every time. .If you’re image doesn’t grab someone's attention then the settings are going to matter one single jot because they’re not looking at your photo in the first place!

Don’t just think about what you are including in your composition, but think about what you are leaving out of it as well. Crop the distracting items out in camera, save yourself some time in the edit and focus on what your image is about. So what if your ISO is a bit too high? It might be a noisier image than you had hoped for, but if it bothers you that much, you can reduce this in post and then remember that people also add grain to their images in the edit… (Yes, I know that ISO noise and film grain are two different things and it’s very much a matter of taste/opinion)

Perfect your composition first and make sure you get the shot, then worry about the settings that you have used to capture it. If it’s properly exposed and sharp then the creative stuff can come afterwards.

A solid, sharp and well exposed photo is better than a photo that is unusable because you were too focussed on getting the right settings. 

“Done is Better Than Perfect”

I have stolen this from Peter McKinnon, but when I heard him say it, there was something about it that really resonated with me. 

I was someone who wasn’t always willing to put my work out there if I wasn’t 100% happy with it. But this was at the expense of people not even seeing the stuff that I had spent hours working on. The reason we (well, I assume most of us!) take photos is so that we can share them with other people, be that either privately, commercially or on social media. 

No, I’m not saying you should share work that isn’t ready for public consumption, or that you’re really not happy with, but that you shouldn’t always agonise over the small stuff. In a commercial situation, sometimes you have to do this, we are often looking for perfection in these circumstances, but this doesn’t have to apply to every photo that you take. There is beauty in imperfeciton. 

If your image is 99% ‘there’ then is there any real return from spending another 2 or 3 hours, or even days getting that last 1%? Who is going to notice.

Moments Over Perfection. 

Look at the work of Henri Cartier-Breson, especially the work in his book “The Decisive Moment” (You might have to wait a while for the book or pay a lot of money for an older copy!) and see that not all of the images are “perfect”. 

Sometimes there is motion blur, sometimes there are areas of over exposure or under exposure, but what is key in these works is moment that the shutter was clicked to capture an emotion, to frame a subject or to steal an image in fleeting light. 

This is about storytelling rather than technical perfection. If you’re out in the street, on the fells or just out for a walk in your local area then you only get one chance to take the photo and you might miss some bangers!

This is very different to be in a studio environment where we can control almost evey aspect of what is in front of us from the position to lighting to the angle we’re shooting at. Out in the field you might get only once chance and you don’t want to miss it because you’re worried about the optimum settings to take your image!

See also “Done it better than perfect” above.

Be Patient

This one seems a but antithetical given what I have just said in the paragraph above, but I am going to say it anyway and it is especially true if you have a particular shot in mind. 

Wait. 

That’s it. Just wait.

You might have to wait 2 minutes. You might have to wait 20 minutes. 

This was especially true for me when I was shooting lots in London and I was trying to take photos of bus trails or light trails. There were many times when I had found scenes I wanted to shoot and had spent time finding compositions that worked. 

It was the same story time after time. A cold, often wet (city photos look awesome in the wet!) night, you’ve got everything set up for a bus to drive through the scene so you can fire the shutter and expose for the motion blur you are desperately trying to capture to complete your images. There were umpteen buses driving through when you were setting up and now you’re ready to go there’s no buses. Not a single one. And then when one does appear, the lights are the wrong colour temperature (Trust me on this, London busses have very different colour temperatures for their interior lights some are almost royal blue they are so cool and then some are a jarring halogen shade of yellow like old fashioned sodium street lights) and by this point you’re cold, you’re frustrated and the Pret across the street is looking more inviting by the second. 

But… the payoff when you get what you have been waiting for is always worth it. Always. There is nothing worse than getting home, seeing the images that you have made and them not being what you wanted because you hadn’t been patient. You’ve then got to wait for the same conditions to show themselves again,,, the right, the right weather and so on. By the time this happens again, you will have either forgotten or will have gone off the idea so be patient and it will happen!

Keep it Simple

This can be especially useful if you are stuck in a bit of a competitive rut.

You don’t need to take huge amounts of kit with you on a shoot for it to be a successful shoot. I used to take my big bag everywhere with me and it would be crammed full of as much stuff as I could fit and physically carry around with me. I wanted to be ready for every single situation and it took me a while to realise that I couldn’t be ready for absolutely everything. 

In more recent memory, I have invested in a smaller bag and think carefully about what I am going to take with me on each shoot - the gear really has to earn its place in the bag and the two mainstays are the camera body and my 70-200; It’s sharp, light(ish) and allows me to pick out detail. I love my 85mm f/1.8 but its big, it’s heavy and it still hasn’t been carried up a mountain or been on a long walk for this reason. 

So what’s the point here? Take minimal kit with you. Maybe limit yourself ot yoru camera and 2 lenses the first time you try this and then make it super minimal and take your camera, one lens and maybe a spare battery. 

This makes you think more creatively, forces you to think about composition, makes sure that you’re considering the light that you have and will make you take shots that you might have otherwise avoided because there was an easier option in the bag. 

The only time that the big bag comes with me now is if I am moving a lot of kit, it is going in the car and I am driving to a location to shoot or, I have a base (like a hotel room), in which case I am packing the smaller bag as well and then being more selective about what I actually take out with me to shoot with. 

Collaborate!

This doesn’t have to be some huge social media collaboration, but what I am getting at is getting out to shoot with other photographers. 

Some of the times that I have learned the most about photography and about myself as a photographer have been when I have been out to shoot with friends who are also photographers.

The first time I did this was with a friend in London. He was very much a street photographer, whereas I was much more focussed on urban landscapes and architecture. I remember meeting him and thinking “Where’s his tripod, how is he going to take any photos?!”. 

Our styles were (and still are!) vastly different but seeing him move through the crowded London streets and getting close to his subjects gave me a new perspective on my own work. 

Another time, I went out as someone fairly new to photography, again in Central London, with someone who turned up with just a camera and a 70-200 F/2.8 lens. I was confused as to how he would fit everything into his photos when he was shooting at such a long focal length and that was the day I decided I needed a longer lens to be able to pick out some of the details in a scene. 

I could go on but the point I am trying to make is that working alongside other photographers isn’t just about having some company on a shoot. It’s a great time to talk about photography, to see how other people work and to experiment with new ideas and get some feedback!

Not Everything Will Be Successful and That’s OK. 

Time to trot out a cliché! Make mistakes and learn from them, it’s the best way to learn. We learn from our mistakes. 

Yes it’s cliché, but it’s a cliché largely because it’s true. The key is to understand what has gone wrong, why it’s gone wrong and how it’s gone wrong. That way you can begin to understand what it is that has happened and how to avoid this happening in the future. 

When you’re starting out, make sure that you understand the exposure triangle - I have written a blog about this here. This will help you to correct under/over exposed images, blurry images (blurred not soft, they are two very different things!) or images that have a ton of noise in them. 

Not all of your shoots will be successful and even on a successful shoot, not all of your photos are going to be successful. Photography is a process and not an event and you should enjoy the process and learn as much as you can from it. 

Oh, and don’t compare yourself to other photographers on social media… just do your thing, trust the process, trust yourself and grow as your own photographer. 

When the going gets tough… Ask for help.

Make it stand out

There is absolutely no shame in this.

I am in a WhatsApp group which is full of photographers and videographers. It's a special place for a number of reasons, but one of the best things about it is that everyone there is knowledgeable and supportive. No one gets shamed for asking for help (they might get shamed for shooting Nikon!), asking questions or not knowing something.

The beautiful thing about it is that you often get several very different answers or opinions and you have a ton of new ideas to run with and to try out. 

A  very common question is along the lines of “I keep seeing this in images, does anyone know what’s causing it/how to mitigate it”. Usually within about five minutes, the problem has been sorted and we can get back to sharing memes. 

I find this is a great way to get support, especially for young photographers or people new to photography. The photography side of the internet can be a scary place, especially in some of the forums where people feel the need to gate-keep knowledge or to treat people in the most patronizing of ways and it just shouldn’t be about that.

We all started somewhere in this game (another cliché) and the chances are that in your photography network there is someone else who has had the problem you are having and knows how to fix it. 

Collaborate, go on meet ups and find your photography people!

Go and Do It

Firstly, if you have made it this far through my musings, thank you! But this links to something that I am going to finish on. 

I used to be really guilty of this. I would spend hours watching YouTube trying to get better and then realised that actually, what this was impeding my progress; whilst I was sat watching videos, other people were out shooting, getting images that I wasn’t and developing their own skills. I was just developing other people’s watch hours!

There is a lot to be said for photography youtube, but be selective, find some channels that work for you and stick with them but try not to end up down rabbit holes!

The best way to learn and to improve your photography skills is to go out, shoot and then come back to your computer and edit. You can sit and watch as many vlogs and tutorials as you want, you can read all the books and all of the blogs and these will help you with ideas, maybe with some inspiration but nothing is going to help you get better than getting out and doing it. 

You can’t learn to play the trombone simply by watching tutorials online. You have to play the instrument. 

You can’t learn how to play golf by reading about it in a book and then expecting to turn up at the range and drill it 300yds and sink every putt and the same is true of photography so get out there, take the shot, make the mistake(s!), learn from them and grab some bangers!

If you enjoyed reading this then don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter so that are notified when I have a new blog post out, to get hints and tips straight to your inbox or to find out when I have offers running in the store.

Black Friday Deals for Photographers on Amazon, 2024.

Here’s a quick run down of some of the best Black Friday deals for photographers that I have found for 2024.

“Best deals” in this case isn’t necessarily the cheapest deals on the whole site (their are thousands, if not millions of them!), but the ones that I think are worth spending your money on.

These deals end on 2nd December 2024 so grab a bargain before they run out. This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

Let’s dive in…

1: Canon EF-S 10-18mm F/4.5-5.6.

£199.99 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

This is a lens that I own and shoot with a lot. It has a super wide field of view and creates very little distortion on huge landscapes (you’re probably not going to want to shoot close up portraits with this!). The field of view on this is so wide that you can see the lens hood in the shot if you’re shooting at 10mm!

I have always been really impressed with the sharpness of this lens, especially in manual focus mode. The auto-focus isn’t super fast with this lens, but given that you’re probably not going to use this to shoot fast moving subjects, that really isn't’t a problem. The link in this one is to a renewed item, but brand new ones are still available! There’s currently £60 ($75) off this lens and that means that during the Black Friday Week, it’s coming in at less than £200!

2: Manfrotto Befree Advanced Camera Tripod Kit (Aluminium Twist Version)

£126.00 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

I don’t own this tripod, but I have used this model and a couple of its variants. It’s small and lightweight and great if you want something that you aren’t really going to notice that you’re carrying - this comes in at less that 1.5kg! It’s compatible with Manfrotto and Arca Swiss plates.

The friction locking legs are quick to extend and lock firmly in place but they do only give you a max height of 1.5m so if you’re looking for a perspective that’s much higher up, then this might not be for you. 

There’s over 40% of this, so its definitely a bargain worth grabbing.

3: DJI OSMO 6 Mobile Camera Gimbal/Stabliser

£85 Amazon until 02/12/2024

I own an earlier iteration of this piece of kit and I love using it, though admittedly it did take me a bit of getting used to. The only reason I haven’t upgraded is that I simply don’t need to. With the quality of mobile phone video only getting better and better and with that, more accessible, this is a good starting point for those of you wanting to make a move into videography/cinematography without spending hundreds of pounds on a new video camera.

You might just want to make better quality, more stable TikTok’s or Instagram reels and that’s fine too - the supplied mini tripod will be right up your street and it’s ability to track you means that you’re not out of the frame for a second. 

You get 3 axis stabilisation, active track 6.0 and a 21m extension rod, perfect for recording pieces to camera, for £85 ($106 US). Another saving of over 40%. Oh and did I mention that this fits into your pocket?!

4: LowePro ProTactic 450 AWII

£149 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

This is my big bag and I love it. It holds everything I need for a days shooting and then some. I can esaiy fit in my camera body (Canon 80D), DJI Mavic Air 2 Drone and controller, a bunch of lenses, my laptop, chargers, batteries, filters… the list goes on. This is a beast of a bag.

It might not be the bag that you want to take out on a hike if you’re going out to get some landscapes, but if you’re out on a shoot in another studio or you’re on location and know you’re going to need a lot of kit with you, then this could be the one. 

The inside of it is fully customisable, you can move the dividers around to suit exactly what you need, which is great and provides both flexibility and protection. The back opens fully at the rear so that you have full access to all of your kit and if you don’t want to take the whole thing off, then you can pack the top of the bag with what you want to get at quickly and access it through the “lid”. You can also configure it so that you can get to other things through the quick access side panels and have it act a bit like a sling bag.

Webbing can be found all over the back of the bag, which is great for attaching a tripod to and there’s supplied bottle holders for your water!

This is a well made, tough bag which has survived location shoots, 100’s of rides on the Tube, wind, rain, mud snow, the northern lights and much much more.

5: Ashata Cable Clamp (Tether Block)

$4.49 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

This is one for the studio shooters who like to shoot tethered!

There’s not a lot to say about this other than it is cheap and this represents good value for money. Yes its black and it’s a bit of a boring looking thing and it’s not a huge amount of fun to use but it could end up saving you a ton of money in busted camera gear.

The purpose of this is to hold onto your tether cable so it’s not ragging about in the port that you are connected to you on your camera. Damage the port, it’s an expensive repair and potentially days of lost work, expensive repairs and camera hire in the mean time. 

Cheapest thing on the list, but also the one that could potentially save you the most money.

6: K&F Concept Filters

£ Various on Amazon until 02/12/2024

There’s a whole bunch of these that you can choose from. You might want an ND to help in bright light or a polariser to minimise glare. You might be looking for something more creative like a pro-mist, but whatever you decide, these K&F ones are great, well made, get the job done, and done well.

It’s always worth spending a bit more money on camera filters - you’ve spent a ton on your lens which has got some amazing, optically engineered glass inside it so putting a cheap piece of glass in front of it seems antithetical!

Be sure to check the thread size you need before you go and spend your money!

7: Drawing and Graphics Tablets

Wacom Intuos Pro S  - £128.99

Wacom Intuos Pro M -  £215.99 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

This is one of the favourite things I have in my workflow. I only got it a couple of years ago and it completely changed the way I edit things, and to an extent the subtlety that I edit with. 

Has it sped my workflow up? No. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it means that I am able to take more care in what I am doing and do what I am doing with greater accuracy. When I first got it, I spent 10 minutes editing out pieces of chewing gum on the floor in a London street portrait that I had taken. The difference it made to the final image was incredible.

The Wacom Intuos Pro M helped me to make a huge difference to this image and if I didn't have oit, I wouldn’t have been able to be bothered to do it with a mouse. I always found editing with a mouse really clunky and cumbersome, having my Wacom tablet has given me the ability and the want, to be able to make these edits. 

They’re pressure sensitive so you can apply variations in the edits that you’re doing, just like you would with a ‘normal’ pen or pencil (or brush!) and the buttons are all fully customisable so that you can add in your favourite shortcuts to switch between brush modes, or whatever else you decide you to set them to. 

There's £100+ ($125 US) off both of these so grab one whilst they’re cheap and before they sell out!

8. SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO SDXC card

£14.30 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

Another not very exciting item to the non-photographer but we can never have enough good quality SD cards and these ones have the best part of 50% off so now is a good time to stock up!

9. Heysliy RGB Tube Lights

£29.99 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

These have a variety of uses, but are most fun when you’re using them for long exposure photography and light painting, but they also have creative applications in the studio.

I can’t speak to the colour accuracy of these so I wouldn’t be using them as a key light, but as a fill light they are great and are small enough to fit inside most camera bags. 2 hour battery life and fairly quick to charge so another plus there. This is one I own and the reviews on Amazon are generally pretty good, so dive in.

10. Data Color Spyder X2 Elite Color Calibration Tool.

£209.76 on Amazon until 02/12/2024

If you’re printing your work, or working professionally then this is a must have piece of kit (in my humble opinion!).

In conjunction with correct ICC printer profiles, this will make sure that what you see on screen is what comes out of the printer and that what you see with your eyes is accurately represented on the screen when you are sending digital deliverables to clients. 

It takes about 10 minutes a week to calibrate and colour match both of the monitors in my studio and it’s absolutely with doing if you want the very best results and the best possible colour accuracy in all of your work.

You just dangle the cable over the top of the monitor you want to calibrate, ensure the device is resting flat against the screen and the supplied software will guide you through the rest of the process - it’s super easy.

So, that concludes my brief round up of what I think are ten of the best Black Friday deals for photographers on Amazon in 2024. Like I said at the beginning of the blog, these aren’t necessarily the cheapest things out there, but they are ones that I think are the most useful. I hope that you’ve found it useful!

All prices correct as of 23/11/2024.

Christmas Gift Ideas for Photographers 2024

A quick guide to some affordable Christmas gifts for photographers.

It’s that time of year again and I am going to try and inspire you with some ideas for unique photography Christmas gifts for the photographer in your life, or maybe just give you some ideas that you can treat yourself to!

I’ll break them down into the following price categories: Under £25, under £50 and under £100 as well as a couple of more expensive ideas right at the end. For the sake of transparency, all of the links in this blog are Amazon Affiliate links, so if you make a purchase, I may get a small kickback.

All these things are items that I currently own, have owned or have used; this isn’t just a Wishlist of things I would buy myself.

Let’s dive into my list of Christmas Gifts for photographers 2024.

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

Christmas Gifts for Photographers Under £25

JJC Camera Filter Case - £19.99 at Amazon

This is a great, solid “pouch” for storing filters in. I say “pouch” because this is definitely more of a case. It’s very solid, providing adequate protection for those delicate filters. The inside is sectioned so that you can easily organise the filters and get them out quickly when you need them. The only drawback is that it’s quite large, but that does mean it’s easy to find and to operate when you’re out on those cold days!

Easy off Gloves - £19.99 at Amazon

One of best purchases for winter photography. First up, these things are really warm which is good as that means they fulfil their primary function! They also have “detachable” thumbs and index fingers, which mean that for those moments when you need to work your touchscreen or fiddle with buttons on your camera, adjust focus on your lens or tighten something up, you don’t need to go through the hassle of taking off the whole glove and getting your entire hand cold! I’ve had these 12 months and they have taken a real hammering and are still in great condition!

Photo Book  - This Pleasant Land - £21.65 at Amazon

I LOVE this book. It takes you on a landscape photography tour of the UK looking at how the landscape is changing over time because of natural processes, human intervention, and climate change. A range of photographers are represented in this beautifully bound book which is printed on lovely paper and looks great on any coffee table.

An honourable mention here for Liam Wong TO:KY:00. This is a style that I used to shoot in and a look that I adore. The Cyberpunk vibes are strong in this book and the way that he controls the light is simply incredible – perfect inspiration for some night-time street photography in the big city lights!

Christmas Gifts for Photographers under £50

K&F Concept 64 inch/163cm Camera Tripod – Amazon £45.99

Is it a tripod? Yes. Is it exciting? No (unless you’re a photographer). And that’s what you want from a tripod! If your tripod is exciting, it’s probably falling over and that means it’s not doing a great job. This isn’t the lightest tripod going, but at this price point that’s to be expected. What is lacks in lightness, it makes up for in stability.

Photography tripods aren’t the most thrilling purchase, but they are one of the most important and this one does the job well. The ball head is smooth and tightens up well – my camera and biggest lens aren’t the lightest combination and so this a big consideration for me. The one I have is well into its fourth or fifth year and it’s still going strong!

Small Rig Folding Tool Set – Amazon £45.50

This is one of the most useful things in my bag and I am never without it and it’s from Small Rig so you know it’s a great product.

When you have nuts and bolts on you kit, inevitably they tend to come loose after prolonged periods of tightening and loosening. This piece of kit means that this you always have something on hand to tighten things that are loose and loosen things that need to be removed. It has a few different attachments, all of which are geared to things that you’ll find in just about every photographer’s bag. It’s saved me on a couple of shoots both out on location and in the studio. Comes in a handy little pouch, is nice and light and is milled out of high quality material.

Camolo RGB Handheld Light-Wand – Amazon £42.99

These are ace and the ideal gift for the long exposure, low light or still life photographer. The lights are big enough and bright enough to be useful, but not so big and heavy that they are cumbersome. They fit in most decent sized camera bags.

The lights have several special effects (such as lightning and TV) which means that they are great for video applications as well as photography.

They have a variety of colours across the RGB spectrum, controllable brightness and have magnets built into them so that you can attach them to different metallic surfaces when you are out on location. I have owned several different light bars and these are the best ones I have had at this price point. They are rugged and hard wearing!

Christmas Gift Ideas for Photographers Under £100

Aodelan Wireless Shutter Release – Amazon £59.99

Remote shutter releases are a must for long exposure photography, especially at long focal lengths when you MUST minimise the amount of movement you are introducing into the camera. Wired options are great, but you can still add movement if you’re not careful and at 600mm, the tiniest movement can ruin the clarity of a shot.

The Aodelan Wireless Shutter release will help you to eliminate this as once it’s attached to the camera, there’s no need to touch it again! I have had one of these for a few months and it’s great for studio and on location applications. You can use these for things as basic as just releasing the shutter to more complex things such as setting up timelapses. Make sure that you check the model you’re buying when you make your purchase as these a brand specific!

Polaroid GO – Amazon £94.99 (full kit) or Camera Only £59.99

One of my favourite photography toys. These are great fun and can be used in all sorts of fun ways and for those of us of a certain vintage, there’s a ton of nostalgia attached to these.

The only drawback is that the film is quite expensive (what filmstock isn’t these days?), but the results make great little memories!

Hard Drive (Toshiba) – Amazon £62.99

This one is possibly contentious because people have so many different views about hard drives from the format they choose (HDD or SSD) to the brand that they choose. I have chosen to link this one as I have a lot of them, that I have filled and that have never let me down (at least they hadn’t until I have tempted fate by putting it in writing!).

There’s not a lot to say about a hard drive, but this one is quick enough, compatible with Mac and Windows and has proven itself to be reliable. The linked one is a 2TB HDD version, which is a lot of memory for the price.

Pushing the boat out? Here’s a couple of ideas over the £100 mark that you might want to consider:

Datacolor Spyder X Create Kit - Amazon £119.99

If you’re not a photographer who is printing their work then I can understand why monitor calibration might not be high up your list of exciting things.

One of these is an excellent investment and will enable your photographic recipient to be able to produce colour accurate pictures and prints.

LowePro FastPack – Amazon £109.00

I love this bag and have a written a blog post review about it here if you want to read a bit more. Its hardwearing, comfortable and will thrill any photographer who likes to get out and about with some camera kit and still have space for some supplies!

It’s got everything you need from solid dividers and a laptop sleeve, to a waterproof cover and plenty of pouches for bits and bobs on the inside.

Honourable Mentions…

If none of that tickles your fancy, then how about one of these Camera Lens Mugs. They are all priced around a tenner and are probably all made in the same factory. No photographer’s Christmas would be complete without one!

Lens filters can make a great present as they are always useful, but if you are aiming for the element of surprise, they’re not the greatest as you will need to know at least the internal thread size of your intended recipient’s lens(es) so that you can buy the correct sized filters (the bigger they are, the more expensive the get). K&F Concept have a decent range of filters that get the job done without breaking the bank.

And finally, if you want something more practical and an experience that you can gift, why not consider buying a workshop from me! You can find full details on the workshops page of my website or can get in touch to find out more by contacting me here.

I hope that this has been helpful and has given you some much needed inspiration!

All prices correct as of 14/11/2024 at 13:00.

What’s In My Bag 2024?

Well here we are. Time to have a look at what’s in my bag, what is part of my every day carry and what’s not always coming along for the ride! This is a collection that has taken me a couple of years to build, and has a lot of second hand camera gear in it, this is an expensive game and you’ve got to save money where you can!

So here we go, here’s a list of what’s in my bag and why…

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

As a quick side-note, this is something which is very organic. By that it means it’s constantly changing. This is what’s in the bag today; it often depends will always depend on what I am shooting, where I am going and what results I want to have by the end of the shoot. If I’m out shooting portraits/headshots then I’m probably not packing the 70-200mm and the 85mm will definitely be in the bag! Likewise, if I’m going on a long walk then 85mm is going to be staying at home because it’s so heavy!

Remember, you don’t always need to have the latest kit, the gear doesn’t matter. But it helps! Don’t be afraid to buy second hand - only 2 of my lenses are ones I have had since new and not surprisingly, the Canon L-Series lenses I have are the second-hand purchases; I’m not loaded!

Canon 80D

This is my main (only) camera (other than my phone) and it always makes the trip with me. I’ve had this one since I started photography and I have to be honest, when I do upgrade, I am going to struggle to part with it when I get round to upgrading in the next couple of months. I know there can’t always be room for sentimentality but if it wasn't for this camera, I wouldn’t have done a lot of the things I have been able to do and met some of the people that this awesome hobby has allowed to me to become friends with.

I got this piece of kit brand new, towards the back end of 2019. I’m not sure I fully knew what I was doing when I bought it, but for me, this has turned out to be the choice. It’s a got a decent amount of resolution and the APSC sensor comes in handy giving me a bit of extra reach when I am shooting wildlife, until I can afford a stupidly long lens and a lightweight mirrorless!

It’s a well built piece of kit, but isn’t fully weather sealed so be careful in the rain or when you’re near water. These are pretty easy and cheap to come by second hand and are a good starting point if you’re just setting out, and if you pair it with Canon’s 18-55 f/3.5 - 5./6 lens, you won’t go far wrong!

DJI Mavic Air 2

This has been the only drone I have ever owned or flown, so I don’t have a lot of basis for comparison here. I always take it with me on a shoot, but it never seems to make it out of the bag. I find the raw files quite difficult to deal with, and the small sensor size means it isn’t great in low light conditions.

I have taken some good shots with it, but to really get the most out of it, I need to use it more for video content and not just photography. It’s on the heavier size and comes in at over 250g so check the local restrictions in your area to make sure that you’re flying safely and within the law of the country you are in. Unless something changes soon then I won’t be looking to upgrade this any time as money in is definitely bigger than money out as far as my drone is concerned.

Lenses

This is where most of my money goes on photography. I started out with the 18-55mm kit lens and quickly added a 50mm f/1.8 into my arsenal.

I also have a Canon 85mm f/1.2L (which was an absolute steal in a second hand shop), a lens which I have always wanted and I know that this seems like a weird choice for a landscape photographer, but I occasionally dabble with portraits and “the 85” is absolute fire for this kind of work.

It’s pin sharp and the bokeh is properly creamy/buttery/insert other smooth adjective. Be warned though, this thing is heavy (like properly heavy!) so if you’re planning a long walk, ask yourself if there is a use case to take with you or not.

I also, always, take my 70-200mm f/4L with me on every trip. Having the reach and the narrower focal lengths allow me really focus on learning how to compose my images and to remember to shoot the whole of the scene and not just to cry and cram as much of the scene as possible into an image. It’s also pretty handy for wildlife (though not ideal) but the crop sensor on the Canon 80D does give me a little bit of extra reach.

Another lens I got for a really good price is my 24-205 f.4L. It’s a great lens, but I just don’t love it the same way I do some of my other lenses. Perhaps I just need to spend some more time with it!

Accessories

K&F concept lens cloths. You should always have lens cloths with you and these ones come in a neat little vacuum pack which means they pack away really nice.

K&F Concept Tripod - I have always had K&F tripods and they have always done me well. The build quality is generally pretty good and they are well made pieces of kit. They are at the middle of the market in terms of price, so what you save in money, you sacrifice in extra weight. I have had my current one for a couple of years, you can pick one up from Amazon.

ND, Mist, Circular Polarisers (CPL), VND filter - These are all from K&F concept and I have them in a variety of sizes (I was late to the step-up ring game) to fit the different lenses I take with me. These are good filters though there is a bit of a colour cast with some of the polarisers, but not so much of one that you can’t correct it easily with some white balance adjustments in Lightroom. ND filters are always useful to lengthen your shutter speed for those smooth long exposure shots of water and the polarisers are great for removing the glare from (for example), the surface of water - they’ll also let you see through the water a bit more when you want to show off what’s going on under the surface.

Batteries - I' only use proprietary batteries and not third party ones. These Canon batteries are great and I have several of them. They’re not cheap, but for me, they are worth the money!

Peak design camera clip - this is both in my bag, and on my bag. The only bad thing about this is that I don’t have two of the clips (I do need to buy another!), you only need one of the anchors, unless you are taking more than one camera.

The great thing about this is that your camera is always to hand, even if you aren’t holding it and you want to make some headway on your walk. I will admit, that if there’s a bit of a scramble involved or it’s not great underfoot then I put my camera back in my bag; this isn’t because I don’t trust the clip, but because I don’t want my camera to break my fall!

The great thing about the Peak Design Camera Clip is that your camera is always to hand, even if you aren’t holding it and you want to make some headway on your walk. I will admit, that if there’s a bit of a scramble involved or it’s not great underfoot then I put my camera back in my bag; this isn’t because I don’t trust the clip, but because I don’t want my camera to break my fall!

Money - I can’t link you to this one unfortunately, but I've always got £20 in the bag, incase of emergencies. You won’t be more grateful for this than when you’re desperate for a bottle of water (or a cheeky Diet Coke!) and the shop doesn’t take card under a certain value. Plenty of other uses for your money, but this is the one example that springs to mind!

Chargers/Battery Packs - I have a number of these and generally have a couple of them with me. I prefer the Anker ones as they have served me well. If you’re out in the hills, there’s no substitute for a map and compass, which you should always have with you for navigation. But you might also need your phone to make an emergency call and your phone is no use if it’s flat because you’ve been using it to take pictures/shoot video all day. These battery packs have never let me down, are quick to charge and are durable. The only downside is that even with their small form factor, they’re quite heavy!

Headtorch - If you’re out to shoot sunrise or sunset then the chances are that you are going to be doing some walking in the dark so to keep safe, you should have a headtorch - more specifically a decent one. There are hundreds of these on the market, and I have tried a few, but have been particularly impressed with this one. It's called a Victoper Head Torch and has a power of 22000 lumens. It has a fully adjustable head strap which is comfortable to wear and can be angled to suit you and where you are. The battery in this thing lasts for ages and charges quickly via USB C. The final thing to say about this head torch is that it’s bright. Like, really bright; so much so that anyone walking towards you is likely to think that you’re a BMW in a rush (this head torch doesn’t have indicators either!). It illuminates a wide area in front of you, so you can be sure that you’'ll see everything you need to and everyone will be able to see you. It has a couple of flashing modes if you want to be even more easily seen and a red light mode for any of you who are into astro photography.

Polaroid - I try and take this with me for a bit of fun, when I have room in the bag and I don’t mind the extra weight. I limit myself to one shot per shoot with this because the film is so expensive. The shots that come out of this aren’t always going to be amazing, but for a bit of nostalgia and a bit of fun, it’s a great little “toy” to have in the bag!

Bags

Camera bags are a massive rabbit hole. If you’re new to photography, you probably have one. If you stick with it then in 12 months, you’re probably going to be looking for space to store your camera bag collection in about 12 months. All of the bags that I have are from LowePro and all serve slightly different purposes.

LowePro Fast Pack - I won’t write for ages about this, as I have written a full review which you can read here. This is the bag that I tend to grab and go when I am going out for a day’s walking/shooting. There’s ample space for for food or a fold up waterproof layer and a separate compartment for your camera gear.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

LowePro Pro Tactic 450AW - This is my “big bag”. It’s pretty huge and fits in an absolute ton of stuff. It’s got an ample laptop sleeve which is well protected and will fit your charger in too. The main part of the bag is rear opening and allows you full access to everything that you have in here and it holds a lot. I usually have my camera with the 70-200 attached to it, and this lives in the top of the bag where it’s easy to get to from the top hatch without having to open the whole bag. You also have an opening on the side which lets you have quick access to whatever you’re storing there. The inside is fully customisable and you can move the dividers round to suit.

You can also fit a drone, controller and a bunch of lenses inside as well. The back of the bag is covered in webbing and you can attach plenty of stuff (like a tripod) to the bag easily.

The hip straps are comfortable and help to spread the weight. I love this bag and when it eventually fails me (which it doesn’t show any signs of doing even after five years), I’d happily buy another one!

So that concludes my current what’s in my bag. I’ll update this in the new year (after Christmas!) when I might have some new items to talk about (Santa, pay attention!).

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed it!

Until next time…

A Beginner Photographer’s Guide to The Exposure Triangle

Learn about the exposure triangle, what it is, how to use it and how to make it work for you!

When I first started out in photography, I was using my iPhone. I pointed it at what I wanted to capture, the phone handled everything for me and I had decent photos. I started to enjoy it more and more and so I went out and purchased my first camera, a Canon 80D with a kit lens (18-55 f/3.5-5.6) and headed out into the city at night. I got home and thought the camera was busted. Nothing was in focus, I had what I now know to be motion blur all over the images and I was really disheartened because I thought I had wasted a ton of money.

This is a long one, so grab a coffee and settle in….

I needed to address these issues, find out what was causing them and then practice.

I watched some YouTube videos and read about what I needed to do to make some progress. I’ll let you into a little secret ahead of time… practice. Practice is your friend, it’s where you make mistakes and it’s where you then find out how to correct those mistakes. Coming from a music background, I really appreciated the value of practice, and it’s still something I do now. If you’re not prepared to make the mistakes and learn from them, then you need to shift your mindset! (I know I have said practice a lot, but I hope that it’s helped to get my point across!

What I found out was that exposure triangle was something that I needed to know. And know inside out. This, alongside knowing my camera and what it was capable of were key to me being able to develop (no pun intended) my skills. Once I could do this, I then started to focus on other things, mainly composition, because we all know composition is king but well composed photos that were either under exposed, over exposed or were blurry because of camera movement or camera shake were of no use to me.

So what is the exposure triangle? It’s made up of three things:

Left: The Exposure Triangle.

• ISO: How sensitive your camera’s sensor is to light.

• Shutter Speed: How long the shutter is open to let light into the camera and hit the sensor.

• Aperture: How wide the aperture of your lens is open to allow light in to the camera to strike the sensor.

Each of the these parts of the exposure triangle has an impact on the image that you want to take. There are also “trade-offs” that you might have to consider, because if you adjust one, you might (almost certainly will) have to adjust another to compensate. Here’s a quick breakdown.

• ISO: Can introduce digital noise into your image and this, at times, can look unsightly. Different cameras handle high ISO better than others, but essentially, the higher the ISO, the higher the risk of noise. Knowing your camera really helps here, I know that I can push my 80d to around ISO 6400 before it starts to negatively impact my images. Sometimes you will want noise, but that’s an artistic choice and you need to know how far you can push your camera and your raw files.

• Shutter Speed: Again, knowing your camera (and your lens) really helps here. A lot of newer cameras have solid IBIS (in body image stabilsation) which can help to minimise camera shake and unwanted motion blur, older cameras don’t have this so you’ll need a tripod for longer exposures.

• Aperture: This impacts a couple of things - it will affect the depth of field of your images (how much of the image is info’s before you start to fall off into bokeh) and it will affect the sharpness of your image. Most lenses are sharpest around F/8.0 but this varies from lens to lens and you should research your lenses and learn about them so your know where the sharpest part of your lens is.

So how do you use the exposure triangle?

Well first of all, you will want to know what type of images you want to produce, then you will need to take into account the lighting conditions at the location that you are shooting at.

Let’s be clear - there are no “best settings” for a particular type of photography. I often get asked “what are the best settings for portraits” or “what are the best settings for shooting my kids football match”. The answer is “the ones you need"! This sounds flippant, but it’s true. Someone shooting a football match in bright sun, is going to need different settings to someone shooting a match under dark moody skies!

That said, there are some “givens”. If you want to freeze motion, you will need a fast shutter speed. If you want to achieve light trails at nighttime, you are going to need a longer shutter speed. If you’re trying to get motion blur in waves at the beach, you are going to want a longer speed, but then you’ll want to adapt this to the speed of the waves and the overall look that you are going for (told you this wasn’t completely straightforward!).

I could go on with this this, but what I am trying to illustrate is that you need different for different results under different conditions. You could go to the same location at the same time on two different days and need completely different settings. You can use flash to help to control the light and you can use ND filters to control the light in a different way, but that’s a whole other blog, what we’re looking at is the exposure triangle, so let’s get back on topic.

You’re going to need to use all of this information about the shot type you want to take, in conjunction with the light meter which is built into your camera’s view finder or on the display at the rear of the camera. This usually looks like a needle which moves left to right and has a number of notches along it. We’re aiming to get this right in the middle to absolutely nail the exposure. As you increase the amount of light coming into your camera, you will see this move to the right and conversely to the left as the amount of light coming into your camera decreases. We’re still aiming for the middle! This will get you get a correctly exposed image in most circumstances (if there is a lot of dynamic range (very dark areas and very bright areas in the same image) then there are ways we can deal with this, but that’s going to involve some exposure blending - more on this in another blog! For now, we’re keeping it simple.

(You will also need to consider the histogram and where on here you want to expose, but for now, we’re keeping it simple and I will come back to the histogram and how to use it in another post)

The image on the right illustrates the light-meter on your camera.

This image shows a landscape shot (some of you might recognise it!) and the light-meter can be seen at the bottom of the photo with the number -3, 2, 1 and + 1, 2, 3.

You can see the needle at the bottom indicating that the image is around 2 stops over exposed. You will also notice that parts of the image look too bright.

The shutter speed here is 4 seconds, the ISO is set to 100 we are at f/10 aperture.

Let’s go back to the original question and look at an example. Say that I am out shooting sunrise, there’s great golden hour light and I am by some water at the foot of the mountains. There’s no breeze and the lake is completely flat calm with no disturbances and there’s an awesome mountain reflection in the water. My aim here is to capture the mountains and the reflections in the water.

My thought process here is that I am going wide angle because I want a lot of the scene in my image, and I know that my wide angle lens is sharpest at F/8.0. I know that here this lens is corner-to-corner sharp. This is going to help me to set my aperture. I also know that this is going to impact the amount of light that is coming into my lens. Once my aperture is set, I can compose my shot and then check the light meter. In this situation, let’s imagine that I am getting a reading which is to the left of centre - there isn’t enough light coming into the camera to expose the image properly.

I now have a couple of choices. I can use ISO to increase my sensor’s sensitivity or I can increase my shutter speed (make it longer) to allow more time for light to hit the sensor and create the image. As you adjust both of these setting, you will start to see the light-meter moving. )Depending on your camera, you may need to half-press your shutter button to re-meter the image).

This is where we have a decision to make. I can see by looking at my camera’s settings that I am at 100 ISO. This means I have quite a bit of room before I hit my ‘limit’ of ISO 6400 on my camera (yours may be different) or I can increase my shutter speed.

I need to know that if I increase my shutter speed too much, I will need 1)a tripod to keep the camera still and 2) Anything that moves in the image such a bird flying through, an aircraft transiting the scene, or in the case of much longer exposures, clouds blowing through the image are going to create motion blur. A bird might appear unsightly and could be removed in post, cloud movement can look really cool if you want to include this, it can give a sense of time passing but this is an artistic decision for you to make based on what you want to achieve. Remember, we’re trying to shoot the reflection of the mountains so any movement in the water will also show in your long exposure, even if there isn’t much of it!

The image on the left is much darker than the previous one but is taken under the same lighting conditions.

You will see that the exposure time is much shorter, just 1/4 of a second. No other settings have changed, but the shutter is open for a much shorter amount of time, so the sensor is not exposed to the light for as long a time, which results in a darker image.

You can see that light meter is reading the left, indicating that the image is under exposed.

I could keep my original shutter speed and adjust the ISO. But I need to be aware that doing this could lead to a digital noise being introduced and could result in a grainy looking image which isn’t visually appealing. This is where knowing your camera’s limits (and your own tastes!) comes into play. If you under expose your image then increasing the exposure in post is only going to exacerbate the grain so beware!

The third option is to try and find a balance between the two. You might find the balance is between a slight increase in ISO and a slight increase in shutter speed, or that you can increase your ISO a small amount and have the option to decrease your shutter speed, allowing you to freeze more motion in the image.

Once you’re there, you can hit that shutter button and capture image! Be sure to check you have it’s all in focus and don’t just take one capture - shooting it only once, doesn’t make you a better photographer. Choice is key when it comes to making you selects and in a situation like this one, the light will be changing constantly. Always make sure to check your exposure before each shot!

As a quick aside, if you’re shooting anything which has a shutter speed of greater than your lens’s focal length, you’ll need a tripod. So if you’re on a 50mm lens and the exposure time is 1/30 then you’re going to need a tripod. If you’re on a 300mm and you’re shooting at 1/250 then you’re going to need a tripod. This will avoid motion blur and camera shake. Make sure that any image stabilisation is turned off when you are using a tripod. If you can, when using a tripod, make sure that you’re using a remote or a cable release so that you’re not introducing movement to the camera and/or lens. If you don’t have access to either of these then use your cameras self timer to ensure that the camera is completely still when the shutter actuation happens.

Let's consider another example. This time, we’re taking photos of the family dog running and we want to freeze the motion. It’s mid afternoon on an over cast day.

The key here is that we want to freeze the motion of the dog. This means we are going to need a fast shutter speed (at least 1/250) so that there is no motion blur in the image of the dog. This might be different if you have a whippet in comparison to say a bull dog; they all move at different speeds!

In this situation, I am thinking about setting my shutter speed and then taking a test shot to see where my settings have my exposure. I take the test shot (sans dog!) and can see that it is vastly underexposed, the frame is almost black (If the opposite is true, and your image is too bright and full of white areas, “blown out”, then you will need to reverse the steps below) and the exposure needle is all the way to the left of the image. Checking my camera’s other settings shows that I am at f/16 on my aperture and ISO 100.

My decision here is slightly different to what it was before, as I am now choosing between aperture and ISO. If I make my shutter speed slower then I won’t get a sharp image of my dog (let’s call him Malcolm), so I can’t change this.

The initial thought I have here is that I want to increase the size of my aperture. I know it’s at f/16 which is quite small and I know that my lens is sharpest at f/8. I make this change and the light meter shows that I am still slightly underexposed. Again, I could increase the aperture size or add some ISO. Knowing my lens, I am confident that I can move to f/5.6 and not have a massive drop in sharpness across the image and so I make this change (this drop in sharpness will depend on my distance from Malcom and in turn on his distance from the background, but I could get some great bokeh!). I can now see that my image is correctly exposed, and my ISO is still at 100. This means that I should be able to photograph Malcolm, running at full speed, and be able to see him “frozen” on the image, with no motion blur. Having ISO set at 100 also means that I know I should be getting a clean image to work with.

If when you take the shot, you find that there is motion blur, then you will need to adjust your shutter speed and make it quicker, but this means that you will also need to adjust you ISO and aperture again in order to get your image correctly exposed! You change one setting, you’re probably going to need to adjust the others.

Right - correctly exposed image.

The final shot of this image, shows the light meter indicating that we are correctly exposed. Again, the lighting hasn’t changed, aperture has remained at f/10 and the ISO is still 100.

The one thing that has changed, again, is the shutter speed. This time, you will see that it is at 1 second and this means that according to the light meter, the image is correctly exposed.

One thing that I learned quite quickly when I started out is that at times, this can be a game of compromise. An adjustment to one of the parameters, is, a lot of time going to mean that you need to adjust one of the other two in order to compensate, and knowing your camera and your lenses inside out is going to be key to you getting this right time in, time out. Getting it right matters. Getting it right means fewer shots thrown away. Getting it right consistently feels good.

Another tip which is worth bearing in mind is that you should be able to operate your camera without having to look down at the controls to find them. Most cameras are well designed in this respect and ergonomics plays a big part in how they are built, but you should know how to and be able to adjust your aperture, ISO and shutter speed without having to look for the wheels and buttons to do it with. This will save a lot of stress and time when you’re out in the field. There’s nothing worse than missing the shot because you’ve been looking down at your camera and fiddling with buttons!

If you’ve made it this far then thank you, if you’ve found it useful then please consider signing up to my mailing list to receive notifications about new blog posts, courses, workshops and offers in my print shop! If you’d like me to write about something specific, of if you have questions, then feel free to send me a message and I’ll be in touch!

Gear Review: Canon 85mm F/1.2 II USM Lens

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

This was an unexpected purchase of this piece of kit, which I have wanted to get my hands on for a long time so when I saw one sale in amazing condition in a local second hand store for an absolute steal, I couldn’t just leave it sitting there.

So what’s in the box? I suppose everything you would normally expect if you’re paying well into 4 figures for a piece of kit, (thankfully mine was nothing like this expensive!) - you get the lens, front and rear caps, a lens hood and a fairly solid pouch to store it in. It’s a great little unboxing experience! If after reading this, you can pick up your own lens at Amazon by clicking here.

The overwhelming first impressions are that this lens is HEAVY. I mean like over a kilo in weight, so you might want to think about how far you are carrying this thing, or, what you’re going to leave at home so that you can take this with you.

Spoiler alert, this is an INSANE lens so you’re probably going to want to take this at the expense of something else. The lens is also made up of 8 elements and this really adds to the weight. Wide open, you’re down to F/1.2 and you can get down as low as f/16.

Another observation that you can’t help but make is that the front element on this lens is huge - the thing is like a bucket, but given that it opens up to F/1.2 then you've gotta have somewhere for the light to get in!

The lens has everything you would expect from Canon’s L series lens; the weather sealing is great, it feels great in the hand and the build quality is as good as it gets. It’s a solid piece of kit.

<———— The bokeh creates awesome separation at F/1.2

So how does it perform?

The first thing I did once I had it at home was slap it on the front of my camera and go and play with it around the house and in the garden. I was immediately blown away by the sharpness that I was seeing on the back of the camera, and the bokeh is butter smooth (the bokeh is round to F/2.0 and octagon from F/4.0). I think this might be the sharpest lens that I have ever owned!

It’s quick to focus and the motor is super quiet, so if you’re shooting video or in more intimate environments then you’re not creating a ton of noise to disturb your footage or whatever event that you’re shooting. It doe have quite a long minimum focussing distance 3.2ft (97cm) so don’t be getting any dreams of shooting macro with it, but I’m guessing if you’re buying this then you’re not shooting with macro at the forefront of what you’re doing!

One of the things I’m hoping to do with this lens, but haven’t had chance to try yet is some low light shots, especially out in the field and not in the studio. That said, shooting indoors with it is pretty straightforward even with fairly average natural light.

Sadly, Canon discontinued this lens in 2023 so your best bet is to find something second hand and grab a bargain, you can still find them on Amazon and on other reputable second hand gear sites such as WEX and MPB. It's no surprise that Canon have discontinued this lens on the EF mount given that everything is/has shifted focus (see what I did there) to their RF line. You can check out the RF version of this lens here, but beware, the price tag is eye watering if you’re looking to buy a brand new one, especially if its one of the faster ones!

<——— Landscape shot, heavily cropped at f/4.0

Who is this lens for? If you’re into portraits and low light street photography then this should definitely be in your bag. No questions. I know this is probably an odd choice for someone whose primary focus is landscape photography, then this choice seems slightly out of left field, so what’s the use case?

For me, this lens is going to be about diversifying the types of shots that I take. It’s also only the second prime lens I have in my bag (of course, I have a nifty fifty as well!) and one of my current aims is to work on composition and finding new ways to shoot familiar things and the sharpness of this lens is going to make for some very interesting results, and I do love a bit of bokeh! It might even make me go and do some street photography too… and maybe some Herdy portraits!

Printing Your Photos - Why Aren’t YOU Doing It?

In this blog, I am talking about printing your images, why you should be doing it and what I have learned in a just a few weeks of printing my own, at home, in the studio.

I have been printing my images for a while. Well, actually, to put it more accurately, I have been getting other people to print them for me. If I want to just have them for posterity, I get a bunch of 6x4s from FreePrints, if I want something to go on a wall then I look to somewhere like theprintspace.com where I can get awesome C-Type of Gicleé prints made quickly and sent to me. I’ve always been really pleased with what The Printspace has provided, and if I need something bigger than A2 (can you imagine!?) then I will certainly still be using them.

However, I have recently taken delivery of an absolute beast of a new machine. A Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-1000 printer. It’s a behemoth. It weighs just over 32kg (The FedEx guy had to get me to help him off the van with it, and I in turn, had to get him to help me carry up the stairs into the studio!) and takes lots of paper stocks up to A2. It has 12 different ink tanks and is 17” wide. And I love it a little bit.

But why buy one and spend what wasn’t an inconsiderable amount of money on it? Two reasons: Firstly, I plan to start selling my prints in the next couple of weeks and have been wanting to do this for a while now, and 2, I’m impatient. I want my prints, and I want them now. The studio walls are a bit bare at the moment and I am looking forward to hanging my new prints on them. 

All of that said, I am already learning from my prints, and not just small amounts. I’m not just learning about printing though; I’m also learning a lot about my own photography, about the way I am using the develop module in Lightroom and about soft-proofing and about paper, but I will probably dive down that rabbit hole at some point in the future. The whole process from beginning to end is blissfully nerdy and I couldn’t be happier about it. 

So, what have I learned?

1. Get the ICC profiles for your printer and for them paper that you are using. Your monitor projects an image into your eye. Your prints reflect the light back into your eyes, so what comes out of the printer will look very different if you don’t do this and then go through the soft proofing process. You can also get profiles specific to your printer (not just the generic ones) so you cabn get have an added level of colour accuracy and reproduction. 

2. Calibrate your monitors(s). I use the DataColour SpyderX Elite for this. I try to do it at least once a week and it makes a noticeable difference to both my editing and printing workflows. If you’re working on more than one monitor then make sure that you have matched them as well!

3. The paper you choose has a big impact on the way your prints look. I prefer mine to have a matt finish as I just don’t like the reflections that you get off the glossier paper. I have, however, been using some of the Canon Pro Luster paper that came with the printer, and it works well. It’s just a bit too reflective for my liking. 

4. It’s a lot quicker than I thought it would be. A3 prints have taken around 5 minutes and there’s a great sense of anticipation watching your work come to life in front of you!

5. It’s addictive. Really addictive - there are going to be a lot of these being gifted to friends and family throughout the christmas period. I don’t want to just print loads and then just shove them in a box not to be seen - that’s not what art is for!

Why should you print your images?

There are loads of reasons you should do this, but seeing your work hanging on the wall is great. Posting them to social media for other people to see is all well and good but the print really is like the end product, which can be enjoyed for longer than the fleeting glance it might be given on Instagram, Vero, or dare I say it, Facebook. 

Printing my images has given me a new appreciation for photography. I have myself been really selective about the images that I have chosen to print. Just because it’s one I have put on social media, doesn’t seem to me (at this stage) mean that it’s going to be a strong enough image for me to print. 

It has already impacted me when I am out in the field shooting. I want to make sure that everything is a sharp as possible and I have been focus stacking much more than I would have done previously and I am paying a lot more attention to deal not only when I am focussing, but also when I am selecting compositions, and that has to be a good thing right?

It’s almost like when I go out and shoot film. When I do this, I find that I am much more selective with my shots and spend more time making sure that I get as much right in camera as possible. There are re-do’s in film photography, but they have a cost impact!

Having something tangible at the end of the creative process, I think, for me is the main reason that I am enjoying printing so much. Being able to see something hanging on the wall and knowing “ I did that”, is a really great feeling. 

Keep creating!

Gear Review: Polaroid Now Gen 2 Camera

I recently celebrated the 22nd anniversary of my 18th birthday and was fortunate to receive the gift of a Polaroid Now Gen 2 Camera.

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This is a great way for you to support me! Thanks!

This is something that I had asked for and have always wanted ever since I saw one being used at a birthday party at a local ten pin bowling alley when I was a child aged about 10 years ago (Superbowl 2000 Burton On Trent, if you must know - it’s a pile of rubble now!) and ever since I started a bit of a foray into film photography about 18 months ago, is something that had come back up on my radar. 

These cameras retail on Amazon for around £119.99, if you get the “Everything Box”. They are frequently on offer and so you might be lucky enough to get hold of one for less than £100. Inside the box you get the camera, an instruction leaflet, a wrist strap to attach the camera and two packets of film, each containing 6 exposures. There’s also a USB C charging cable, but if you’re charing off the mains and not a computer, you will need to invest in or hijack in a wall plug, as one doesn’t come supplied in the box.

First impressions of this camera is that it is great fun and delivers a huge hit of nostalgia! 

Straight out of the box, it feels like a pretty solid piece of kit for the price. It’s fairly lightweight, though I am not sure if it will always be in my bag when I am out of a shoot because despite its low weight, it’s a fairly hefty sized piece of kit and takes up quite bit a of space. It feels good in the hand.

The battery in the camera is a lithium-ion battery which is rechargeable via USB. It arrives completely flat and charged to full in about 90 minutes. 

The controls are fairly basic and easy enough to master. There is a shutter button on the front of the unit, a self timer function and it comes equipped with a built in flash. 

Given that the aperture on the lens is F/11, the manufacturers have decided to have the default setting for the flash to ‘on’ which is going to be essential unless you are shooting in bright light. If you’re shooting inside then you’re definitely going to need it. If you want to turn the flash off, then this is the simple press of a button on the rear of the camera. 

The camera comes supplied with 2 packs of film, giving you a total of 16 shots. This particular camera is compatible with both polaroids i-type and 600 film. Neither of these are particularly cheap to buy (if you’re already shooting film you’ll know that this is just par for course) so keep your eyes peeled for offers on this as well if you decide to take the plunge.

Loading the film is simple, you unpackage the stack from the silver foil wrapper, open the front of the camera, load the film with the light-proof cover face-up and close the front of the camera. Once you’ve done this, the camera will eject the light proof sheet from the slot at the front and you’re good to go.  

The process of taking a photograph with this camera is about as straightforward as you could want it to be. It’s essentially a point and shoot, that once you have pointed and shot, the photograph spits out the front of the camera.  

Once this process has happened, it takes some time for the film to develop fully. The instructions recommend that you place the photograph face down, preferably somewhere dark whilst it develops and specifically tell you not to shake it!

Given that a lot of people will want to use this to take selfies, the addition of a small mirror on the front of the camera like you used to get on mobile phones in the old days would be great!

The resulting images certainly have a certain ‘feel to them’. The colours are undersaturated and in spite of the f/11 aperture, they are not corner to corner sharp (what do you expect from a camera at this price point which comes supplied with almost £20 worth of film); the centre of the image is acceptably sharp. I took the first shot on this camera indoors and the flash fired and the image certainly has that feel of “the flash went off on this one” - there’s definitely no easy way to modify or diffuse the flash!

These aren’t portfolio images per se, but this camera is certainly great fun and will be great for taking snapshots - just do it carefully, they’re not cheap at around £2.12 a shot if you go for the 600 film and around £1.70 if you opt for the i-type film (both colour); this isn’t a cheap enough habit to be firing off images left, right and centre and you could end up with a pretty sizeable hole in your bank account.

I think that this is something that I will use for fun little photos to capture personal moments and achievements - moments with family and maybe a selfie at the top of each Wainwright I climb! This might be a fun project with a nice collection of images at the end of it. 

Who’s it for? I feel like this is a camera for everyone, photographer or not, as long as they are prepared to spend a small fortune on a good supply of film for it. The photos are sharp enough for the kinds of thing that you will be using this camera for and above all, the whole process is great fun!

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. As long as you’re prepared to have a lot of fun with it and spend a lot of money replenishing the film!

Which photographers do I love, admire and am I inspired by?

Let me start this by saying I am going to struggle keep this list short. There is a plethora of amazing photographers out there, way too many to mention all of them, but I am going to try and keep this short by talking about the ones who have a direct impact on my own photography, be that as a photographer or their impact on me as an instructor/teacher. 

This list is presented in no particular order…

Peter McKinnon

My first choice is perhaps a little but out of  left field, and I know would create some debate amongst my photography friends, but without Peter McKinnon I wouldn’t be the photographer/creator I am now. When I first started out, his tutorials, vlogs and high energy kept me engaged, lept me focussed and kept me wanting to do more. I found them invaluable. 

Some people will tell you he’s “just a YouTuber” and I couldn’t disagree more. His photography is fantastic, he has a great photographic style and works in a variety of different genres; his portraits are equally as a good as his landscapes and his flat lays are some of the best you will see - the level of attention to detail that you see in the latter is IN-SANE!

His knowledge of photoshop and lightroom and his easy way of explaining some of the concepts you need to understand to be able to use these effectively played a huge part in the development of my own post processing and editing. It was by watching these videos that I started my foray into video editing, and I still jump back into these videos when I need a little refresher, even though the software that’s in them has been superceded more than once by this point, I find them to be really helpful. 

Ansel Adams

It would be remiss to have such a list and not to include Ansel Adams, probably acknowledged by anyone who has heard of him as the godfather of Landscape Photography. He was working and creating stunning images before the advent of anything digital, relying on his skill (and some luck of being in the right place at the right time) and his knowledge of photography and the landscape to create some visually stunning images.

His compositions are consistently excellent and his use of light is second to none. 

I was lucky enough to receive one of his books as a  gift in the last couple of weeks and I have spent a lot of time pouring through its pages studying the way in which Adams composed his images and then creating them in the dark room to produce some genuinely awesome captures. 

The premise of what Adams was doing was exactly the same as we are aiming for as photographers now was the same, but he was employing, in part, a very different skill set and certainly didn;t have the access to the post processing techniques that we have today. 

Nigel Danson

Next on my list is Nigel Danson. I was talking about him with some friends a few days before I started writing this and someone remarked “I really like him, he knows what he is talking about, he’s a real student of photography”. 

Nigel is another photographer I found on YouTube. He is one of the most knowledgeable photographers on the internet, and, I suspect, has forgotten more about photography than many of us will ever know. 

His knowledge of optics is first rate, and it is thanks to Nigel that I understand the concept of hyperfocal distance! I also really enjoyed his tutorials on focus stacking, which is something I have been working on recently and has been a really important part of my continued learning in the art of landscape photography and has been a real game changer in the way that I shoot some of my images. 

His level of enthusiasm remains as high as ever and he is always on the lookout for new places to shoot alongside making the most of what his local area has to offer, which is something I think many of us (me included!) are guilty of overlooking. 

His series where he spent a month at Luskentyre Beach on the Isle of Skye and the images and book that resulted from this are simply incredible and you should definitely check these out. The whole series shows just how wide a range of images you gather in one location where the weather and the light is so changeable. A real masterclass!

Liam Wong

I came across Liam Wong’s work when I was deep into a night photography obsession and was spending a lot of time huntington down neon lights and other bright sources of lights to create Cyber Punk inspired images. It meant I spent a lot of time either carrying bottles of water or getting very wet out shooting in the rain to get the reflections I wanted in my images to add extra depth to them. 

Both of the books he has published (To:ky:oo and After Dark) are incredible and Wong’s past as a video games designer is evident in the style that he choose to work in. He makes strong use of leading lines and is masterful at controlling both the light and the colour in his images and subsequent edits that he makes. 

Now that I am away from the bright lights of the city, I find myself doing less and less of this style of photography (Cyber Punk Blea Tarn anyone?!), but I still find myself reaching for these books very often, as there is something about the stories that these photos tell that keeps me going back time after time after time. 

Ernst Haas

This is a choice from when I was living and taking photos in London. Haas, for me, is a great example of someone who worked as a photojournalist and who allowed this to mix with the creative, artistic side of photography and his visual storytelling is truly awesome. 

Haas Renowned for his mastery of color and composition, Haas captured the essence of moments with a blend of spontaneity and precision. 

One of the most important aspects of his work was that he was (along with William Eggleston) instrumental in getting the Art world to see colour photography as a valid form of the medium. Prior to this, exhibitions were pretty much exclusively black and white photography - snobbery towards colour photographers/photographs largely prevented their exhibition in the mainstream; photography was only seen as “serious” if it were in black and white and it wasn’t seen as art if it was shot in colour. 

But what is Art anyway? I’ll let you decide.