Photo Tips

10/06/2014 In Photo Tips, Travel, Venture Blog By sengmah

Safari Photography – Part 2: Taking your safari photography to the next level

Photographing wildlife while on a safari is both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because there’s a whole set of elements outside of your control and rewarding when you know you have nailed that shot. In the previous article (Part 1) we looked at the equipment and preparation...

01/05/2014 In Photo Tips, Uncategorized, Venture Blog By sengmah

Safari Photography – Part 1: Cameras, lenses and gear

I'm sitting at The Ark in Aberdare National Park in Kenya, watching Cape Buffaloes, warthogs, elephants and a range of birds at the watering hole adjacent to the lodge. I'm about 7 days into a 12 day photographic safari and I have shot (with camera)...

18/04/2014 In Photo Tips, Travel, Venture Blog By sengmah

Shooting New Zealand – Part 2

Part 2: Travel and photography in the land of the long white cloud Those of you following this series will know that Part 1 focused on photographic equipment and shooting locations in the South Island. The thing about New Zealand is that you could easily turn your...

01/04/2014 In Photo Tips, Travel, Venture Blog By sengmah

Shooting New Zealand – Part 1

Part 1: What was in the bag and where did I shoot? I'm just back from a photographic expedition in New Zealand and I thought I'd share some thoughts on shooting travel landscapes in New Zealand. It was an inspiring (nay, mind-blowing) trip and I'll guarantee...

30/09/2013 In Photo Tips, Venture Blog By sengmah

Shutter blending: the long (exposure) and the short (exposure) of it.

Shutter blending isn't new in photography (digital or otherwise) but I'm often surprised that not many photographers make use of it. Most of us would already be familiar with exposure blending: taking bracketed exposures of the same composition and then blending them to ensure that the...

13/05/2013 In Competition, Photo Tips, Venture Blog By sengmah

Will you create the next Mona Lisa?

While photography is a relatively recent invention, photographers have much to learn from the other visual arts -- notably painting. In an article entitled "What the Mona Lisa Can Teach Us About Taking Great Portraits", Darren Rowse explains how an analysis of this enigmatic portrait...

03/04/2013 In Photo Tips, Venture Blog By sengmah

WTF-stop?!

If you're a beginner photographer, then chances are you're a bit stumped by the relationship between the aperture value and the size of the aperture. Beginners who have attended the Getting Started in DSLR Photography workshop we run will be familiar with this relationship and...

17/12/2012 In Photo Tips, Venture Blog By sengmah

Flash exposure compensation and the distance scale (!)

At a recent Flash Photography Fasttrack workshop, a participating photographer noted that when he dialed the flash exposure compensation (FEC) on his flash down to a negative value, the range shown on the distance scale on his flash increased. At this point, if you're scratching your...

06/08/2012 In Photo Tips, Venture Blog By sengmah

Daylight long exposures with ND filters

Have a look at the photos below. They're both taken at the same time and location - however, they both present the scene very differently. The first is your typical location snap - taken hand held at a fairly fast shutter speed because there's plenty of...

01/01/2012 In Photo Tips, Venture Blog By sengmah

Rejuvenating your photography – some thoughts for a New Year of image making

The end of one calendar year and the beginning of the next is always an occasion for pause and reflection. As photographers, we have a tendency to assess the development of our work over the past 12 months and to look at the direction we'd...