Photography... 15 year anniversary

Photography... Some recent work July-August 2017

All images ©2017 Alistair Kerr Photography

Hands on with the Canon 5D MkIV

My thanks go to my friend Clint Hughes, who happened to be borrowing a Canon 5D MkIV from Canon UK for testing, he asked if I'd like to check it out, silly question. I set up three flash heads so we could test it in studio conditions. I set the lighting to 'rugged', and started shooting.

The camera handles exactly like my 5D MkIII, as you'd expect, all the buttons and wheels are in the same places, so you can pick it up and you're away, straight to work. After half an hour, or so, I'd got enough images, I'd been changing the lighting after every 8-10 shots, showing Clint, who is a freelance sports photographer, but wants to learn more about lighting techniques, exactly how moving a light even slightly can completely change a portrait.

Next I dropped the images onto the iMac, straight into Photoshop, and set about adjusting the raw files, first thing I noticed was how much bigger they were, 86.1Mb as opposed to the 63.3Mb of the 5D MkIII, but the iMac churned through them easily. I'm impressed, but not enough to invest, let's see what improvements the MkV eventually brings to the table.

All images ©2017 Alistair Kerr Photography

My day at The Photography Show 2017 - NEC - Birmingham

The parking ticket seems to go up every year, the show just seems to get better every year, the main stands seemed bigger, the flash lighting stands seemed to have almost non stop 'how to' sessions, which is nice, some people still seem to think bringing all their camera equipment to the show is a good thing, and it seems that having a parade of Star Wars and other sci-fi characters from the Comic Con show next door is still popular (actually I loved that, even got a wave from Chewbacca).

Donuts were definitely a thing this year, mainly because +Scot Baston was having a birthday, and had brought two boxes of Krispy Kreme sugary goodness with him, I found out that I can eat four donuts, but that I regretted it when the sugar rush hit, luckily I eventually drowned the sugar in coffee.

Birthday surprised face

We few, we happy, full of sugar, happy few.

So what did I look at, well the Fuji GFX 50S, what a lovely camera that is, it goes straight to the top of my want list, as well as the beautiful glass to put on it. I had a good look at the Bowens Generator X XMT and XMS flash units, also the Profoto D2, not that I'm looking to buy any new flash at the moment, but it's good to keep a breast of how the new flash technology is developing for when I do.

It was great to catch up with some people I'd either not seem in a long while, like John Willis at the Calumet stand, or  +Matt Hart , who working out of the Fuji stand, who I've only managed to chat too online, great to press the flesh and chew the photography cud. The chat and hug from +Tigz Rice , who was demonstrating on the Wacom stand, was very welcome.

The only thing I bought was a Panasonic Lumix TZ80, which I got for my wife to replace the camera she ruined when we were snowboarding in Val Cenis, France in January. Oh and coffee, and lunch at Nando's.

One thing I'm not going to do next year when I got to The Photography Show, is wear new shoes, my feet were killing me by 3 o'clock, lesson learned.

And so I'll leave you with more from ComicCon.

All images ©2017 Alistair Kerr Photography

Alistair Kerr Photography 14th Anniversary... Okay, I forgot.

So I completely forgot my business's 14th anniversary, it was on the 7th October, it took an email from LinkedIn to remind me, and that was late too. Luckily I remembered my eldest son's birthday, which is a few days after the business anniversary, in fact that's probably why I forgot, my eldest boy turned ten last weekend, ten, where did the time go? We spent most of the weekend either playing crazy golf, seriously, two 18 hole courses, or eating, mostly cake.

This cake... yes I know the plate says Merry Christmas on it, it's just the largest plate we have, so it gets used for cakes, it's not just for Christmas... a bit like puppies, apparently. 

New Website to celebrate 14 years of Alistair Kerr Photography

This has been in the pipeline for far to long, but now, finally, and to celebrate 14 years of trading, here is the new Alistair Kerr Photography website. I'd be grateful if you took a look, maybe even leave some comments, I'm tough skinned, after 14 years of trading you tend to be, so don't hold back.

                           

All images copyright ©2016 Alistair Kerr Photography

Studio Photography... some recent work

All images ©2016 Alistair Kerr Photography

Photography Apple Boxes... Part 3

I've been meaning to put dual handles on the Apple Boxes that I made a few years back for ages. I built a jig out of odd bits of wood I had in my workshop, the size is based around the base plate of my router.

The jig didn't take long to fabricate, but it did have to fit each of the Apple Boxes, I'm so glad I made the boxes identical sizes in the first place, the jig had just enough friction on the Apple Box to give it a tight fit.

Then it was simply a case of placing the router into the jig, starting up the router and plunging the router bit through the plywood and move the router around the inside edge of the jig.

I re-routed the original handles too, making them a little bigger all around. They look more like proper Apple Boxes now, least I think they do.

©2016 Alistair Kerr Photography

Links to my previous Apple Box posts

http://alistairkerrphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/photography-apple-boxes-diy-part-1.html

http://alistairkerrphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/photography-apple-boxes-part-2.html

http://alistairkerrphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/half-apple-boxes-diy.html

Exhausting day... Photography

On Monday I was shooting stainless steel exhaust systems for an old client, I was shooting them in the client's workshop, the engines they were mounted to had seen better days.

As you can see the original image (above) is a little different to the final image (top)

I had four Bowens flash heads, one 750w and three 500w, all set up with softboxes and a 6ft x 3ft white panel reflector on a pair of rolling stands, to light the exhaust with. Keeping the lights close to the exhaust gave me the effect I wanted.

I used a Canon 5D Mark III with a 24-70 f2.8 L lens, space in the workshop was a little limiting, I had a guy cutting steel tube behind me, another guy working on a Ford Transit van behind the engine I was photographing, he was creating a lot of dust, and smell, using a grinder to cut out a section of rusted metal from the van's floor. So I was working at the wider end of the lens for most of the shots.

So the above images show the progress through photoshop to achieve the final effect, a fair bit of cutout work was involved, a few layers too, but I'm pleased with the results considering the working environment they were shot in.

All images ©2016 Alistair Kerr Photography

The Blog rolls over 100,000 page views

It has been a while since I sat down and thought about the blog, I have noticed that it rolled over the 100,000 page views mark, though I only really noticed once it hit 101,204. It's taken time to get to this point, I'm pretty sure it would have got there sooner if I'd been inclined to write blog posts regularly. The Apple Box construction blog posts are still the most popular, with over 9000 hits between the three part blog. 

On the studio side, my Bowens GM500 Pro heads have been off to Bowens Service Centre again, couple of little faults, they returned, but one of them then developed another fault on the first shoot I used them on, Bowens had it back, sorted it, and got it back to me pretty quickly, and didn't charge me for the second fix, which was great of them, all working fine now.

I've recently got some newish equipment, I picked up a Canon f1.8 50mm lens off ebay, and another Wacom tablet, I've managed to get my old Apple MacPro desktop computer working again, so the Wacom will come in handy for that, I just can't use a mouse anymore, I find them cumbersome and slow. I was also given an old film camera, a Kodak Brownie, by my dad's next door neighbour, they are moving to Spain, he found it in his loft, dusty but still in its case, there wasn't any film in it, with it requiring 620 film it looks like I won't be using it, but it looks great on the shelf in the office next to my other old cameras. It's given me me an idea for some marketing, that'll be at the top of my to do list when I get some spare time. Spare time, hmmm I think my good lady wife has an idea that any spare time I get will be spent decorating the house, that's me smelling of paint fumes for the next few months then.

After quite a slow start to the year it looks like work is starting to take off again, which is nice. In fact I better go and do some now...

LED Solar Lights

Some recent images of LED lighting and LED Solar Lighting for a client in Hong Kong. For packaging, promotional and web.

All images copyright ©2015 Alistair Kerr Photography