Alistair Kerr Photography

Monday, 27 November 2017

Photography... Another day, another play with the FujiFilm GFX-50S

I got another visit from Nathan Wake, from FujiFilm, on Thursday, he came bearing gifts, a couple of FujiFilm X mugs, one can be seen below in action, filled with steaming coffee.

He also had the FujiFilm GFX-50S with him, I just happened to have a portrait lighting set up, so I took a few shots, this time with the GF 110mm F2 R LM WR, again what a stunning lens, again tack sharp, I'm getting more use to the camera, and wish I could use one everyday now.

Saturday, 11 November 2017

Fuji GFX-50S Test - Starring Clint Hughes and Nathan Wake

"Do you want to come over tomorrow, Nathan is popping in on his way up North, and he's got the Fuji GFX-50S with him?" Asked Clint. What could I possibly say, but "OH YES".

To elaborate a little, Clint is a jobbing photographer specialising in sport, Black & White fine Art and is an excellent exponent of traditional black and white printing, Nathan works for Fujifilm UK, and at present is tasked with bringing the Fuji GFX-50S to the attention of photographers, professional and enthusiasts alike. Nathan and Clint go way back, I've known Clint for about 17-18 years, and Nathan for about 4 years.

In advance we set up two Elinchrom Quadra heads on separate packs, one with a Quadra 18 cm Grid Reflector and 30° grid for lighting the background, the main light being over head with a Rotalux 100cm Octabox attached, and a reflector below it to pop some fill back into the shadows of the face, that simple 'Clamshell' effect.

Once Nathan arrived and had powered up again after his long arduous motorway journey, with a few cups of tea and a packet of chocolate biscuits, we were off!

The GFX-50S was fitted with the GF120mm F4 Macro R LM OIS WR lens, test shots were taken, lights were adjusted, Clint was forced to sit for some shots, as the model we ordered, an Airfix 1/600 scale Ark Royal, hadn't turned up.

I have to say the Fuji GFX is very easy to handle and find your way around, once you've been shown once, err or twice. I like this Fuji camera, I own an X100, which is a joy to use, but I've never jumped ship from Canon for my professional work, but the build and image quality that this camera presents is giving me itchy feet, I'd like to take that jump. You can't really go wrong with a Fuji built lens, I was using them way back in the days of film on 5x4 and 10x8 cameras, excellent lenses, and the 120mm lens is no different, it produces images so sharp you'd be worried they'd cut you, the detail in the images are stunning, the colours spot on. I really enjoyed the session, hand holding the camera was easy, not like film medium format cameras I used to use, like the Mamiya RZ, that had to be clamped onto a big tripod to avoid camera shake. The large rear screen is great for viewing and zooming in to check sharpness, though you soon to trust the camera and save the picture peaking for Photoshop on the computer.

The detail is truly stunning, I sat for a while in awe as I processed a few of the images the following day, and despite the image size, which is enormous, my iMac handle it with ease, which is nice to know.

100% crop

Once we'd prized the tea cup out of Nathan's hands, no mean feat I can tell you, I was able to take a few more likenesses of him.

Real time tea effect, minus Fuji mug, amazing.

The riggers of an arduous journey really do wash away after a few cups tea.

Can't stand the stuff myself, give me a coffee any day.

Friday, 10 November 2017

Tubes.. Photography

A client of mine needed some steel tubes photographing, the images below chart the progress of the shot. First we have the tubes as they are after the bending process, covered in production marks, that shot was rejected, the second image shows the tubes after a further treatment, the final image has been through Photoshop just to remove any unwanted marks that showed up under the harsh lighting.

The tubes were placed on Black Perspex, a 750W Bowens Prolite with a 30° Grid was aimed at the Grey background roll, two Bowens 500W Gemini heads were either side of the tubes, both with 90x15cm Stripboxes with Grids. Two 500W Bowens Pro heads with 20° Grids were aimed down at the front of the tubes. Then it was just a question of adjusting the lighting ratios to get the desired effect.

Monday, 6 November 2017

Working on my new photography mailer...

Sometimes you've just got to market yourself, it's not my favourite thing to do if I'm honest, I prefer working with camera and lights, over layouts and shot selections, but it's got to be done, it's a hard world out there, and it seems to be getting harder to generate new work at the moment. Saying that I'm going to be absolutely stacked out over the next few weeks.

Front and back pages, and I've altered my logo, new font, I was getting tired of seeing the old typewriter font I had before. Now I have a bigger bolder font.

Centre spread, I'm still not sure about the exhaust system image.

Alternate front and back.

Word of advice, never, ever, use the Wingdings font for your logo, EVER!

Wednesday, 11 October 2017

Photography... 15 year anniversary

Wednesday, 9 August 2017

Photography... Some recent work July-August 2017

Thursday, 27 April 2017

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.

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.

Friday, 21 October 2016

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.

Thursday, 22 September 2016

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.