Lauren at Slattocks

To be honest we only did this shoot because we were bored, however it turned out ok. Went light Panasonic G2 and 20mm lens. sun was a bit bright and contrasty but overall not bad. some nice images, Plus fresh air cant be bad.

Dance Shoot

Here are a few pictures from a Dance shoot with Hannah last week. Tried out a few techniques including slow sync flash and strobe flash. Prefer some to others but altogether good fun. Cheers Hannah for making it despite the snow .

5 Tips for using a compact camera

5 Tips for using your compact

1.      Switch off Red Eye Reduction feature. This feature slows down your camera and means that you can miss shots, also red eye can be easily removed in software.

2.      Use the scenes mode (most compacts have this its in the menu section) these set your cameras functions for specific situations meaning you miss less shots in these situations.

3.      Try switching off your flash when taking portraits and using something like a table lamp placed close to your subject. To get proper colour change your white balance to tungsten this is a picture of a bulb on the menu. Dont forget to change it back when you finish or everything outside will be blue. Not good unless you are going for a sci fi look. Be aware if you use an LED light tungsten wont work and you will need to experiment.

4.      Opposite to the above if you take pics outside in sunshine.( For anyone under  6 sunshine happens when its not raining/ snowing and you can see a  yellow ball in the sky, oh and its warm without your coat.) Instead of having the sun behind you shining onto the subject which causes squinting put the sun behind them so you are facing into the sun. Use their body to block the sun to prevent it shining into your lens. Then set the flash to be on all the time this will light the subject and the sun will give them a nice glow. Note if you set the flash to auto it more than likely wont fire.

5.      Compacts focus is relatively slow so if you are taking children running around you are going to get a lot out of focus. Try half squeezing the shutter release while focusing on a point then hold that and wait until the child reaches that spot then push the release the rest of the way. This should improve the speed of the camera.

These are just a few initial points and i will add some more soon, however if you have any questions please email me at martoniphoto@yahoo.co.uk and i will try and answer it.

I have been asked by a number of people since Christmas about using their new compact camera so over the next few weeks i will put a few ideas on here to help them do that.
Oh and Happy New Year to All

Ok were pretty much up to date on videos will add more content soon

Lauren and Stuart

Lauren and Stuart

Kara 5

Kara 5