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This blog is my old blog and is no longer updated
I have now bought a new 17-55mm 2.8 lens. This is a pro quality lens and will replace my 18-70mm lens.
Apart from the fact that this lens is considerably shaper, the main advantage of it has over the 18-70 it that it is much faster, especially at the longer focal lengths, meaning that it will be much more effective in low light conditions.
When shooting weddings I always use two camera bodies at the same time and I envisage that this lens will stay on one of my cameras virtually all the time whilst I interchange lenses on the other. The 17-55mm is a very popular lens with professional wedding photographers as it can go wide enough for group shots but is also capable of zooming in nicely for details or candids. It is also built like a tank so I expect it to last a very long time!
I will post up some photos shortly once I have had chance to play around with the lens.
I purchased the lens from Park Cameras (http://www.parkcameras.com/) and their service was excellent. They were very helpful on the phone and the lens arrived by courier less than 24 hours after I ordered it so I would be happy to recommend them!
Following on from my earlier post I have now added a new page to my website entitled 'all day wedding slideshow' which, suprisingly enough, is a slideshow featuring photographs from a recent wedding I covered for which I was booked for the entire day.
The slideshow contains over 120 photographs and will hopefully give interested couples a good idea of the range and variety of photographs I would typically take on full day wedding shoot. I hope you all find the slideshow not only enjoyable, but also useful, as to view so many photographs from a single wedding will hopefully give you a better idea of my photographic style.
To view the slideshow please click on the 'full day wedding slideshow' tab at www.neilredfern.com I would also recommend listening to the music which accompanies the slideshow, I think it's a lovely song.
Enjoy the show!
As you may have already noticed, I have today introduced a new slideshow to the homepage of my main site - www.neilredfern.com - and added a smaller version to the top right area of this blog page.
As well as utilising over lots of my favourite wedding photographs in the 3 minute show, it also includes music.
The software that I purchased to produce the show includes a number of royalty free pieces of music that you can incorporate in to each slideshow and the really nice thing about it is that the images actually change in time with the music, which, as far as I'm aware is feature unique to this software.
It was tempting to go with a faster, rockier track but ultimately I felt the slower, more romantic piano track was more fitting for a wedding photography site!
Going forward I also plan to use this software to produce an online slideshow of each wedding I cover, so as well as viewing their photographs online as usual, each couple will also be able to view a slideshow of their day set to music. As with their photographs, each couple will then also be able to email a link to the show to their family and friends. I'm confident that this will prove to be a very popular way for couples to share their photos.
I hope you enjoy the slideshow.
Following on from my earlier post, I have now used my new D300 for a wedding shoot and was very impressed!
As I had hoped, it's performance at high ISOs (1600+) was excellent and infinitely better than my D200. During the ceremony for example which was held in a very nice, but relatively dark, converted barn, I was able to shoot handheld using my 50mm 1.4 without having to worry about noise at all.
In fact the levels of noise, even at ISO 1600, were so low that I didn't even need to run the images through noise reduction software afterwards, which is obviously a big bonus in terms of workflow.
Providing the couple are happy for me to do so I will post some example images from the ceremony shortly.
The larger screen on the back of the camera is also great and, due to the extent that you can zoom in when reviewing shots, makes it easy to tell if images are sharp and well focused.
The other big bonus was in battery life. Although I had a spare I didn't need to change the battery once and was using the camera for 7-8 hours in total.
My only slight bugbear is that Nikon has again decided to very slightly change the positioning of some of the most commonly used controls on the D300 when compared to the D200. For example, the buttons and technique used to zoom in and out of an image in the preview screen is slightly different to the D200. Not a big problem at all but quite frustrating when you are used to doing these things automatically without thinking. As I use both cameras at the same time, and the bodies are almost identical, it would be much simpler if the basic controls were the same. For those of us that use two cameras at the same time, perhaps this is Nikon's way of making you buy two new bodies rather than just one!!
All in all though I was extremely impressed. The Nikon D300 truly is a great camera.
As in previous years I have received a much higher number of enquiries in January from couples looking for a wedding photographer than at any other time during the year. Whether this is down to New Year's resolutions or an increase in proposals over Christmas I don't know, but there certainly seems to be something in the air!
This works out well for me though as meeting so many excited couples at this time is infectious and really helps to shake off the post-Xmas blues! I'm certainly really looking to the summer and the great weddings I'll be covering.
Well, after a few weeks of deliberation I today purchased a new Nikon D300 DSLR camera.
My original plan had been to buy another D200 body as I think it's such a good camera and serves me really well but after reading the reviews of the D300 I felt it would only regret not paying the extra for the newer model.
The biggest selling point for me of the D300 is it's apparent excellent performance in low light situations. For wedding photographers, shooting in low light is a fairly common occurrence, especially during the ceremony, and increasing the camera ISO as required often means noise (digital grain) can become an issue. However, from what I've read the D300 produces amazing results at high ISOs so it should be a great help in these situations.
Other new features include a live view mode (although I can't see myself using this), a 12.3 megapixel sensor (my current D200 is 10mp), self cleaning sensor, improved focusing system, larger screen and improved battery performance. But as I say, it's the improved noise control I'm looking forward to testing out the most.
This means that my D70 will now be allowed to retire. I only bought it as new three years ago but this seems like an age in today's digital world. I wonder what sort of specs DSLRs will have three years from now.....??
For more information on the D300 visit the official Nikon site at:http://www.europe-nikon.com/product/en_GB/products/broad/1436/overview.html
...and for a full, indepth review of the D300 please visit Ken Rockwell's excellent site at: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d300.htm
