December 25th - Going Digital Photography Courses

Dec 25^th – Going Digital Photography Courses- The biggest and the best provider of photography courses in the UK, teaching in over 130 UK venues since 2005! Teaching from beginners to advanced we cater for all skills levels and makes of camera, there is always something for everyone! Why people choose Going Digital

December 24th - The Canon 1DX

The new flagship Digital SLR from Canon the 1DX, a camera with a full frame sensor that combines amazing image quality of 18.1MP with speed at up to 14fps. Just look at the below specification, need I say more. Price tag around £6K; hey it's Christmas Eve I can always dream! As soon as Canon allow me to have one for a week I'll do a full review, I know I'm still dreaming ;-)

• 18.1 MP full frame CMOS sensor
• Up to 12fps plus 14fps High speed mode
• 100-51200 ISO, up to H:204800
• 61 point AF system
• 100,000 pixel RGB AE metering
• Full HD 1080p EOS movie
• Dual “DIGIC 5+” processors
• Clear View II 8.11 cm (3.2”) 1,040k LCD
• Ethernet port

December 23rd - Lowepro Pro Runner 350AW Photo Backpack

For the photographer who likes to work on the move but requires that flexibility of carrying their kit with them then the Lowepro 350AW Photo Backpack is an excellent backpack at a very reasonable price. This bag allows you to carry a Digital SLR with attached lens (up to 200mm), 3 to 4 lens/flash accessories, up to a 15.4” widescreen laptop, a tripod or monopod, camera accessories such as extra batteries, rocket blower etc and a cuddly toy!

Very comfortable padded shoulder straps and additional waist belt make it very comfortable to wear, even when carrying a heavy load. It also has a waterproof all weather cover which goes over the whole pack very quickly in the event of a sudden downpour. Although you can carry a large amount of kit, tt's small enough to carry on flights as hand luggage, although weight restrictions may still apply. All in all a very good camera bag for the photographer who likes a bit of adventure in their life.

December 22nd - Quick Release Camera Strap

Ever get really frustrated on how uncomfortable or awkward your kit camera strap is? Well there is a very good solution out there which will allow you more freedom, feel comfortable and give you quick access to take your shot.  Quick release neck straps fit from one shoulder to the opposite hip which is where the camera will hang. The fixing point of the camera is via the tripod mount, where a heavy duty ring is screwed, this is then attached to the strap.  This provides you with a more comfortable way of holding the camera, especially with a heavy DSLR & lens, and allows you quick and easy access to bring up the eye and take a shot. It’s a great strap for portrait and wedding photographers as it seems to really free you up to direct your subjects.

I’d thoroughly recommend one and as I’ve said numerous times over the last month it’s all down to how much you are willing to spend. They can range from JJC POCKET-Strap at £11.49 up to the Black Rapid RS-7 Camera Strap at £47.99; I’ll leave that decision up to you but if you are sick of the kit strap then get one of these!

December 21st - Lastolite Hi-Lite Background

In the past few years the cost of studio lighting has fallen dramatically and for a very modest outlay you can set up your own studio at home or on location. One of the most important aspects for your studio be it fixed or portable, is the background.  The Lastolite Hi-Lite Background has become very popular with portrait and event photographers for its portability and easy set-up. The background is designed to shoot high-key work (the bleached white background and floor) but you can purchase coloured covers should you wish to change the mood.  

The background comes in a portable bag which can easily fit into a medium sized car and once opened flips into a two panel background joined by an outer skirt. Steel rods are applied for support and each side has a zipped slit where you can shine studio lights into to get that lit background. Now I say it’s easy to setup but I would advise strongly to practice putting it back down to a size that fits into the bag. Several videos may need to be watched and a lot of practice had before you become an expert.

The first decision you need to make is what size background you require. The hi-lite background comes in various sizes: 3.6’x4’6, 5’x7’ 6’x7’ and 7’x8’ – plenty to choose from. But before you buy, think carefully about the space you have and the work you want to shoot, not only now, but also in the future, and buy the right one for you. Secondly you need to think about how you going to light this background and this is where many people fall over, thinking that a two light setup will do the trick.

This is an excellent piece of kit but if you want the best out of it you need to go with a min of a 4 light setup, this will give you brilliant white backgrounds and save more time on the PC. You can buy a white trail which can be attached to the background, in this scenario if shooting full body you may need a 6 light setup. Imagine if you are an event photographer shooting a Prom, time is money so you can’t be spending time on Photoshop or Lightroom touching up your images.  Get it right with your light setup and this piece of kit gives you excellent high-key shots which can make you money!

December 20th - Speedlight Flash Units

If you want to explore the world of portrait photography, wedding photography or even some sports photography then a speedlight is an absolute must.  Direct in-camera flash can make faces look flat, the shadows can be harsh, and generally give unflattering results.


The main principle in lighting is the bigger the light source the softer the light on your subject. If your light is direct from the camera it becomes flat and unflattering. But if we were to bounce the light source off a wall, ceiling, reflector or maybe use it off camera with a soft box, a whole new world of possibilities open up for the photographer. This is the main advantages of the speedlight over the use of the direct on-camera flash, flexibility! 


You have more power and with a longer battery life; speedlights have a much further reach than your built in flash and the functionality of using long life rechargeable batteries or battery packs. You have the versatility to swivel the flash head so you can direct the light where you wish to enhance the ambient light rather than replace it.


They can be used off-camera with attachments fitted to it such as a soft box or snoot which help to shape and soften the light. You can setup a makeshift studio with several speedlights and radio triggers. On the last studio photography course we did at Seaham Hall hotel we showed students how to create a highlight background (white background) by just using speedlights.


The below picture was taken on our Wedding Masterclass Photography Course at Seaham Hall, using off-camera flash and a purple gel. So much can be achieved with such a small piece of portable kit, all you need is the kit and the know-how.


Which flash should I buy? Like all things photography related there is a wide range of flashguns on the market all with variable degrees of functionality and obviously this comes with a variation on price. Two factors should influence your decision; firstly the power of the flash as this is going to determine how well you can bounce the flash. Secondly to what degree can you swivel the flash head; some speedlights just allow you to swivel up and down but ideally you want to be able to swivel from left to right for maximum flexibility. There are plenty of 3rd party speedlights on the market but I would always recommend buying the same make as your DSLR, if you were to use a very cheap 3rd party flash unit the chances are you would only end up buying a better one later anyway. 


If you would like to learn how to use your speedlight more effectively then why don’t you attend our Photography Course using Flash at Seaham Hall?

Off-Camera flash with Purple Gel
Photograph by Going Digital North East Student Alan Jervis

December 19th - ND Grad Filters

ND grad filters are a must for any landscape photographer who wants to get the exposure right in the camera and not spend time at the computer blending shots together. ND Grads are for those situations where the foreground and the sky are of contrasting exposures. For example if you are taking a picture of a sunset and just allowed your camera to do the work the likelihood is that you will have a nicely exposed sky but your foreground will be too dark.  ND grads are usually square with the top half being shaded and the bottom half of the filter clear glass. This allows you to drop the shaded area over the sky to darken it and retain detail in the foreground resulting in an even exposure throughout.

ND Grad filters come in many varieties; the first decision to be made is do you go for soft or hard filters.  With the soft filter there is a gradual change from clear glass to a darker glass, this is suitable when taking images where there is an object such as buildings on the horizon for example. Hard grads are just clear then dark, there is no graduation; very useful for seascapes where there is a clear distinction between the sea and the sky on the horizon.

The second most important settings is to differentiate how much light you want to let in on the shaded area of the filter (the top versus the bottom basically). This differential comes with different measurements depending on your supplier of filters. The market leader in filters is usually seen as Lee; their filters are measured as 0.3, 0.6, 0.9 etc etc. 0.6 ND Grad refers to a graduated filter which lets in 2 f-stops less light at one side of the filter versus the other. A 0.9 ND grad lets in 3 f-stops less light at one side. Majority of landscape photos need no more than 1-3 f-stop blend and if you could only afford one filter (they can be expensive) I’d go for the 0.6 .

December 18th - Giottos Rocket Air Blower

Giottos Rocket Blower is an inexpensive and indispensable product that should be in every photographer's kit. 

 
Sensor dust is a big problem in the current crop of D-SLRs - especially showing up in macro photography, landscape photography and other photography using a tiny aperture opening or incorporating smooth, light colors such as a blue sky.

 
When cleaning my sensor, I prefer to use air rather than direct contact cleaning methods (which I occasionally resort to). The Giottos Rocket Air Blower uses a hand-squeeze for its very strong burst of air pressure. Air enters the blower from the bottom and exits from the top - preventing the dust you are blowing off from re-entering the blower chamber.

 
The Giottos Rocket Air Blower is very useful for blowing dust from a lens or filter. I recommend using a blower before using contact methods for cleaning a lens. The blower can remove particles that might scratch a lens or filter when wiping it with lens tissue or a lens cloth. 

December 17th - A Rubber Band! Oh with a macro cell lens in it!

So you're thinking a rubber band is that the best you can do? Stick with me because this little gadget is quite cool for your smartphone!


People using their mobile phones for taking photographs is huge these days especially with apps such as Instagram, Camera+ etc etc. You can get some really cool effects with different filters that you can apply through the software. But this rubber band allows you to actually mount a tiny convex lens onto your phone, thanks to the elastic band, which can stretch up to a diameter of 16 inches!


Once attached it allows you to grab images of subjects which are just a few inches from your phone. Check out the image below to give you an indication of the quality of image you can achieve with this rubber band!

Easy Macro Cell Lens Band at the Photojojo Store!

December 16th - Digital SLR1 Photography Course

The best beginners photography course in the country being taught at over a 130 venues UK wide!
Get off automatic mode and learn on our  "How to Use a Digital SLR Part 1-Photography Course".
This workshop is designed for all makes and models of SLR, compact system and bridge cameras with the facility to set Aperture Priority 


Learn the Fundamentals of Good Photography in a Day!
On this hands-on workshop you will have the opportunity to take various photographs, using all the key features of your camera, and gain confidence in your photography. There will be a maximum of 10 students per tutor. These Photography Courses are taught at all our major venues in Newcastle, Middlesbrough,Sunderland and Co Durham.


Learn the basics in a day

• How to take better pictures with your Digital Camera
• What the different Controls on your camera are for
• Autofocus points and using them to your advantage  
• Apertures and Shutter Speeds, understanding the relationship between them
• Aperture Priority how to use to blur backgrounds and get sharp Landscapes 
• What is ISO and how to use it to eliminate camera shake 
• Equipment, what do you really need
• Opportunity to put into practice your new skills
• Review of images and open discussion about what we have learned

December 15th - The best Wedding Photography Book on the Market!

One of the best if not the best wedding photography book is a book called Wedding photography – A Guide to posing. If you are starting out in the wonderful world of wedding photography or you are already there; this book is a great addition to any wedding photographer’s kit bag offering an in-depth guide to posing techniques with over 500 images.  The book offers a wealth of knowledge on how to pose, see light and look for leading lines, reflections and shadows, whilst creating images with finesse and elegance. It also provides valuable advice on how to interact with your couples to get the best results, how to pose larger couples in a flattering manner, and how to cope when the bride and groom are of different heights. Why not try out some of these posing techniques with professional models and expert tuition and advice at our wedding photography course next year.

December 14th - A Prime Lens

Majority of people in today’s photography usually use a zoom lens and quite rightly so the versatility and the quality you can get from zoom lenses in today’s market is pretty impressive. But to get a real quality zoom lens which will give you a lot of light for your money i.e. f2.8 throughout the focal range, is a pretty expensive affair.  An alternative to this, if you require that wider aperture, is a prime lens. A prime lens is a lens with a fixed focal length for example the 50mm will always be 50mm and can’t be changed. So if you wanted to shoot at 35mm, 50mm and 100mm you would have to buy 3 lenses. Now you’re asking why you would want to spend money on 3 lenses when one zoom lens would suffice? But in the modern age of photography prime lenses still have a place and are a must for any kit bag, especially for the photographer who occasionally shoots in low light.  

When zoom lenses first arrived on the scene the optical quality rarely matched that of the prime lens.   In today's market the higher end zoom lenses generally produce similar quality as the prime but carry a very hefty price tag with them. At the lower end of the zoom lens market the prime lens will win every time.

The main advantages of prime lenses in modern day photography are price, weight and speed; you get a lot of light for your money with a prime lens! An inexpensive prime lens can generally provide as good or even better quality as a high-end expensive zoom lens. For example one of the best prime lenses that Canon produce is the Canon 50mm F1.4 which you can now get for £271; that’s unbelievable value for a lens which can produce pin sharp images in low light with milky blurred backgrounds! Nikon also do a 50mm lens which you can buy for just over £300 which is the Nikon 50mm F1.4. With every manufacture you will find a prime lens in their arsenal of lenses for a low price, that is why they are still a very attractive proposition in this day’s market!

December 13th - Photomatix and the Wonderful World of HDR

Have you ever taken a photograph and part of the image looks too dark and the other part looks too bright?  There are several ways around this such as ND Grad Filters, Flash or continuous lighting; you can use exposure compensation but that effects the whole image and we are just wanting that balance between the highlights and shadows and get an even exposure. But what if we maybe took 3 images at different exposures or even 5 of the same subject and blend them together? This is called High Dynamic Range processing (HDR). In my opinion the best tool on the market to help you with this is Photomatix; Photomatix is a program which can run on your PC or Mac as a standalone tool but you can also have plugins to Lightroom and Photoshop CS2 and higher should you wish.

The process is simple, you can take several photographs of the same subject at different exposures or you can take one photograph in RAW and then process several images at different exposures. The beauty of doing the latter is that this can be done with a moving subject as you are only taking one shot, if you take the shots within the camera then the subject must be still. The reason being is that you will be blending these images together, if you take say 3 shots within your camera of the moving subject when blending them together you will get a ghost effect as the subject won't be in the same place.

So once you have your TIFFS of JPEGS then you put them into Photomatix and blend the images, adjust the settings to get the look you want: from natural-looking with Exposure Fusion to painterly or surreal with Tone Mapping. I must stress this doesn't work for every image as some will look a little false but when you get it right it can look pretty amazing.

This technique can work really well on landscapes; shadowless hazy sunlight or an overcast sky usually results in dull-looking photographs. The tone mapping tool of Photomatix can turn them into great-looking images. Another great use is for interior shots where you want a perfectly exposed inside but be able to see the view outside. This is a common problem for Estate Agents as they don't have and probably don't want expensive lighting equipment to carry around; this is a great technique to getting stunning interior shots. Take a look at the two images below as an example, one is an image with the exposure set to 0 the other is 5 images blended together which have exposures of -2,-1,0,+1,+2. Notice the guy with the red bag, if those exposures where taken within the camera this HDR image wouldn't have been possible because he is moving; but because it’s one image changed and then blended together it becomes possible.


Look at the differences between the two pictures the first very dull, you have some detail in the sky but very little in the foreground to the point it's difficult to make out the guy with the red bag. Then take a look at the HDR image it's as if someone has used a huge flash for the foreground and we have much more detail and vibrancy in the sky. One image shot, 3 minutes changing and exporting on Lightroom 3, 30 seconds in Photomatix and you have a vibrant, perfectly exposed, detailed image!


Should you require and advice regarding HDR then drop me a message!

Before

After

December 12th - Extension Tubes

Extension tubes are a must accessory if you want to get serious about your macro photography. You place the tube in between the camera body and the lens to gain magnification, the farther away the rear element of the lens is away from the sensor, the closer the lens will focus. So for example lets say you are sat in the garden and focusing on a bird on your bird feeder, the rear element of your lens has moved farther away from your sensor. So it stands to reason that if you were to place some kind of spacer between your lens and camera body, you should be able to focus closer. Even if you have a a true (1-1) macro lens I would recommend buying these.


The extension tube I always recommend to students on our Macro Photography Courses is the Kenko Extension Tubes which come in a set of 3 tubes at 12mm,20mm and 36mm. These tubes are cheaper and in my opinion superior to the Canon and Nikon tubes you can get. If you decide these are not for you then please make sure you buy extension tubes with electrical connectors. This means you will be able to change the aperture when fixed in between the camera and the lens.

December 11th - Adobe Lightroom 3

Adobe Lightroom 3 in my opinion is the ultimate post production tool for any photographer.  It is an extremely powerful program that speeds up your workflow and puts even more control into the hands of the photographer. Easy importing and extremely powerful organisational tools quickly turn your jumbled images into easy to find collections. Even for organisationally challenged photographers, such as my good self, Lightroom 3 makes filing and finding your images easy.

Post development is amazing in Lightroom 3, you can make one or several adjustments and synchronise that change among as many images as you wish. For example imagine you don’t get the exposure or the white balance quite right on your shots of the bride and groom in the church. All you need to do is adjust one and then highlight the rest of the similar images and synchronise those adjustments. The list goes on of the ease you can do your post production within Lightroom 3 especially the noise reduction tool which is second to none; you can massively reduce the noise in your image with just the touch of a slider.

Once you are satisfied with your post production there is several ways you can output your images. Export them to tiffs or JPEG images for example; the really cool thing about this is that you can highlight has many images as you wish and export them all to a specific size, location, file name and add your own watermark. This helps to speed up your workflow dramatically. It doesn't stop there you can publish a wed gallery in HTML or Flash which is a great way to showcase your work.

The print feature offers nice presets and customisable layout features. Single images and packages can quickly be created and printed. Draft and regular printing is supported as well as the easiest contact sheet creation I have seen. Lightroom 3 improves further by adding more customisable package options to fit the photographer's needs.

This is just a quick overview of what Lightroom 3 is capable of and I could write pages on the different features that Lightroom gives the photographer whether you are a keen amateur or professional it has something for everyone

December 10th - Lensbaby Photography Lenses

Lensbaby is a line of camera lenses for SLR cameras that combine a simple lens with a bellows or ball and socket mechanism for use in special-effect photography. The lenses can really enhance the photographer’s creative possibilities using the selective focus and bokeh effects

The front standard can be manipulated off axis to move the sharpest area of focus (the "sweet spot") to almost anywhere in the frame. This allows the important part of the subject to be rendered sharp with everything else out of focus, even if it is the same distance from the camera. Lensbabys have no electronic components, so you will have no auto-focus when mounted on Digital SLR so a bit of practice is required to find that sweet focus spot using manual focus.

The aperture is controlled by a series of interchangeable discs which can be changed easily with the magnetic tool that is provided. The lens with the default circular aperture disks produces oval bokeh that point to the sweet spot and patterned aperture disks can be used to shape the out-of-focus areas to non-circular shapes. To see some examples of the brilliant effects gained by the Lensbaby visit the Lensbaby Gallery

December 9th - 360 Panoramic Ball Camera

Something fun for the weekend a 360 Panoramic Ball Camera! It has 36 fixed mobile camera modules which take a 360 degree panaromic shot when thrown in the air once it reaches the highest point. The camera ball is designed by Jonas Pfeil; as you can see from the video the camera ball can take some impressivce pictures in the right surroundings. Take a look at the video and check it out! Wonder if we every get one of these on our photography courses in Yorkshire?

December 8th - X-Rite ColorChecker Passport

One of the issues that gets talked about more than any other topic on our photography courses is "Why do some of the colours on my images not look the same as what I'm seeing with my own eyes?" The answer lies in the area of colour temperature and white balance. A camera shoots in a wide variety of lighting conditions, with temperatures from as low as 2,900K in dim candlelight up to 10,000K in some daylight conditions. All cameras when recording an image on their sensors record the colour in different ways, that's just the nature of the camera manufacture and model type.  What the colour checker can do is help you create a camera profile which is an accurate representation of the colour temperature when the image was shot. The X-Rite ColorChecker Passport is two pieces of kit, it's a colour target as you can see and it's software which you can use in stand-alone or you can use it as a Lightroom3 plugin. The way it works is you have your subject hold the color checker target in front of themselves. You then take a shot of the target  while your subject is holding it in the lighting that you will be using for the shoot. The target doesn't have to be in sharp focus but you will have to try and expose properly and avoid any flashing highlights when reviewing the image on your screen. You can now use that image as your colour profile and to also correct your white balance of any colour casts. The beauty of using this tool in Lightroom is that you can create the profile for one shot then synchronise the setting to all the other images taken under the same lighting conditions. I’m sure that some of you are saying, yeah that’s all well and good, but I don’t shoot a whole lot of people to hold my card, I do mostly landscapes. The Color Checker has you covered on that too. There is an optional landscape white balance square that you can click on in the software that adjusts the color warmer or cooler just by clicking different squares. It's a very easy, qiuck and accurate way to getting your colours spot on!

December 7th - Going Digital Gift Vouchers

I know a bit of self-promotion but no book, video or cheap photography walk will give you the photography inspiration and education that a Going Digital photography course gives you! We cater for all levels and all genres of photography from beginner SLR1 Photography Courses up to our Wedding Master Class photography course. There is something for everyone that's why our Going Digital Gift Vouchers are  a great Christmas present for any budding photographer.

December 6th - X-Rite i1 Display PRO

Ever printed one of your images and the printed photograph doesn't look the same as what you are seeing on the screen? One way of improving this is to calibrate your monitor with the X-Rite i1 Display PRO. Now I'm not saying that every print is going to be perfect but it will go along way in getting more consistent tones and colours in your print, whether done by you or a professional printers. The device fits onto your screen, it can be used on laptops also, and you start to run the software which will help calibrate your monitor. Your screen will display a variation of colours and tones during the management process which can take a few minutes; I'd always suggest carrying out calibration in dimmed lighting, so as to minimise any interference with the measurements. Once the management software is finished it will create an ICC profile for your PC to use and also show you a before and after calibration. Should you find this solution a little expensive there is a cheaper solution made by the same company called the ColorMunki Display, does the same thing but a few less bells and whistles.

December 5th - Fast memory card

People underestimate the importance of a fast memory card, and look mostly for the size, rather than the speed, but they’re wrong to do so. Fast memory cards have always cost a little bit more than the slower ones, but the advantages they can give you when shooting fast action is worth the extra expenditure. The card that I’ve shown is the one that I personally use  because it will write onto the card at 60MB/sec, which is important when you’re shooting in burst fire mode, as you’re limited by the number you can shoot in a single burst, by the writing speed of your card. If you’ve ever shot sports photography, where everything is happening fast and you’ve only got a short time to capture the image, you’ll often find that your camera can’t keep up. This is where a fast card will come in very handy, you can get faster cards than this but such is the life of the photographer it comes at a cost!

December 4th - The Gorillapod

The Joby Gorillapod is a great piece of kit when you want to travel light but still get those sharp low ISO shots for long exposures. Unfortunately good quality tripods  tend to be heavy, and even expensive lightweight carbon fibre tripods are somewhat unwieldy to carry about, especially if you're travelling light. The Joby Gorillapod is a strange-looking but amazingly effective flexible tripod which can support your camera in virtually any position by clinging to available objects such as lamp posts, tree branches, railings and so on. It can also stand on its own legs like a conventional tripod but be aware when doing this it wont give you the same stable platform as a conventional tripod especially in high winds.


You can get different sizes to suit the type of camera you are using from a compact camera up to a Digital SLR with zoom lens. The picture below is a shot I took in Las Vegas with a Gorillapod and a Panasonic G1 compact system camera. This shot would have been very difficult to get sharp if I hadn't had the Gorillapod with me!

December 3rd - It's a Book about Flash

Dec 3 is a book called On Camera Flash Techniques for Wedding and Portrait Photographers. Using flash can be quite daunting for some people especially when the results you are getting are not satisfactory. This book offers clear guidelines with images on how to avoid the pitfalls of flash photography which will help you to produce professional and vibrant images. It’s written in a very clear and precise way with before and after shots giving you great advice and techniques on shooting with flash indoors and outdoors. We run portrait photography courses which we can learn you how to put these techniques into practice.

December 2nd - Remote Shutter Release

When dealing with longer exposures, keeping your camera still on a tripod is essential to avoid camera shake. To help with this is an equally important piece of kit the Remote Release. These are designed so you can auto focus or manually focus and then take the photo without touching the camera – therefore stopping unnecessary shake and blurring on your pictures.

Like most things photography related there is so much to choose from in type of remote release you can get. For example do you want a wired remote release or a infrared remote release or a radio triggered remote release. Then do you go for your camera makes version i.e. Nikon/Canon or a 3rd party tool. There is no quick answer to any of these questions and it really boils down to the same thing and that is budget! If you can afford it I would recommend the wireless remote shutter release, out of the two kinds already mentioned (radio/infrared) I'd go with the release that works with a radio trigger. The disadvantage of infrared is that you can't use it from behind the camera, the remote needs to be facing the front of the camera. It also has a limited distance on where you can trigger the shutter from. With a radio trigger you can control the shutter sometimes from  distance of 320ft (depending on model). These are great devices not just for long exposures but sometimes very quick exposures. Think about macro photography, what would you rather do chase a bee or butterfly around all day or set your camera up, sit back, enjoy the sun and when the moment arrives fire away!

Something for Christmas!

Don't have an advent calendar? Well each day leading up to Christmas I'll be recommending something photography related to buy,download,watch, read or visit. Yesterday it was all about Gold/Silver/White reflectors and how they are a cheap way to change the light or direct the light on a subject. They can be just as useful as flash guns and expensive lighting gear. Gold reflectors are designed to add a warming effect to the image. Silver and white reflectors reflect and direct the light onto the subject. These are great tools to have for portrait, wedding or even macro photography. The price ranges depend on what brand or size you go for.

Photography Courses 2012 are ready to book!

Our photography courses for 2012 are no live to book on the Going Digital Yorkshire website. As well as our Digital SLR1 and SLR2 photography courses, we have added some very exciting new ones and a couple of new venue's also. Roundhay Park Leeds and East Riddlesden Hall Keighley are our two exciting new venues to be added to the current list of amazing venues we have for our photography courses in Yorkshire. Roundhay Park will be our home for photography courses in the Leeds area which not only offers beautiful landscapes, lakes and gardens but is also home to the amazing Tropical World which will be the venue for our new Macro & Close-up photography course.

East Riddlesdon Hall is a small but beautiful National Trust property in Keighley just outside Bradford. East Riddlesdon Hall won the Small Visitor Attraction of the Year award at The Welcome to Yorkshire’s White Rose Awards and upon entering the venue you will soon see why.

We have new photography courses also in 2012; we have portrait photography courses teaching you how to take stunning portrait photographs using natural light and flash. We have a very exciting Wildlife and Landscape photography course at Fountains Abbey teaching you hot to photograph deer, how to blur water and how to get sharp stunning landscapes. Finally as already mentioned we have our Macro & Close-up photography course at Tropical World Leeds.

As the year goes on I’m hoping to introduce a bird of prey wildlife course and a wedding photography course, so watch this space!