Paul's PhotoBlog

Rome

Paul — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:52:39 +0000

Early September 2011 I took a trip to Rome, it was my first time in the Italian capital city, and I was blown away by the grandeur of some of these buildings. What struck me most was that the city was covered in ruins, literally every where you look, in other cities we would’ve pulled these down to make room for new commercial properties, or at least attempted to patch them up and rebuild them. But there was something really special about seeing the remains of such historic buildings, mostly untouched.

This was the first real test for my camera and my newly acquired skills, and in some ways this trip was the reason I decided to buy my first DSLR. I’m really happy I did! I’m also glad I bought it a few months before my trip and got some expert advice on how to use the manual functions, without those I would’ve been forced to have used the camera on automatic.

So out of the 673 photos I took, here’s a small selection of may favorites…

Farms and Fields

Paul — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 18:06:43 +0000

I recently spent a weekend camping in the Peak District, I love getting away from it all whenever I can, and the fact that you completely loose phone signal and there’s no internet access, really forces me to shutdown and enjoy some time ‘offline’.

A weekend of walking through fields provided the perfect opportunity to take some more photos and put to practice some of the skills I’ve learnt so far. Here’s a selection of the photos that I’m most happy with, a lot taken with a large aperture to get a tight field of focus, and others experimenting with shutter speeds to take landscape photos with the heavy low cloud.

Buying a camera – Canon EOS 550D

Paul — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 22:03:40 +0000

Seems only appropriate that my PhotoBlog should begin with the purchase of my first DSLR.

I’ve spent the last week learning to take photos on a Canon 400D under the direct supervision and excellent tuition of Cornwall based Pro Photographer Ben Tyler of BenPhotography. After hours of reading reviews on different cameras I finally settled on the Canon EOS 550D for my first SLR camera.

I wanted to buy something that was current, and I knew I wanted to buy new. What pushed me to get the 550D over say the 1100D was the 18megapixel resolution, the 3″ full frame viewscreen that allows for LiveView which really helps when taking photos at awkward angles and finally the fact that it records full HD 1080p video.

Sure they’ll be plenty more photos to follow, and only a careful selected few, but for now I just wanted to include some test shots, taken in my garden in AV mode, un-edited.