Introduction This Blog Is About Getting The Shot

Well for years we've been asked whether or not we will put up a proper functioning blog. So we thought we'd start with this Google blog and through it we'd inform you about various things that we do as well as giving you a bit of information about some of the equipment that we use and taking the time to comment on some of the issues that go around in the photography world.

Perhaps like me you have read some of the raving reviews about various cameras and photographic equipment, often written by people who have just got the camera and are in what we would call the "honeymoon period" when the camera can do no wrong. The fact is that modern cameras are very impressive and when you combine that with very good lenses you get some good results.

However it's only when you've had the camera for little while that you begin to realize that it has limitations. You walk into a situation and you're pretty much convinced that you'll get a shot only to find when you get back to the studio or digital dark room that the image that you took didn't work out quite as you thought it would. It's frustrating especially when you consider that certain moments just occur as one-offs and there is nothing you can do to recreate the shot.

Many of my friends have obtained  digital SLR cameras and when they go out to take photographs and look at the screen on the rear of the camera they are absolutely convinced that they've got good photographs because they base their decision solely on the rear view.  Sometimes they're right. But as any working photographer will tell you, what appears on that small screen on the back of a camera can look very different when you have it on the big screen. And when you go to make the print then contrast and detail can be missing.

This then is a real world Blog. It's about the challenges of getting the shot. Over the years we have picked up a few tips and I intend to include a number of these in various posts. Often when taking the shot the key ingredient is to know your equipment. We use Leica, Pentax & Canon cameras and lenses. With Leica and Pentax we shoot medium format and Canon we choose for reliable 35mm format. We use primes and zooms. We use both CCD and CMOS sensors. They all have a place. But regardless of the camera used the starting point is vital: when the image is there to take you must be ready to take it. No matter how great the shot was - when its gone then no matter what camera you were carrying you cannot get the moment again.

As an example of the sort of photograph that you just have to get right on the day I have put down below a photograph taken looking across the bay in Albany in Western Australia. It's an early morning shot with storm clouds overhead, mist over the small islands that dot the bay, and the sun is breaking through. The scene will exist for approximately 30-45 seconds. You are driving around the head land and you see the parking bay; you spend 15-30 seconds pulling in and getting out of your car quickly. You now have to take your camera in your hand, decide ISO, aperture and exposure, frame the shot and take it.

If you know your equipment well enough to take it then the shot is there.