Paula & Riaan's Wedding

I love wedding photography. It encapsulates every aspect of photography, and that excites me. When you shoot a wedding, you are using macro, street, architecture, event, fashion, portrait, nature and  documentary styles and you are doing it on the fly. The adrenaline rush is something else. The rewards for me are not about the money, but about the image.... If I look at an image that I have created and I go "wow", then I  know that I have done my job well... There are no excuses in wedding photography. The venue sucks.... make a plan, deal with it. The light is wrong... make another plan, move to a new location, think on your feet, use back lighting. overpower the natural light with flash. Paula and Riaan got married at Bikers church and then moved the reception to Dale's Black Angus Restaurant. After the reception we took the couple to Adderley road for the couples shoot. The light was brilliant and we captured some awesome images....

Contact us at sean@sgmproductions.co.za for a wedding photography quote.

www.sgmproductions.weebly.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

Awesome Macro Beetles

I think that the iridescence on this beetle is amazing...  Taken with a 50mm prime lens mounted on a set of three manual extension tubes. Nikon D 3100.

 Taken with a 50mm prime lens mounted on a set of three manual extension tubes. I used a Nikon Sb 700 flash for extra light. Nikon D 3100.

Another view of the beetle.

Lindie and Jannie's wedding slide show

The emotional wedding slide show that we did using our images and sound of Lindie and Jannie's wedding in Aurora on the West Coast.

www.sgmproductions.weebly.com

Using pop up flash for awesome landscape images

A lot of photographers have a stigma about using flash with their photography. However, when used correctly flash can really enhance a photograph. The problem with flash is that it is often used with no thought as to how and why it works and the result is the "spotlight" bleached out look with harsh shadows behind the subject. Professional photographers use many different techniques to eliminate or reduce this problem in portraits or event photography. But what about using flash to enhance a landscape image?

I went for a walk at sunset today on Damarakloof farm, where I am currently staying and took a few photographs with my Canon 7 D as I went. I will show you a few examples of the pics that I took with and without flash. I used the pop up flash on my 7D to show that you do not actually need a high powered flash to get breathtaking images (although it certainly can help). I used aperture value with the natural light pics and switched over to manual exposure when using flash.

The important thing to remember when using flash is that the shutter speed controls ambient light and the flash and aperture value exposes the subject that is within range of the flash. The ISO speed will determine how powerful or how far the flash range extends. For a really dark sky and background, use a shutter speed of 1/200 to 1/80. For a brighter background or if the ambient light is quite dark then use a shutter speed of 1/40 to 1/80 seconds. You also need to use negative flash compensation to tone down the power of the flash if the subject is quite close.

These pics are unedited and are as shot. 

Please let me know what you think of this post and if it inspired you to get creative with flash.
www.sgmproductions.weebly.com 

This pic was taken without flash. 24mm F9 1/10sec ISO- 800 (Notice how flat and lifeless the image is)

 

For this pic I switched to manual exposure, dialed in minus 2 stops of flash compensation. F5.6 1/80sec ISO-320 (Notice how moody the sky looks, with the foreground exposed as well.

 No flash, Exposure  28mm F4 1/30 sec ISO-1600

F4 1/200 Sec ISO-800 with pop up flash set to no flash compensation.

Lindie & Jannie's Aurora West Coast Wedding

Here are some photographs from Lindie and Jannie's Wedding taken in and around Aurora on the West Coast. Lindie is a wedding photographer and so I was very pleased when she asked me to take her pictures of her special day.... As you can see we got some "WOW" images of their day and we where over the moon when Lindie told us how much she and Jannie love the pics.  Check out my new photography website at www.sgmproductions.weebly.com or E-mail me at sean@sgmproductions.co.za for a wedding photography quote.