Hi all – Welcome

Hi I’m David Ruddle I ran a successful photographic studio for a number of years before retiring to spend more time on our narrowboat but still carried on taking a number of great assignments.

We are now planning to live full time on our narrowboat – The Hodmadod – and we will be trading from the boat – me offering portrait sessions for people and pets and stock photography for traders and lessons oh how to get the best from your camera and my wife selling a selection of her hand knitted socks,hats etc.

Here’s a couple of examples of portraits I’ve done. I’m happy to shoot on location but love the control of light that I get by shooting indoors in a studio style. This can be done on your boat, I don’t need acres of space, test me on it! These were all taken in cramped conditions!

If you would like to talk about having some photographs taken or would like to learn how to use your camera to its full potential give me a call on 07790 684110 or drop me a line at daruddle@icloud.com

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Copying others

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black and white, micro4/3, photography, scissors, still life

Over the last few days I’ve seen a couple of photographs that caught my attention and I decided to give it a try to replicate them.

The first was of this knife and fork. I saw the original image on the web and at first sight thought that it would be quite easy to copy but that proved so so wrong. In trying to get the same directional lighting and shadows as on the original I shot and tried countless set ups and began to wonder if in fact there was a lot of photoshop work that had gone into it to get the final result.

Here’s the photo I was trying to copy:

Note where the shadow side of the fork is. This would seem to indicate that the light was low to camera left but there is no shadow from the knife on the far side so it couldn’t be that low.

Here’s my best attempt:

Not nearly the same differentiation on the fork prongs between the shadow and hightlights. I’ll perhaps give it another go when I’ve given it some more thought. Any ideas welcome!

 

The other shot I saw was in a restaurant yesterday just of a pair of scissors. Very simple shot. Here’s mine. Does it work? Could it go on a wall? The scissors were not perhaps the best to use. The print I saw yesterday used a vintage pair but this was all I could find.

OLYMPUS OM-d EM5 30mm Sigma Art lens

A trio of brilliant lenses

Tags

black and white, East Anglia, micro4/3, Olympus, photography, Prime lens, Sigma, Suffolk

So on to my other purchases, the trio of Sigma lens for my Olympus OMD-EM5.

I bought two of them through Ebay; the 19mm and the 60mm. I think its probably a testament to how good these lenses are and what value for money that there are very few of them on the second hand market.

The 19mm is the old design with a lens barrel that has a ribbed effect for grip. The later ones are very smooth and I really dont like the look as much although in operation they are Ok to use.

All three are incredibly sharp and, at least compared to the zoom kit lens I had been using, very quick to focus.

I should perhaps add a note as to why I chose 3 prime lens when I could have purchased another zoom lens covering the same range. Olympus do a “pro” zoom lens covering 12mm – 40mm so wider than I can now do but shorter at the telephoto end. I do not shoot very wide angle much so the 12mm did not really interest me and I wanted a rather longer range at the top end than the 40mm. Another option would have been the 12 – 100 but that only has a maximum aperture of f4 and I really wanted something larger for lower light and also to minimise depth of field which with micro four thirds is not great anyway. Also the 3 prime lens set me back less than £300 in total whereas even secondhand I would have been paying out at least another £200 for the telephoto.

The only downside is that I end up changing lens a lot more but thats something I’m happy to do, its another reason to stop and think about the framing before pressing the shutter.

Here’s just a quick couple of images. Just the 19mm and 30mm at the moment. I’ve not really shot anything with the 60mm worthy of reproducing!

If you have any comments or queries please do leave me a comment below.

Teazle, the border terrier I shot with the 30mm just quickly as I was playing around with the camera. I popped a flashgun on and bounced it off the cupboard door next to her.

Sunday morning walk in Norfolk 19mm

As above

A walk over Bungay marshes on a frosty morning. Shot on the 19mm

I lied

Tags

animals, black and white, grey squirrel, micro4/3, Olympus, Olympus 75-300, squirrel, tree rat

A couple of posts ago I made a stand against GAS – gear acquisition syndrome – saying that really I didn’t need any new equipment to enjoy my photography. Well, that was true but I just couldn’t resist giving myself a push to start shooting more by buying some new lenses and a new tripod. Indeed everything I said I didn’t need! So I’ve bought a super Olympus telephoto 75mm – 300mm (150 -600mm equivalent) and the trio of Sigma lens 19mm, 30mm and 60mm (38,60,120 equivalent)

On top of that a new travel tripod too.

So a great excuse to get out and try the new gear. First up is the Olympus 75-300 telephoto. We are not too far from Oulton Broad and the park area next to it is teeming (literally, hundreds of the b*****s) with grey squirrels so a great place to try out the lens. Generally I’m very happy with it. Sharp enough through most of the range although some of the images at full stretch look a little soft. I used it on the new tripod which I used as a monopod for some of the shots to have a little more flexibility in movement.

Here’s a couple of the images:

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