I’m please to now offer an Advanced photography and Photoshop workshop with the first being held in the Blue Mountains in 2012. Please register your interest to receive email updates.

For more information and to register please click here: Photography Workshop

I am pleased to introduce a wide range of education offerings for photographers of all skill levels with the addition of an education section to my website.

My popular group and private day courses teach beginners/intermediate students from the ground up, learning to shoot fully manual, and how to create their very own master pieces. Private courses can be completely tailored to suit the students needs and can even include time learning Photoshop, be split into two sessions, cover more advanced topics or even be shared with a friend. If a full day session doesn’t suit then you can pick my brains for an hour or two to brush up or learn new skills such as how to use filters, how to shoot at night, how do light painting or how to shoot long exposures. If you can’t find your way around Photoshop or would like to see what I do when processing photos allow me to connect remotely to your computer via the internet and show you in real time with an interactive one on one mastering lesson. Alternatively download one of my easy to follow video tutorials (more coming soon!) and follow it at your own pace.

A great resource for a somewhat confusing topic for photographers, X-rite have release a series of videos on colour management. If you are unsure what a colour managed work flow is or have some questions hopefully they will be answered here. Of course they are plugging their brand X-Rite, but the same principles apply with any calibration tool. The first and absolutely most important step is to calibrate your monitor. Check out the videos here: Colour Calibration, How to

And no, MACs are not exempt from Colour calibration!

I came across this the other week and it has really been a great introduction into the world of shooting HD video with dSLR’s. Hosted by Shane Hurlbut a cinematographer from the States, these short videos really break down the basics and are well worth a watch.

They cover everything from setting up your camera (menus, lenses, settings), what kit to buy (for steady shots, sound etc.), and how to shoot (tips and techniques).

Check it out: dSLR HD Video Tutorials

I wanted to blog about my new tripod (exciting stuff I know) as I’m very happy with it and having spent hours, days trawling the Internet, researching which one to buy I would like to share my thoughts and experience. This post is really for anyone who doesn’t quite know which tripod to buy, and is after some ideas on what they need to consider or for those already considering the brand Benro, the tripod I went for.

For many years I have used an aluminium Manfrotto 190 series tripod, with a large three handle tripod head. It did a great job but has now been relegated to use as a spare for participants taking my photography course. I don’t treat my gear too well (it’s there to be used after all), and the tripod took a bit of a beating, with regular dunks in both salt water and sand, without being cleaned. It is now rusty, almost unusable and too heavy to travel with.

In comes my new travel angle Benro carbon fibre tripod and ball head (Benro C2681 + B-1 ball head). For a cheap carbon fibre tripod I had my doubts but thankfully I’m very happy with it and willing to give them a free plug. At a ‘reasonable’ $400 AUD from eBay this is cheap by carbon fibre standards.

The Benro tripod exceeded my requirements, which were as follows:

1. It must be light in weight. I have strict weight allowances for luggage on some airlines. Including the head the tripod weighs about 3kg.

2. It must support at worst my 5D Mark II, with a battery grip, batteries, Canon 70-200mm L Series lens, Really Right stuff pano head, filters and allow a bit extra for additional loading due to forces imposed when carrying it, wind etc. The total weight rated for this tripod is 12kg well above the 5-7kg camera gear I have.

3. It must be compact and portable but still able to extend to a comfortable operating height. I’m 6ft2″ so at a height of 137cm and 164cm with the centre column extended it was perfect.

4. Long term it should replace my existing tripod and not be a ‘travel only’ tripod.

5. The price must be reasonable, who can justify the cost of a Gitzo? Not me.

The type of tripod head wasn’t so much of a concern to me. I had quite happily been using a clunky three handle Manfrotto head for years. The great thing about the Manfrotto head was that it could be perfectly horizontally panned. This is great for taking panoramic photos where horizons need to stay flat when panning. After buying a Really Right Stuff panning base I could pan to my hearts content on any head so I decided to conform and go with the ball head and must say haven’t looked back since.

In addition to the above requirements the Benro also had some great extras which swayed me:

1. It can be used as a monopod. This was something I had not even considered but it has already been a great addition. One of the legs can be unscrewed, the ball head attached and the rig used as a monopod. I used this to great effect at the 2010 Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland, where space was limited, I was using telephoto length’s and exposure times were up due to limited light. The monopod helped keep my images sharp.

2. Interchangeable feet. The tripod comes with both spiked and rubber feet. This isn’t something my previous tripod had but would have come in handy as the rubber feet needed replacing.

3. Tripod bag, great for transportation.

4. Three extension sections. Not that I really know but four section tripods seem flimsy. The bottom section gets pretty skinny and you don’t really save much space when compacted. This one is chunky so at least gives the perception of reliability and stability.

5. Hook on centre column for additional weight giving extra stability. The instructions advise not to attach too much weight or it will have the adverse effect, strange!

6. Water and sand proof extension grips. I guess at least it will delay the inevitable death of this tripod.

Overall this tripod is easy to use, quick to erect, great build quality and suits me down to the ground. Depending on how you plan to use your tripod your requirements may differ. This tripod was an ideal choice for my landscape work and I´m sure it will be great at everything else I throw at it.

Ask Lee a question:

Hello Guys, this one is for the photographers that follow my blog. I’ve written a step by step guide on capturing the star trails image I posted a couple weeks back AND recorded a video on the post processing in Photoshop. Click the image to browse to the tutorial.

Comments always welcome

I stumbled across this really cool application the other week and thought I would share it with you along with another iPhone app I use frequently.

The application I found is called ‘The Photographer’s Ephemeris‘. It has a few features but for me by far the best of these is the map showing sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset angles and times. There’s an iPhone version coming soon which will suite me better, I can’t wait. Check it out, plug in the location you plan to shoot and you can easily figure out if you are best to shoot it at sunset or sunrise. It’s also good if you want to figure those really complicated shots where a full moon hovers above the Opera House or Twelve Apostles.

Looks like October will be a good time to shoot a full moon behind the Apostles

Another tool I use a fair bit is ‘PhotoBuddy‘ for the iPhone. It’s really handy for finding out the sunrise and sunset times at your current location (requires 3G iPhone). I also use it to see when the next full moon is. It has loads of other features most of which I never use or don’t really understand…check it out if you have an iPhone.

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I’ve had the B+W 10 stop 3.0 ND filter for a few months now and thought I would give it a whirl on a recent trip to NZ. In retrospect I should have played with it before I left or even researched other peoples experiences, needless to say I had mixed results. Since then I’ve studied up and thought I would share some tips that may help you get better results.

First up how I use the filter. Before you even put the ND filter on follow these steps:

• put your camera on a tripod you are going to be shooting upwards of 10s so this is a must.
• compose the shot, if you are using this filter it’s likely you want to show some sort of motion blur, include clouds, water, crowds or something that moves and juxtapose this with something static.
• set focus and switch to manual, I wouldn’t rely on auto focus through the filter.*
• set the white balance if shooting jpeg (the camera has no chance once the filters on)*
• correctly expose the scene, setting the aperture and shutter speed (for the scene without the filter at this stage).*
• take a test shot and check histogram (re do previous step if unhappy).

Setting the white balance isn’t as important if shooting in RAW as it can be changed in the RAW editor. Focus and exposure can be set with the filter on if your camera has ‘live view’. Zoom in 100% to set the focus approximately 1/3rd into the image. I find with live view setting the exposure with the filter on the resulting images can come out somewhat dark. I suggest to add an extra stop (3 clicks of shutter speed) to correctly expose the image….or shoot and review the histogram.

Put the filter on!

• stop down the exposure 10 stops (for my camera this is 30 clicks of the shutter speed dial as each increment is a third of a stop – make sure you are going the correct way!).
• go for it, check histogram, correct accordingly.

At 17mm on a full frame camera you really notice lens drop off (darkened edges on the image) so be mindful of this. When you get your photos into post you are likely to have to do a lot of colour correction, first correct the white balance. Colours still look way out? You’ve either got colour cast caused by your filter (the drop in Formatt (Hi-Tech) filters are bad for this, tisk tisk not again Formatt?) or infrared contamination (images lack contrast, appears ‘muddy’).

Here is a shot taken at Craters of the Moon, Taupo, New Zealand. Straight out of the camera you can see it looks muddy and the white balance is all off:

After some colour correction in Adobe RAW we get (note the lack of contrast):

Converting to black and white and processing in Photoshop the end result is a far more contrasty shot where colour is not an issue:

IR contamination the good the bad and the ugly:

• foliage (leaves, grass etc.) come out bright, can be a good look in b&w, leaves reflect IR so they don’t burn in the sun!
• Blue sky’s appear darker, good thing
• Rocks and sand absorb IR, can look muddy and lack contrast
• the sea absorbs all IR, ok to shoot

There are a couple of options to minimise IR contamination.

• The use of an additional hot mirror filter to block IR (I’ve never tried this so can comment on its effectiveness)
• Shoot the sea to minimise IR
• Don’t shot long exposures!
• Shot long exposures as well as short ones and blend in PS

Happy New Year, hello and welcome to my first newsletter of 2010. Since we last spoke I’ve been to the North Island of NZ, dabbled in tilt shift time lapse video making, shot a models portfolio and published my first photographic guide (Manly, NSW). In between all of that I’ve been organising my exhibition at Ash’s Table, processed some new images, consumed half a turkey and celebrated New Year! Here are some points of interest:

Exhibition Ash’s Table – Reminder
Starting January 13th running for 6 week I will be exhibiting at Ash’s Table Cafe, Manly. I hope you can make it along, have a coffee and check out my images.

Ivanhoe Hotel Manly – Australia Day
On Australia Day (Tuesday 26th January), 11am-3pm I will be displaying 10 images from the Northern Beaches on the lobby bar plasma screens. A good excuse to go for a beer not that you need one on Australia day!

New Zealand – new images
To keep up to date with all my new images subscribe to the RSS feed of the latest images section.

This month I’ve got some new shots from New Zealand’s North Island. I managed to get a few in whilst dodging the rain clouds, unfortunately it was a bit of a wasted trip in that respect. I’ll be posting more in the coming weeks as I get time to process them.

Hello all, I thought I would join twitter and see what it was all about. If you fancy updates on my latest photo shenanigans please add me by clicking on the twitter link below to go to my page. If anyone has suggestions on who I should be following please let me know.