Adobe Lightroom 5 is Released

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 is now available as a standalone product or as part of the Creative Cloud. Check out Adobe’s videos below of the product’s new features.

Overview

Advanced Healing Brush

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Smart Previews

An upgrade from any previous version of Lightroom costs €72.57 incl VAT.
To buy the full version of Lightroom 5 costs €129.15 incl VAT.
Adobe’s buying guide is here.
Download a fully functional, free trial of Lightroom 5 here.
Lightroom’s YouTube Channel is here.

Read all about the latest release at Adobe.ie

 

Wedding Workshop Review

Following the very successful wedding workshop with Brian Terry recently, the group held a review of the day with Brian at the group’s regular meeting at The Midleton Park Hotel.

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A selection of images taken on the day by those attending, were shown on a slideshow, reviewed and critiqued. The quality of the images was outstanding by any measure and really underlined the importance of workshops for getting expert information and instruction along with the safety net they provide for making mistakes and learning from them.

Read the original blog post on the wedding workshop here.

Review the selection of images from the day in the slideshow below.

[slideshow_deploy id=’792′]

 

Thanks again to Brian for his attendance.

Main photo above by Anthony O’Connor.

Useful Links:
Brian Terry:        www.brianterryphoto.com
Bride:                  Kirby Fleming
Groom:                Aaron O’Driscoll
Hair Stylist:         Amy Barry
Make Up Artist:   Denise Feeney
Vintage Car:        Wedding Vintage Car Hire
Venue:                 The Bayview Hotel, Ballycotton, Co. Cork
Bride’s Gown:     Diamond Bridal, Maylor St, Cork
Groom’s Suit:      Morleys Suit Hire, Cork
Rings:                  Barnes Jewellers, Fermoy
Flowers:               Every Blooming Thing, Fermoy
Cake:                   Aunty Dees Cakes

 

Wedding Workshop with Brian Terry

Professional photographer, Brian Terry, conducted a wedding workshop for the members of the group and friends recently. He talked about his style of wedding photography, and demonstrated during the workshop, some of his own wedding photography techniques that could be applied by both a main photographer, or wedding guest with a camera.

Brian Terry Wedding Workshop

East Cork Camera Group hosted the event and were delighted to be joined by members of the Ballincollig and Fermoy Camera Clubs as well as one attendee who traveled all the way from Co. Wicklow to make it. All the details were planned with precision by group secretary, Karen Fleming so all the 25 photographers had to do was show up and shoot! ‘Bride’ and ‘groom’, hair stylist, make up artist, gown and suit, vintage car and chauffeur, hotel, church, flowers, rings and cake were all laid on and the weather held fine also. What more could we ask for?

The idyllic Bayview Hotel in scenic Ballycotton was the venue for the workshop where the ‘bride and groom’ got ready in one of the bedrooms while typical wedding preparation photos were made. Moving outside, the ‘couple’ were chauffeured to the local Star of the Sea church for the ‘ceremony’ by vintage car.

Following the ‘ceremony’, it was on to the cliffs for some environmental portraiture where a local German Shepherd puppy got in on the action! Then it was back to the Bayview for the ‘reception’, formal ‘family’ photographs and the cutting of the (cardboard) cake. Brian expertly demonstrated his style to the attendees who all got ample opportunity to exercise and hone their skills.

Thanks to Brian and to all concerned for a really fantastic day. Check back soon to review some of the images taken during the workshop but in the meantime enjoy some of the behind-the-scenes photos from the day in the slideshow below. All photos by Tom Tattan.

[slideshow_deploy id=’688′]


Useful Links:
Brian Terry:        www.brianterryphoto.com
Bride:                  Kirby Fleming
Groom:                Aaron O’Driscoll
Hair Stylist:         Amy Barry
Make Up Artist:  Denise Feeney
Vintage Car:       Wedding Vintage Car Hire
Venue:                The Bayview Hotel, Ballycotton, Co. Cork
Bride’s Gown:    Diamond Bridal, Maylor St, Cork
Groom’s Suit:     Morleys Suit Hire, Cork
Rings:                  Barnes Jewellers fermoy
Flowers:              Every Blooming Thing, Fermoy
Cake:                   Aunty Dees Cakes

 

Rotation180° – a Bag with a Difference

I have long been a fan of thinkTank products. The design, attention to detail and workmanship is second to none in my opinion and they are obviously designed by photographers for photographers.

mindshift-animated-rotating-pack400In recent times thinkTank have started a new company called Mindshift Gear and their first product, the Rotation180°, will shortly be on sale.

Designed to be a hiking/photography bag, it’s unique selling point is a section of the backpack that rotates around to the front so that gear can be accessed without taking the bag off. The rest of the bag can be used to carry more photography gear with a padded insert or, without the insert, it can be used as a regular backpack. The bag comes in two iterations: the basic Rotation180°Professional and the Rotation180° Professional Deluxe which includes all the optional extras.

Have a look at the video below:

Ron Martinsen has already posted some video reviews of the bag on his blog.

www.thinktankphoto.com

www. mindshiftgear.com

How I took that shot – by Gráinne Davies

I was trying to do something different for a still life project I was doing and decided to photograph some oil droplets. You get very resourceful with still life photography and just have to look around the house for props, lighting and let your imagination run free.

Image-No.-2

The set up I used was very simple……..

  • Put some water into a glass bowl then add some oil (olive oil/vegetable oil) into the water
  • Add a few drops of washing up liquid to separate the oil droplets.
  • I used a small home studio kit set up on a table in front of a north facing window. If you don’t have a studio kit then just use white/black card (depending on the set up you want).
  • Lift the bowl up a bit (say 10 inches) and set it up onto something so that the bowl is risen up from the surface beneath.
  • Place coloured paper/card/wrapping paper etc on the base below the bowl so this will act as the background but you won’t want this in focus in your shot.
  • Lighting the scene – I used some LED bicycle lights to light the oil from beneath.
  • Set your camera up on tripod and point the camera downwards so that it is pointing directly down towards the oil.
  • Use manual control and manually focus on the area you want as the focal point.
  • Make sure not to use a small aperture of say F22 as you don’t want the background paper in focus, it’s just there to add a background colour.

Image-No.-2-beforePhotoshop changes – This is the original image which I shot in RAW. I used Auto White Balance but later changed it to tungsten in Photoshop as I preferred the blue colouration in the image. I just tidied the image up with some erasing and cloning to remove dust spots and the Pyrex lettering at the end of the bowl. I adjusted the sharpness (unsharp mask) and that’s it.

Check out Google images and Youtube for more tips and help as there is loads of information there and above all HAVE FUN!!!

Technical Details:
Canon 50D camera
Canon 60mm macro lens
F6.3, 1/13 seconds, ISO 250.