Photo Plus - UK (2020-04)

EOS S.O.S

Our technical guru is here to help. No Canon conundrum is too

big or small. Get in touch today at [email protected]

CANONSCHOOL

88 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com

BRIAN WORLEY

CANON PRO

Brian is a freelance photographer

and photo tutor, based in

Oxfordshire. He has unrivalled

EOS DSLR knowledge, after

working for Canon for over

1 5 years, and is on hand to

answer all your EOS and

photographic queries

Is there a disadvantage to using an LED

light instead of a Speedlite for portraits?

Nick Hadley, Syresham

BRIAN SAYS... LED lights are

good and often used for video,

so why not portraits? LEDs

give out less light than a

Speedlite, so this means you

need to raise the ISO and

maybe slow the shutter for a

correct exposure. The benefit

of always on LED is that it ’s

easy to see how the light looks

on your subject. It’s when you

want to use larger softboxes

that an LEDs lack of power

becomes evident. Also, LEDs

can result in slightly blurred

shots if subjects move. The

Speedlite delivers its burst of

light in fractions of seconds,

so packs more power and

freezes subject’s movements.

BRIAN SAYS... I’ve often

found that larger safari st yle

parks present cleaner

backgrounds and better

photographic opportunities.

If you do have to shoot

through wire, you need to get

your lens as close to the wire

as possible, and the animal as

far from the wire as you can.

Then use as wide a aperture

as your lens blurs out the

close wire mesh. If you

have a lens hood it can

reduce the chance of

scratching the front

element on your lens.

Shooting through

glass can be challenging,

as you need to avoid

reflections and hope that the

glass is clean. Pressing a lens

hood against the glass can

work to avoid reflections from

your side, and help to keep

the camera perpendicular to

the glass, avoiding distortion.

A polarizing filter will also be

good for reducing reflections.

How do you get good photos in a zoo,

when there’s glass or wire mesh?

Ollie Jordan, Wilmslow

When shooting through thick glass, it’s essential to reduce the

reflections on the glass by shooting straight through it, not at an angle

Less powerful LED lights need to be positioned very close to the

subject, however, pictures may end up less sharp than with flash

Holding the lens hood against

the wire mesh and opening

the aperture fully can almost

eliminate the wires