PAUL GROOM’S TOP 10 TIPS

2023-12-21 -

1 TIMING IS EVERYTHING

We arrived on location an hour before sunset, to get in position, ready to capture the magic blue hour, when there are amazing blue colours in the sky; the sky quickly turns much darker as night falls.

2 BAD VIBRATIONS

Watch out for vibrations due to passing road traffic, or lots of pedestrians if you’re on a footbridge, and make sure the tripod is on solid ground with rubber feet.

3 HANDS-FREE SHOTS

If you don’t have a remote shutter release cable, use the 2 sec self-timer drive mode on your camera so that you don’t jog the camera and cause blur as you press the button.

4 DEPTH OF FIELD

Consider how much of the picture you want to be in focus, and therefore what aperture to select. If you want everything sharp, use an aperture such as f/8 or f/11, and focus on something in the middle distance for optimum sharpness from front to back.

5 STAY FOCUSED

In Live View, zoom in as close as possible to check focus. You may have to change the AF points to achieve this – swap AF mode to Expand AF Area around the AF point, but not Eye or Face Tracking AF.

6 WHICH LENS TO USE?

Try the obvious lens choice, such as a wide-angle 16-35mm (full-frame) or standard 24-105mm, but then challenge yourself to be creative – what different moods can you capture?

7 CHECK YOUR SHOTS

Regularly check the sharpness of your photos to make sure the shutter speed, ISO and aperture are all working together as planned. If you’re using a zoom lens, simply changing the distance it is zoomed to can throw off your focus.

8 STRAIGHT TALKING

When taking city photos, it’s important that buildings are straight and level, so have a look at the spirit level on your tripod and/or camera screen, and adjust your tripod head and legs as necessary.

9 ROAD SAFETY

Never get too close to the road or the edge of the pavement – it’s easy to lose yourself in your creativity and forget about safety.

10 BULB MODE

Use the Bulb setting for exposures over 30 seconds – you can then capture more densely packed traffic light trails. You’ll need a remote release to start and stop the exposure. You could also use a 3-stop ND filter, and extend exposures from 30 seconds to four minutes.