I have introduced myself, so I thought it only fair this week to introduce my Family Tree Photography side kick; my camera! I think if you come to the studio for a session, it is nice to know about the equipment I am using and explain a little bit about what everything is.
When I started this business picking a camera was something that was really important to me, it is my tool to capture the most amazing newborn and family images. It had to be something that I was comfortable with and be happy to use. I have always been familiar with and used Canon cameras and I think it is a bit like driving a car, you like what you like and you feel happy knowing where all the buttons are! The previous camera that I had and did all of my practicing on was a Canon 650d, which I loved and found so easy to use.
The camera I went for is the Canon EOS R6, it launched mid 2020 and the specs and it's capabilities looked amazing - I knew it was the one for me! It was quite hard to get hold of, it was a challenge to find anywhere that had stock, but I finally managed to get my hands on one in December 2020.
My absolute favourite thing about this camera is the eye detection focus and tracking - which is so amazing when you are taking pictures of kids and they are running and jumping all over the place. So the camera can automatically detect eyes - it even has a setting to detect animals and birds. Once locked onto the eye it will track the eye as it moves around the screen so it doesn't lose focus on the subject - how cool is that!
I have also been so impressed at how well it performs in low light, we went to a Christmas Light trail at Warwick Castle and I had so much fun testing out the camera in the dark, the amount of detail it was still able to pick up was incredible. This picture (again of my willing model James!) was taken at night in the dark, but the detail on the picture is so amazing.
What I will say is whilst my camera is such an amazing piece of kit, I see a lot of photographers get feedback from customers who say "Wow, your camera is amazing - it takes amazing photos!" The camera is there as a tool and there is so much more that you have to learn as a photographer to be able to use a camera well; lighting, angles, posing, composition.
As well as the camera body, I use different lenses depending on what type of photography I am doing. Lenses have different focal lengths, so what might be appropriate for one type of session, may not work in another. I currently mainly work with two lenses, a 50mm and a 35mm. The focal length is essentially how much of a scene the camera will be able to capture. Lenses with a lower focal length will be able to capture a wider angle and larger focal lengths will capture less and have a much narrower view. I tend to use a 35mm for capturing newborns, as it means I can stand closer to the baby and still get in shot everything I want to. If I try to use my 50mm for newborns, I tend to find I am having to stand too far away and if I try to do an overhead shot of baby in a prop, I am too short to stand tall enough to get everything in the frame - I have to use a stool! My 50mm lens (often called a nifty fifty!) is great because it is great in most other sessions for me and great for family photography. It has the most similar field of view to the eye, which just makes it so versatile. If we go completely the other way the largest mm lens on the market at the moment is the Canon EF 800mm, these lenses are incredible for wildlife photography as you can be so far away from the object but still get the most beautiful, detailed, zoomed in shots.
So that will do for today, but I just wanted to share with you what I use and how it all works - feel free to ask me any questions. Hopefully see you in the studio soon!
Simona xx
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