I have an Olympus OM10 I found in a charity shop about 10 years ago for £10 and never used. Ive decided I finally want to use it and knew it needed batteries. Turns out it only had one?! The viewfinder was black too which I thought was a little weird. Taking the lens off, it was obvious the aperture blades wasn't the problem. I could also wind the shutter and fire it too. 

I ordered 2 new A76 LR44 batteries and threw them in and hoped it may fix my issue, but it didn't. A little searching lead me to this: when the batteries die, the mirror locks up. The battery replacement didn't fix my issue isntantly. I pulled the lens off and my mirror was stuck up in the lock up position. I simply used my finger to pull it down and it fixed the problem. 

I had already fixed the problem but using my thumb to hold the mirror up to show what I was seeing

Mirror down and camera functioning perfectly

Lens sharpness: Let’s be real—lens sharpness barely matters for most photography. There’s even a formula showing how little detail the human eye can actually resolve. You could print a billboard where each pixel is an inch wide, and no one would notice. Only photographers care about sharpness. If someone not in the field comments on it, chances are the photo’s missing something more important—like story.

The funny thing is, chasing perfect lenses has kind of sucked the soul out of photography. They’ve become these clinical tools—like scalpels. Precise, yes. But lifeless. Personally, I’ll take a lens with character over one that can slice atoms any day. (And hint: I’ve got a new purchase coming that dives deep into that idea.)

The rules: You know that phrase, “learn the rules so you can break them”? Yeah, I think it’s rubbish. Rules are great if you want neat, predictable photos—but they’re also incredibly restrictive. I used to straighten every horizon, compose every image perfectly, and avoid trying new things because “the rules” said not to. Sure, they made things look polished, but they also made everything safe. And honestly? Safe is boring.I’d rather trust my gut and shoot what feels right. So, yeah… the rules can get f**ked.

Lighting: Lighting is where I get messy—in the best way. I experiment constantly, and sometimes I absolutely overthink it. But that chaos? It keeps things interesting. That said, I probably could’ve saved myself a ton of time if I’d just mastered one reliable setup first. So if you’re new, start simple. Learn your gear, nail one lighting setup, then build from there. The deep end looks fun… but you can drown in it fast.

YouTube advice: YouTube taught me almost everything I know. But let’s be honest—big creators are making money off views and sponsorships, so “educational” content often doubles as marketing. Gear reviews perform well, and guess what? That means you’ll buy gear. I’ve fallen down that rabbit hole more than once.
My suggestion? Find one or two creators whose style actually aligns with yours and stick with them. Don’t hop between fifty different channels. Gear’s great, but it’s maybe 10% of the game. A light is a light, a camera’s a camera. It’s what you do with them that matters.

Social media: Ah, Instagram. It feels productive, right? You post your best shots, get those likes, and feel that little dopamine hit. But for the most part, it’s a huge energy drain. Maybe not a complete waste of time, but it should definitely be lower on the priority list.
If all you want is the ego boost, go for it! But honestly, most people don’t care. The best thing you can post is behind the scenes—show yourself working. That’s what gets people interested. It also makes you look busy, which tells others you’re in demand. And weirdly enough… people want the busy people. If someone hasn’t worked in ages, it kind of signals the opposite, right?

Niching down: Having a niche is great for direction, but it can easily box you in. I like to think my niche is “experimental portraits.” It’s broad enough to let me play with lighting, editing, and style while still feeling cohesive. I occasionally shoot live bands or even the odd wedding, but if it doesn’t fit my aesthetic, I usually don’t post it.
Still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shoot other things. If something inspires you—shoot it. Just keep it separate from your main body of work. For example, I love shooting road signs and trees. But you won’t catch those on this website anytime soon. Don’t let the idea of a niche trap you. Creativity thrives when you let yourself explore.

This new laser is hefty. It weighs around 2 kg, has a built‑in battery, and can run battery or mains. The cheap one is mains only, weighs basically nothing, and is tiny in comparison. If I were rigging these on a truss, a simple C‑clamp would be perfect: clamp, hang, done. But I’ll be travelling with this and most studios don’t have truss, so I needed another solution. I wanted to mount it on a C‑stand (which most studios do have), so I can move it easily instead of being locked to a fixed overhead bar. I also wanted the yoke underneath the laser rather than having to mount it from below, just to avoid that whole headache.

There are loads of traditional mounting options for lights and lasers—standard theatre and DJ hardware would absolutely work—but that wasn’t the setup I wanted. I nearly bought a regular C‑clamp, then an Amazon search threw up a speaker mount. A bit more scrolling and I found something close to perfect. The catch: the mount has a 35 mm opening for DJ speaker poles. Gorilla stands are around £45, which isn’t awful, but I wanted to keep using C‑stands and boom arms with smaller posts.

The solution was to pair the speaker mount with an old Manfrotto umbrella adapter. It nearly worked out of the box. I removed the original locking knob and swapped it for the one from the speaker mount, which let me screw into the umbrella adapter for extra bite. It was solid, but there was still a tiny bit of play I wanted to remove, and I still needed to attach the laser yoke to the speaker plate.

A quick run to the local hardware store sorted the rest. I grabbed M8 x 30 mm bolts and nuts, M8 washers, some larger M10 washers, and a handful of M6 washers to shim the gap between the mount and the umbrella adapter if needed. In the end, only a single M6 washer would fit, but it wedged in perfectly. When tightened, you can see the metal on the mount has ovalled slightly at the weakest point, but it’s tight and should be totally fine in use. Pairing the yoke with the plate was simple: large M10 washer against the plate on both sides, with the smaller M8 washers against the M8 bolts. I’ve thrown a small safety cable on the back of the laser and through the plate for now, but I’ll be upgrading to a longer, thicker one for peace of mind.

Mounting this kind of kit can be a pain. I could have just sat the laser on flat surfaces and avoided all this, but that would kill the flexibility. This setup gives me the freedom to place it exactly where I want, with plenty of manoeuvrability. With the weight, I probably wouldn’t hang it sideways off a boom arm long‑term, but it could likely handle it. The whole mounting solution cost around £20 in parts; if you had to buy the umbrella adapter as well, the total would be roughly £35–£40. For the flexibility it gives, that feels well worth it—even if it no longer fits in the original bag unless I remove the mount each time.

Laser mounting

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I used to be a prime‑only shooter on my Fuji system, with the Viltrox 27mm 1.2 Pro and 75mm 1.2 Pro being so good they almost kept me in that lane and on Fujifilm forever. I could usually “zoom with my feet”, but I was still missing shots and started to really feel the lack of flexibility compared to a good zoom. I rented the Fuji 16 - 55mm 2.8 for a weekend, and I wasn't too impressed! 

Buying Decision

When I moved back to Nikon, I researched options and locked onto the 24–120mm f4 as a do‑it‑all lens, debating it against the 24–70mm f4. At around £850 used, it seemed like the perfect balance of reach, size, and price, until a video about the Tamron 35–150mm f2–2.8 popped up and completely hijacked my plans.
That crazy zoom range and fast aperture instantly grabbed my attention, especially for portraits where 24mm isn’t critical and I’m not hiking with the lens anyway. I went hunting for used copies, but stock was thin everywhere, and then I found a brand‑new one on eBay from Hong Kong for under £1200 when it’s usually about £1800.
It was Christmas Day, there was only one available, and I decided to gamble, trusting buyer protection and hoping it wasn’t too good to be true. Ten days later it turned up at my door, completely brand new, in one piece, and the gamble paid off. (Grey market items don't come with warranty so keep this in mind if you do the same). 

Build & Handling

This lens is a bit of a monster: not small, heavy, and roughly comparable in presence to many 70–200mm f2.8 lenses. Tamron chose not to include a tripod collar, which I strongly disagree with, because the weight feels like it stresses the mount, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable putting it on a tripod like that.
I bought a third‑party collar as insurance, but it is fiddly to position; too far forward and it interferes with the focus ring, with only a millimetre or two of tolerance. The screw knob holds it well enough but not in a way I’d trust to swing the camera, and because it clamps the barrel, I’m wary of over‑tightening and cracking something.
The front filter thread is 82mm, which is huge and slightly annoying since all my older filters are 77mm, but it pushed me to rebuy as magnetic filters, which might actually make me use them more. One thing I really hate is the extending barrel: it gets noticeably longer as I zoom, feels like it creates suction, and I fully expect dust to find its way inside eventually.

Tamron lens vs 50mm 1.4 and D800e with Sigma 105mm macro

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Controls & Ergonomics

In the hand, the lens feels okay: lots of plastic to save weight, nothing especially premium, but nothing awful either. The zoom ring has a firm, positive feel that I actually like; no loose, sloppy movement here.
Up front is a wide focus‑by‑wire ring that I dislike because I keep catching it and nudging focus, which is easy to do if you’re me. Thankfully the lens has a USB port and, more importantly, my Z6II custom settings let me disable the focus ring, which I consider a big bonus.
There are three programmable buttons around the barrel that can be assigned to various functions, and I initially thought about using one to trigger crop mode for extra reach at concerts. It turns out that is not something the Z6II can do and seems more like a Z8/Z9 feature, so for now those buttons remain largely unused and, over time, I’ve grown to actively dislike them.
There is also a lock switch to keep the lens at 35mm, but it feels pointless because there is no zoom creep and the zoom action isn’t overly loose. The lens hood, on the other hand, has a locking button which I think is a cool and practical touch.

Autofocus Performance

Autofocus performance is generally decent: it is silent, accurate, and I rarely find myself waiting on the lens or missing shots because of AF. Even in low light on the Z6II it holds up surprisingly well, and I imagine it would be even better on a Z8 or Z9.
Where it can stumble a little is when I push it to extremes, like shooting at 150mm at distance, then suddenly zooming to 35mm and moving in very close to a subject. With that much glass to shift, focus can slow slightly, but that behaviour feels understandable given the physical design.
One thing I really wish it had is parfocal behaviour: focus that stays locked as I zoom. With this lens, if I zoom, I have to refocus; it does not keep my subject sharp throughout the zoom range.

Image Quality

Image quality is where this lens quietly shines: it is sharp and very clean, giving a reliable, somewhat clinical look. Side by side with my 50mm 1.4, the 35–150mm looks more clinical and less “characterful”, with no distinct personality beyond being consistently dependable.
There is a subtle quirk at 35mm wide open where the image takes on a gentle Pro Mist‑like glow, likely from light bouncing around all those elements. I actually like this effect; it adds a little atmospheric softness without needing a dedicated diffusion filter.
On the downside, the lens really does not handle flare well: backlit situations can produce strong, overpowering flare that is not always creatively useful. While flare can sometimes be harnessed, with this lens it often crosses the line into being more of a problem than a tool.

Here is an example of the flare. As you can see it really washes out colour, skin tones, and creates a huge and ugly flare that wuill be impossible to remove. Shooting into the sun makes autofocus really struggle too

Real‑World Use

In the studio, the lens has been fantastic, delivering the flexibility I was chasing with a bright aperture that makes it an ideal “leave it on the camera” option. Realistically, it ends up being the lens mounted for roughly 90–95% of everything I shoot.
During an environmental portrait session, 35mm proved a bit too tight, so I did swap to my 24–70mm f4 for those few wider frames. That experience nudged me toward the idea that this lens needs pairing with a wide or ultra‑wide fast lens to fully cover my shooting needs.
I’ve considered something like the Tamron 15–30mm 2.8 G2 on F‑mount with an FTZ adapter, but I’ve heard mixed things about F‑mount Tamron lenses adapting to Z bodies. For now, that remains an open question and something I feel I should probably test by renting first.
For gigs and concerts, the extra reach has been invaluable, making life considerably easier than carrying a separate 70–200mm. In those scenarios, having this single lens cover what would normally be 24–70mm plus 70–200mm territory is a huge practical win for me.

One‑Year Update & Regrets

After nearly a year of use, I would describe this lens as clinical and a great all‑purpose workhorse with no strong identity or soul. It still lives on my camera for about 90% of my shooting, and I only swap it out when I need something wider or a more “creative” rendering.
Over time, the buttons around the lens have become something I actively dislike, and the flare performance in backlit situations is downright terrible. I also still would not personally trust the lens on a tripod, even though it is probably technically fine; the idea of that weight hanging off the mount just does not sit well with me.
Most of my photography sits between 35–75mm, so looking back, I suspect a 24–70mm 2.8 would have been the more sensible choice for my usual studio and location portrait work. However, for gigs and events, the extra reach of the 35–150mm has made that side of things much easier than managing a separate 70–200mm.

Conclusion / Who It’s For

My main takeaway is that the Tamron 35–150mm f2–2.8 was a fantastic purchase and an incredible tool for fashion, events, weddings, and portraits. The zoom range, combined with the fast aperture and the option of crop mode, effectively replaces both a 24–70mm 2.8 and a 70–200mm 2.8 in one body, as long as I solve the ultra‑wide end with another lens.
If you can live with the weight, the extending barrel, the flare, and the more clinical rendering, this lens is almost a no‑brainer as a do‑it‑all event and portrait zoom. For my personal shooting style, I would probably choose a 24–70mm 2.8 if I were starting again, but in reality this Tamron will stay on my camera until it eventually dies.

Tamron samples

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When my friend Cat approached me with essentially a 00's inspired shoot I absolutely jumped on the idea. Cat was actually born until about 2006 so she missed out on all of it and didn't get to experience it first-hand. I'm so disappointed for her. But this gave me a chance to be intentionally loose with the technique side of things. As a technical photographer and someone who likes to edit quite cleanly too, this was going to be a little bit of effort to give into. But it's shoot scope and personal growth!

Our inspo was pretty basic, a few wide-angle lens shots, a few stylised shots, and a few outfit shots. Nothing too heavy. Besides, I was planning on using my memory of the naughties and the things that stood out to me as concepts.

Cat wanted to use silver emergency blankets as a backdrop. These are flimsy, but the studio had a couple of V flats I pinned them to. I placed them behind Cat in a V shape to create a silver faux wall to add a little depth and subtle reflection.

Remembering how everything had a cyber silver and blue feel back then I knew I'd lean into the blues for the shoot. I grabbed a subtle blue gel and placed on a strobe shot into a white 90cm umbrella. I didn't want a big soft light. I wanted crisp and punchy. I could have gone with a silver umbrella but this was just a fill. I also intentionally lazily placed the gel on the light, allowing white light to spill and wash out the gel too.

My key light was a bare AD300 with the reflector removed for a hard and crisp main light. I intentionally set this to a higher power than I would usually to overexpose the shot.

Here's a lighting diagram for the shots. I ended up dropping my shutter speed to around 1/20th or 1/10th for more ambient light and subtle blurring

As lighting and shooting go, this was really simple. The concept was king and I feel like we got some 00's vibes going on with these. I crudely played with Photoshop for some shots for a little extra zest. Back then, if we could bevel, emboss, drop shadow, and inner glow something, you can guarantee we would be doing just that. The Photoshop job on those shots felt awkward to do and to leave looking bad but that was the point. Bad Photoshop was everywhere back then.

I can imagine a tonne of people won't like them but I don't even care. It was refreshing to actively get shots that weren't technically perfect and just focus on the fun of shooting. I see many other big photographers doing soft shots, blurs etc and they make the art look so effortless. The art of photography is a major goal for me this year. Focus less on technical aspects and connect more with art. This was a really fun experiment in just that!

Cat 00's

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Getting the model or crew into the whole vibe of a shoot is a totally different story. The energy on set can be a little effort to create or even maintain at times. Have you ever shot in silence in a studio? It can feel super awkward really fast. 

We all know that music can make or break a shoot. Using your phone to stream music can work in a pinch but those tinny little speakers just make a little noise. We need to FEEL the bass and richness of the music. And that usually comes in the form of an external speaker. Alexa can be decent, but the best compromise I’ve found in quality, volume, portability and price is a Bose Soundlink Flex. Super easy to use, sounds incredible with really good bass and great overall sound quality, all for around £120 new!

Every model I’ve used mine on shoots has been shocked with how good the sound that comes out of this speaker is and it really helps set a mood and bring a fun, upbeat vibe to set. 

A portable speaker is one of those must-have photography items (in my opinion) that has nothing to do directly with photography, but makes a HUGE difference in the final shots! Especially if it's great quality. This Bose speaker is incredible, so portable and rechargeable. 

If there was one item that wasn't directly a camera or lighting that I'd say is required on my shoots, it's this!

Bose soundlink flex speaker

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3rd Party camera batteries always feel like such a great deal. An official branded battery is around £60. Getting 3 batteries for £20 just feels like a massive saving and a much better investment.

But it rarely is!

In a pinch they can sometimes help us out but the reality is the build quailty is nearly always inferior. They drop charge really fast and, if you're unfortuneate like me, swell INSIDE your camera!

I could have been smart and just not leave my batteries in my cameras, but that's not me. I'm lazy and just leave them in. I got 2 packs of 3 batteries from eBay for my XT2 as these fit in my XT1 and XH1 too. Genuine batteries would have been over £200. I paid like £30. DON'T do this!

The battery in my XH1 was dead and I was trying to change it. No matter what I did I couldn't get it out! I was shaking the camera, trying to grip the battery, and nothing was working!

This is how I removed it:

I found an old glue stick, the kind you use in a glue gun. I used a lighter it gently melt the tip (I didn't want the glue to run down the battery and into the camera).

I pressed the end onto the battery and gently pressed for about a minute or two to allow it to cool.

Then, I pressed the battery release tab and gently teased the battery out of the camera. The glue stick was easy to remove from the battery.

Nice and simple to be honest. I was impressed with how easy it work.

However, this experience made me check the others and they were all swollen. I will not be buying third party batteries again unless I'm desperate and that's all the camera shop has and I NEED them there and then. Lesson learned!

Below is a link to a YouTube short where you can see me removing said battery

Remove swollen battery Youtube short

A still of the gluestick on the battery

Over the years I’ve bought and sold a tonne of different photography items (I’ve definitely got G.A.S). I will get buyer's remorse on bigger purchases, but on nearly everything I sell, I’ll have seller's remorse. I HATE selling things with a passion. This is actually a slight lie as I think about it. However, I am, in reality, a bit of a hoarder. Case in point; I’ve recently switched back from Fujifilm to Nikon full-frame (z6iis). To logically make the switch I had to sell my Fuji gear to make the purchases. But I found a couple of cameras, and lenses, and already bought them before my Fujifilm equipment sold. So I had already spent the money, but did I REALLY need to sell the Fujifilm gear to fund it now..? Couldn’t I just keep ALL of it?! I wanted to! Especially my Viltrox 75mm and 27 mm 1.2 lenses! I had a little internal struggle going on.

 I had an XT1, XT2, XH1 and my XH2 to sell, plus about 7 lenses. With boxes these took up a lot of space! I only really used my XH2 and 2 lenses too. Which means 80% of my equipment was sitting unused and collecting dust. My XT1 for example I hadn’t used in about 3 years.. There was absolutely no reason to keep it other than hoarding and liking little picture boxes around. I finally listed them all on eBay and nearly everything has sold. Every single item I packaged up gave me a little sorrow to see go. There were a few times I considered pulling items to keep, but for what purpose?!

Switching back to Nikon full-frame was a great and logical choice for me on so many fronts but there’s still that little niggle. The one that whispers “what if”. “What if you just kept one to use as an everyday carry..” Guess what? That’s how I started out on my Fujifilm journey in the first place. And I didn’t ever take anything as an everyday carry as my phone was just easier and more convenient. 

With second-hand prices being so low, it could have been easy to justify keeping a couple of things as I know in about 5 or 10 years I’ll probably regret selling. Especially as I didn’t get a whole load for things like the XT1 and XT2. I sold my D700 a number of years back for a low price as they’re not worth much and would have loved it again now. But, if I still had it I wouldn’t use it. It would be the same with the XT1 and XT2 also. I just know myself and how my brain works at times. 

Having said that, I can’t imagine much of a thought when I finally sell my z6iis. I don’t have any real deep connection with them. They feel mechanical and soulless. They’re great but clinical. They get the job done but with no personality. 

My D800e on the other hand is a massive mirror box with a loud clunky shutter and feels like a brick that's a little too big for my small hands. It has worse ISO and autofocus than my z6iis, I only have one lens for it and it’s a lot more effort to shoot. But it is beautiful. In comparison, it feels like a relic. Literally dug up from the Stone Age. But it has so much soul and makes me feel so much more engaged. Like I’m making photos. My z6iis are making photography so simple, which of course is great, but I’m feeling less like I’m using a camera with them. I don’t know if that even makes sense but it does to me. I can imagine in about 10 years people will be jumping back to DSLRs for the whole experience of shooting, just the way people are with film at the moment.

That was a nice little tangent. 

The thing that really spurred me into thinking about all of this is my most recent re-purchase. About 6 years ago I picked up a mint condition Sekonic L-358 light meter for about £120 and I absolutely loved it. I didn’t really need it too much and nor did I use it a whole lot. I felt it slowed me down and so it sat unused for a while. I ended up putting it on eBay and it sold for around £90. Anything under £100 for a Sekonic light meter in working order is basically a steal. I was really sad to see it go and questioned why I even sold it for years after. Especially at £90. Every now and then the seller's remorse had me looking on eBay and local camera shops for another. I was reluctant to pay more than £120 so I’ve been without for so long. Until now! One popped up at a decent price and I grabbed it! I had to throw a new battery in but that’s no issue. I have my Sekonic back!

Was it a waste of money? Maybe. But I wanted it. Will it get used? I’ll make a point to start using it so it does. But no guarantees. I cannot see myself selling this one though. Unless I ever upgrade to a better version. 

My seller's remorse finally got me buying back an item I had sold previously and regretted for years. Never will I sell it again!

My dearly beloved Sekonic L-358

A few months ago I wanted to try a little project that required a macro lens. I didn’t want to pay the price for the Fuji 80mm macro, so I found a used Laowa 65mm 2.8 for a reasonable £350. Great little lens, super sharp, and allows 2:1 ratio meaning the subject can be twice as big on the sensor (in short you can get closer and a bigger image of the subject). The focus distance is insanely close and it’s full metal and generally a beautifully built lens. However, it’s manual focus only. I knew this going in and I didn't think this was going to be much of a problem. 

Very quickly into my project, I found out that it was a very big problem indeed. For somebody else, I can imagine it’s more than ok. But for me, I couldn’t handle it. Focus peaking on the Fuji is really good, but the depth of field at such close distances is minute and focus peaking wasn’t picking anything up. I was missing shots because the subject was moving (the subject was children too, which adds another layer to it all) and I wasn’t fast enough to be accurate too. I managed to muddle through but in that moment I knew I had made a mistake with the Laowa.

Still not wanting to spend the money on the 80mm macro Fuji lens, I started exploring options.. I wanted a longer length than 65mm to give me a little more working distance and I knew that I wanted to eventually make a rig out of the equipment so I wasn’t forever tearing down and setting up. My Fuji XH2 is great and that 40mp sensor is perfect for this kind of thing. However, for the price of a decent used Fuji 80mm macro lens (around £650), I found that I could get a really good used Sigma 105mm 2.8 macro (Nikon fit) for £230. Then, I could also buy a very good condition Nikon D800e for £410. For the price of the Fuji macro lens, I could (and did), get a whole dedicated camera setup for this project that will likely become a permanent fixture. 

Yes, the D800e came out in 2012, but that doesn’t mean the image quality has gotten worse. Cameras have gotten better for sure, but for my needs I needed a decent resolution camera and a macro lens that autofocuses. It’s crazy to think that I managed to pick up the whole kit from MPB for less than the price of the Fuji lens. I know I could have found a beaten up version cheaper that has mushrooms growing inside, but that’s besides the point. 

I’m going to do some image test results against my Fuji XH2 and the D800e soon and see if there is much of a difference, and if the 10 years gone have made much of a difference. UPDATE: I didn’t do many tests at all as I ended up selling the XH2 pretty quickly so my test shots and data are minimal. Sorry!

I like to think I’m not too bothered by gear and for the most part, it’s true. But I get in my head a lot. I had a Nikon z6ii pop up for a really good price on eBay, so I may have purchased that too. I’d been debating on switching back to full frame for a while and couldn’t justify a Nikon z8 or even z7ii, but this z6ii will be a perfect middle ground and will either have me selling the Fuji system for a switch or try the z6ii and if I don’t like it, sell the z6ii and stick with what I’ve got. I’ll put down my reasonings in another post so this doesn’t drag on too much, but let’s just say that I’ve been thinking a lot!

Quick follow up

It has been both a success and a couple of small failures. It's made gelling the bulb easier, but I've had one get stick to the bulb casing and needing to cut cut off. I ran an AD200 at half, then full power for about 50 shots and the gel just decided it wanted to very tightly hug the bulb. So basically don't run at high powers. Which is obvious, but guess who ignored this..

Crudley executed but they do the job

Essential Photo is a place that sells a tonne of Godox equipment here in the UK and I’ve bought a lot from them in the past few years so I’m always checking the website. I’ve seen the Godox CB7 large photography bag  pop up a few times at a few different prices, however, for black friday it was down to around £70. It made the purchase a total no brainer. I also remembered I had a discount code of points saved up too which totalled £40. So I managed to grab this bag for a staggering £36 including postage!

The box was a little larger than I had expected. As it turns out, so was the bag! Godox lists the dimensions as 55x37x30cm. It makes my K&F bag look small! First impressions (which this whole post is first impressions) are that the bag feels sturdy and it’s pretty rigid. The wheels roll really nicely, the materials feel hard wearing and will take some abuse. The main zip on the front is thick and meaty, with the ability to padlock the zips together for some safety. My version has a section of the zipper being a little sticky, which I imagine will loosen once I’ve used it abit more. I dislike the zip being on the front of the bag though as I’m used to opening at the rear and feel this is safer walking around. There’s a huge however to this point though. While the Godox CB17 CAN be used as a backpack, the size and bulk of it will be noticeable. I have already loaded equipment into it and it’s a weighty boy. I’ve consolidated two camera bags into 1.

Which brings me to my next point. On paper, the size difference between the Godox CB17 and other backpacks seems small, the size difference in practice is huge. In my Godox CB17 I have a Fuji XH1, Fuji XH2, Fuji 18-55 2.8-4, Viltrox 13mm 1.4, 27mm 1.2 pro, 75mm 1.2 pro, Lowa 65mm macro, 2 Godox AD200s, 1 Godox AD300, a Godox speedlight, 2 Godox x pro triggers, and an assortment of other gar such as spare batteries, filters, etc. Basically, I can fit a tonne into this bag. I think I’m forever loading bags to the max. Point being that I can now take one camera bag along when I used to take a bag for camera and lenses, and a seperate one for lights. Like I mentioned previously, this bag now weighs enough for me to now want to backpack it for too long at all. I’m aware this is a self inflicted problem though. Godox says this CB17 bag should be suitable for most carry on airline luggage and should fit into overhead storage compartments

Material wise, Godox states this bag is made from thick nylon and is waterproof. In one of the front pockets there is also a rain cover provided too which I thought was a cool little addition. My K&F bag is also waterproof but the amount of times I've covered it in a clear bin liner, just to make sure, is getting silly. I never fully trust a weather proof claim. Even if it’s correct that claim would rely on me closing every zip fully and I don’t trust myself doing that!

Internally, I dislike the catch strap. It stops the top opening fully so I unconnected it. I want my top to flap open. It’s non removable though, so I may just just take these off. It’s a little gripe for me but I’m aware many others will probably enjoy it. The padding feels like padding. It’s soft felt lined and yeah, there’s a decent amount of it, with padded dividers provided too. I never feel like you get enough dividers with bags so would always like more, or even a few various sizes. But again, that’s just me. I could spend more time configuring the inside of the bag better but I’m lazy.

The roller handle pops out of the top and automatically locks into place. Again, not much to say here other than the handle is a nice grip but feels relatively cheap and weight saving. But it’s functional so it’s all good.

Sides of the Godox CB17 have elasticated clasp side mounted straps which creates space to carry upto 5kg in weight allegedly. I may have to test some of this out, but Godox claims these can carry multiple tripods, light stands, or folding softboxes/umbrellas. I can assure you that I wouldn’t be wanting to back pack this with that combo and my gear inside. However, I’ll probably pull some gear out at some point and do some proper testing.

On the face of it, the Godox CB17 seems like a really decent bag for the price. Even at full price it’s around £100, which really isn’t bad for a large, semi rigid roller bag. For me picking it up for £36 is just ludicrous. I already know that I will not be taking this bag on hikes, long walks, anywhere that involves walking too much basically. For me, this is my studio to studio bag, or event photography bag, where I keep my equipment I need, and also my small flash kit just in case they are also required.

Regardless, initial impressions are that this was a great purchase and in around 6 months time I’ll have a better idea on whether I was correct or not. So now we wait..

Very messy organisation skills but it gives an idea of ho much can be squeezed into the Godox CB17

There was a point in time when I wanted a tonne of lenses, both primes and zooms, to cover every possible situation I may shoot. But luckily I didn't act too deeply on this urge.

When I initially bought into the Fujifilm camera system I grabbed myself a 35mm 1.4 and an 18-50mm 2.8 - 4. These two lenses were decent but left me lacking. The 35mm was ridiculously slow at focusing, and the variable aperture in the zoom irritated me. At this point, Fuji was only my playtime camera so I wasn't too bothered. It did mean that I wouldn't use the zoom too often though. And I wanted a slightly longer lens with a wide aperture. But I didn't want to pay for the 56mm 1.2.

After a little searching, I discovered a little brand called Viltrox that had started releasing lenses for Fuji X mount that also had autofocus! The biggest selling point was that it was so ridiculously cheap! I ordered one straight away.

I instantly fell in love. The lens felt great, was a decent size, focused well and had incredible image quality! Viltrox released a 23mm 1.4 for Fujifilm X-mount, which I also ordered instantly. At this point, I basically stopped using my Fuji lenses and sold the 35mm 1.4 off.

The 23mm 1.4 was similar in every way to the 56mm 1.4 but with one huge exception.. This could just be my copy, but my 23mm focuses like trash! When it's in focus the lens is beautiful and sharp. But it's a lens I don't trust in the slightest! This will be a huge factor later on..

I knew there was an 85mm 1.4 floating around and the reviews were very mixed. I would really shoot over 100mm anyways so that wasn't a lens that I was dying for. However, very hypocritically, when I saw the 75mm 1.2 announced, I jumped on the preorder. Clearly, I just wanted the lens.

The Viltrox 75mm 1.2 is so different to the previous lenses. Firstly, it's huge. Tanking over the 23mm and 56mm in size, width, and weight. Autofocus is vastly better and image quality is a big improvement. All for a very low price too! The only issue I had was that it is equivalent to around a 105mm lens focal length. I've dropped my 75mm 1.2 out of my car onto concrete and it only scratched the lens hood!

The damage my 75mm 1.2 sustained

I purchased a Samyang 12mm f2 manual focus lens a while ago but only used it a handful of times. I hated it. However, Viltrox had so many people saying great things about their 13mm 1.4 that I had to try it out. I found a really cheap copy on eBay and considering it isn't part of their pro lineup,, it feels very similar in build quality! Again, I'm unsure if it's my copy (which maybe why it was being sold cheap) but after zooming in to 100% or more, the image starts looking a little weird. Pixel peeping but that's a massive annoyance for me. It has given me a decent super wide lens though if I ever need it! (I may still sell it yet, I'm undecided).

Finally, we come to the Viltrox 27mm 1.2 Pro. I mostly stick to primes. I pretty much used 13mm, 56mm and 75mm focal lengths for everything but my favourite range is around 23mm to 35mm. Remember I stopped trusting my 23mm, this meant that I was lacking a prime lens in that range. I kept looking at the Fuji 23mm 1.4 but that's pretty expensive and on the slower-to-focus side of things (so I've heard). Viltrox came out with another Pro lens, being the 27mm 1.2 Pro and having owned the 75mm 1.2, I knew to what expect. Decent build quality, a bigger and heavier lens than the non-Pro versions, and great autofocus and image quality. That's exactly what I got!

This lens now sits on my camera 80% of the time. I've pretty much turned into a prime lens only, but also Viltrox-only user! I'm renting a Fuji 16-55mm 2.8 in a couple of weeks so I'll be able to put it against the Viltrox lenses and directly compare one of Fujifilms greatest lenses with the Viltrox Pro series! I have a feeling that I may want to get the Fuji 16-55mm 2.8 after using it and comparing..

My Fuji XH2 paired with the Viltrox 27mm 1.2 Pro lens

My Viltrox lens line up. From left to right 75mm 1.2 Pro, 27mm 1.2 Pro, 13mm 1.4, 56mm 1.4, 23mm 1.4

Fast forward to last year, I decided to try some projector portrait photography. I still own that projector now, but I didn't do much research into the numbers.. Needless to say, that very projector was passable, but definitely not an ideal tool. The shots I got from that projector were a little messy and the lack of features made getting mediocre results a lot harder than it needed to be. However, this was a massive learning experience and helped shape things going forward.

For my recent shoot (and projector shoots going forward) I decided to get a decent second-hand Acer projector from eBay. I'll write a little projector guide next month going into what to look for when buying a projector, the most important considerations, and a few other little tips.

For now, this is the projector I settled on: Acer H6510BD DLP. I picked mine up on eBay for £165 with 400 lamp hours life left. This is a really nice and bright projector at 3000 lumens and a 10,000:1 contrast ratio. (I'd have preferred longer lamp life remaining but it is what it is).

I had a few ideas I wanted to try out, so I spent 7 hours over 2 days finding and creating a range of images to use. This part was way more time-consuming than I had anticipated! The range of images I put together included things like florals, silhouettes, sunsets, geometric shapes, minimalistic shapes, and a few more complex images that didn't work in the slightest!

As I was projecting on both the model and the background the most simple images worked the best. More complex images would have been better suited to just background projection only.

The initial setup was simple, I placed the projector just off-centre, above head height and angled it down. I love hard light in general so this was perfect for me! I have a laptop stand plate thing that sits on top of light stands I used for this (I'll find the actual one I use so it makes sense)

Pixapro laptop tray

PiXAPRO  45x40.5cm Quick Set-Up Utility/Laptop Tray with Strap

The first set of shots consisted of basic shapes and the projector as the only light source. ISO sat at around ISO 800, shutter speed 1/125th and f1.8 aperture.

I boomed a Godox SL100 constant light for a little more subject illumination and shadow softening. I used a small beauty dish and grid to restrict the light hitting the background, washing out the projection.

One of the ideas I wanted to try out was mixing gels with the projected image. Of course, I could colour the projected image beforehand but I wanted to experiment. I used one of my Godox AD200s, gelled with orange, and on a really low power, bounced into a white umbrella for the colour fill. On black and white shots this worked perfectly. I decided to try on already coloured images and it made them look muddy! Who'd have guessed this would be the outcome..

I didn't get any behind the scenes as I wasted 35 minutes just trying to get into the studio (don't ask) so time was THIN. (Partially an excuse for my laziness) I have another coming up soon that I'll make sure to get shots of all the setups, connections, etc. I'll need them for writing a "how to do projector portrait photography" guide/post anyways.

Below are a couple of different shots using lines as the projected image. These were black and white images with blue gel fills. The featured image on this post is an orange gel fill with colour grading.

I was definitely a little irritated but for the price, there was bound to be something..

I knew I planned on using this DP1000 iii with my optical snoot and I'd be using the modelling bulb often for it. The standard modelling bulb runs at 150w, so pretty bright, but is also going to generate a decent amount of heat! To counter this I searched eBay for the same type of bulb in LED form and found a 30w version that would screw straight in! I purchased it and 3 days later it arrived!

I immediately screwed it into the DP1000 iii and it worked perfectly! And it was really bright too! I was set. I had a shoot coming up later that week and it would be a perfect chance to try the optical spot out with this new combination!

The bulb worked great in the optical spot and there was no issue! That is until I cranked the power..

The optical spots are designed to work with 600w heads mainly down to the heat dissipation. They get hot really quickly and it's best to shoot at slightly higher ISO and lower aperture to keep the flash power lower. This prevents as much heat from being built up and keeps everyone happy. I chose to ignore this info.

Instead, I ran my Godox DP1000iii at full power. And we shot about 50 frames, perhaps a second apart. I don't know why I imagined it would be fine. But I can assure you it was not. We had shot around 400 shots at vastly lower powers with no problem. But towards the end of these 50, the modelling light stopped working. It just seemed to have turned itself off. Then there was the smell.. A nice burning smell.. The strobe was still firing but there was something wrong. There was no fire or smoke so it wasn't dire.

We took the last few shots of the set and moved on. The optical spot would need time to cool before removing and investigating so it was placed to the side for the next half an hour. When it came time to finish, I removed the optical spot off the front of the strobe and it was still really warm. There was a little friction that never is normally present when removing the spot, and it soon became apparent the LED modelling bulb had melted, like fully melted onto the flash tube! There was residue on the inside of the strobe head and the inside of the optical spot too. Clearly, the flash tube had sprayed LED modelling bulb around!

The scene I was met with after optical spot removal

Inside of my optical spot

Luckily the modelling bulb was relatively easy to remove from the flash tube, albeit I need to get a new flash tube as half of it is now black. For the rest of the modelling bulb, I had to very carefully unscrew the remainder from the DP1000 iii as it was stuck!

I'm assuming a standard modelling bulb wouldn't have had this issue, but I'm still tempted to try my luck again with another LED modelling bulb.. Perhaps..

Having said this, the main reason all of this happened was that I decided to use a 1000w strobe head, on full power, consecutively, in an enclosed optical spot. That really isn't a good idea by any means!

LED modelling bulb aftermath

I already own the Viltrox 23mm 1.4 and love the focal length so I wasn't sure I'd need the 27mm 1.2. The difference in aperture wasn't massive, and the image quality couldn't be too much different right?

As it's been 6 months since it's been launched there are a tonne of reviews around—most of which state how incredible the lens is. I was still debating on whether I could justify two lenses of such close focal length. Here comes the massive deciding but..

My 23mm is very unreliable at autofocus. I cannot trust it to be in focus, even in single-point autofocus. I imagine I just got a lemon of a lens but my focus hit rate is probably around 1 in 4 or 1 in 5! I'll do some tests on this later. But loving the focal length and wanting to use it all the time, I finally decided to pull the trigger and pick up the 27mm 1.2.

It has the same great build quality as the 75mm 1.2, a similar size (the 27mm 1.2 is small), and a similar weight, but a 67mm filter thread instead of the 77mm thread on the 75mm 1.2.

I used the lens for a whole portrait shoot last week and I was absolutely blown away by the results. The sharpness and image quality are both incredible. And the autofocus didn't miss a beat! I had my Fuji XH2 in continuous mode with tracking and eye detection active. I left my focus point in the middle of the viewfinder and let the tracking find Ell's eye. The only times it lost focus or struggled was in pitch darkness when we shot our long exposure portraits, and when Ell completely covered her face with her hair. I'd say about 90% or higher of the shots I took were in perfect focus!

Editing the files was such a great experience too. Some may say 40MP and a super sharp lens are too much for editing portraits, but I absolutely love having all the skin detail! It may be a little more effort to edit but the results of seeing every bit of skin texture just makes me all warm inside.

Remember, these are just my first impressions. I need to shoot with it more to see if there are any quirks or if my opinion changes. I'll give a full  review soon. But as it stands, this is my favourite lens already!

Here's a studio portrait from the Viltrox 27mm 1.2 Pro on my Fujifilm XH2

For this setup I needed 3 lights, in this case, I used Pixapro Kino 600 strobes, 3 standard metal reflector dishes and I used 2 grids too. I used the grids on both the green and blue lights to restrict how much they spread, whilst leaving the red light to spread across the whole scene. I wanted the white seamless paper to absorb some of the red gel light and turn it pink.

I initially had a super brief attempt in a small white studio earlier in the year in the 10-minute gap I was waiting for a model to arrive. Needless to say, without foreplanning and all being a spur of the moment whole ass setup, this turned out dreadful.

This time, however, I made a plan to shoot a full setup. The studio is bigger than the small white one I used previously which helps to stop light being thrown around everywhere and mixing into a muddy mess.

Juggling power outputs took about 10 minutes of adjusting. It's one of those situations where the technical stuff is super important. Luckily, my model was really relaxed and understood that it wasn't the quickest setup to experiment with. 

I started with each of the Kino 600 heads at 1/32 power. Gels of different colours absorb light in different amounts. For example, my dark blue and red gels need an extra stop of light at least than my greens and yellows. After some trial and error, I set my red and blue to 1/16th power and my green to 1/32nd power. My green was also about a foot closer to the model than the other 2 strobes.

Remember, my blue and green strobes had grids on to restrict how much spread they had on the scene. This means the area where all 3 colours converge is a very small area on the face, creating a beautiful pool of neutral light, really focusing our attention on Elle's face.  Those astute of you may see a few other colours in the shadows too! When red, green and blue mix, yellow, magenta and cyan are produced too.

More specifically green and red create yellow. Blue and green create cyan. And red and blue create magenta. Mixing red, green and blue together to create neutral light is what we call additive light.

I shot the whole set on my Fujifilm XH2 and my Viltrox 75mm 1.2 Pro lens. The Viltrox is an incredible lens for portraits with fantastic sharpness. Shots like this really make the most of the Fujifilm high-res sensor and lens combo!

Post-processing was pretty simple and easy for these shots. I did minimal adjustments in CaptureOne, then over to Photoshop for the heavy lifting. I used my usual portrait workflow which involves clean-up, frequency separation, and dodge and burn. Finally, I finetuned the colours to add a tiny bit more colour contrast into the shot, then sharpened. The usual stuff.

It was a really fun and creative setup to figure out and shoot. I think the results speak for themself. Adjusting power outputs to get a correct exposure took a little longer than I had anticipated. I think using a soft modifier would have made all the colours muddy too, so hard modifiers are the way to go. If I shoot a setup light this again I'd play around with light positions and relation to each other. I'd also play with power outputs more for a different dominating colour and see how much more it affects the shots.

Below is one of the final edited shots from the shoot

Below is a behind the scenes shot of the setup. The posing cube was placed only as something for Elle to lean on.  The little device beside her is a heater as it was insanely cold!

I've created a store section on the site which will take you to the stores hosting. Rememeber, I'll be creating more photography courses, education, books, actions and presets too over the coming months! Here's the store link: click for store

I've made the featured image for this post a manual mode cheat sheet thats available in the book and course. I'll post and exposure triangle cheat sheet below also! They should be pretty self explanatory. However, any questions don't hesitate to drop me a message regardless of how big or small you think it is.

I wanted to create a guide on how to help teach people Manual mode, with each section being quite thorough, but also pretty quick to read through.

I also wanted something to hold the readers accountable and actually practice the knowledge they/you have just read. So, at the end of each section I've added in 3 assisgnments that should be followed through with to help solidify the knowledge that's just been learned.

I've hopefully made the guide, book, course pretty easy to grasp and follow through, and I've added in a tonne of my own shots to illustrate all the points I make. The goal is for you to be able to drop in, read a section, or skip sections and learn how to shoot in manual mode super quickly.

I'll throw it in the online store this week.

However, I did briefly start looking at Sony bodies today. Namely the A1. Until I saw the prices still..

This weekend I had a little workshop I attended in Wales. One of the setups we had was a "catwalk" with the model hitting a spot and throwing poses for about 30 seconds straight. The model was incredible. My autofocus, not so much. The autofocus on my Fuji XH2 is decent enough, but I missed so many shots!

At first, I had my focus to continuous with eye detect. With the model moving and throwing hair around, It was understandable focus was getting lost at times. So I switched to straight-up continuous autofocus, and I was still missing focus often!! The other guys were using a Sony A1, and Nikon Z8, and the other 2 guys both had a Canon I think. Either way, Their focus was much more reliable than my Fuji and I was getting a little frustrated internally!

Now, this could definitely be an issue with me. And it most likely is. I probably was using it incorrectly or had the totally wrong setup . But, when you have 3 one minute slots to get the shot, it gets a little frustrating knowing you may miss a tonne of incredible shots.

Of course, when something like this happens, the immediate thought is that it has to be the gear we own is terrible and the gear the other people are using is just plainly better. Whereas in reality, it's probably just a hole in our understanding.

For me, I had a bit of a bad night's sleep, followed by a super early wake-up and 5-hour drive to get to the workshop. I knew I wasn't thinking 100% clearly, otherwise, I could have probably figured out exactly what needed to be changed at the moment. They aren't excuses either. If anything they are me admitting to myself that I needed a better understanding of my continuous autofocus capabilities. We shouldn't be figuring out camera settings when shooting. I should have known exactly what my setup should be. This becomes even more important in high-stress, fast-paced, and tired situations where you literally only get a chance to react.

Don't get me wrong, I got some decent shots. But the whole fear of missing out weighs heavily on me. And missing out on shots got me kicking myself. More than anything, I'm kicking myself over not giving my Fuji XH2 the best chance of getting a higher hit rate of in-focus shots.

I'll be making a point to go out specifically to learn the best settings so I don't run into this problem again. After that, I'll be looking at a Sony A1..

In short, I couldn’t get Lightroom to detect either my Fujifilm XH1 or XH2 at all! Updates, setting changes, soft and hard resets, you name it I tried it! (Probably). My cameras were definitely connected to the laptop as they appeared in my storage locations and hardware settings. The cameras also showed the connectivity icons too. 

My options were either Lightroom is just being an ass or it was my cables. The cables worked elsewhere and I have 2 of them that are both near brand-new Tethertools cables. The odds of both of them being bad are pretty slim. I gave Google a quick search and there’s actually a Tethertools signal booster you can buy that MAY apparently fix the issue of signal drops. I knew mine wasn’t a signal problem, but I also wasn’t going to buy a £50 booster to go with my 2 £50 cables and hope it just works. But basically, Lightroom would just sit trying to detect a camera until I gave up.

I then downloaded Fujifilms own software called Fujifilm X Acquire. The programme downloaded and installed. That’s all it did. It just sat on my screen as it watched me trying to run it. Right-click and run as administrator, tried that too. Uninstall, deleted and retry? Done it. Just a blank stare as NOTHING HAPPENED.  Because why would you even want it to run, let alone use it?! 

I considered CaptureOne again as that just worked before for half a shoot. It did freeze and need to be restarted, but it had been the reliable option in comparison. But as I said earlier, I didn’t want to start another license with them.

I had listened to Joe Edelman’s show “The Last Frame” a few weeks ago and he had gone over a tether software I hadn’t heard of called “Smart Shooter 5”, from none other than Tethertools, which also gives a 30-day trial. None of this blog is sponsored or endorsed by the way, but my first impressions were super positive. So much so that I think I’ll be purchasing it. The software is essentially just tethering software and not an editor, so there’s nothing like CaptureOne where you can adjust colour, exposure etc. However, it instantly recognised both cameras plugged into it, and in my brief testing files transferred in around 1 second each! Even the bigger files from my XH2 transferred fast! I have a shoot I’ll tether next week so I’ll be able to give a more in-depth and accurate opinion based on real-world experience. 

As an initial first look though, Smart Shooter 5 has really impressed me! Being able to recognise my Fujifilm XH1 and XH2 was impressive compared to Lightroom. But the speed it did so too, and tethering transfer speeds have me excited that I may have found the tethering software that’ll make me shoot tethered every studio shoot. 

I searched Ebay, ordered a little stool to pose on, 2KG of teddy bear/cushion stuffing, some paper lanterns, a set of 4 (but I mainly just wanted the purple) Colorama paper background offcuts, and a pink tutu. I also kept the box the stool came in to use as a little cloud wall.

My idea was to dye the stuffing pink, cover a few lanterns in the stuffing, create a sizeable cloud shape in cardboard and cover that too. That would have been my candyfloss sorted. But the studio we wanted to use wasn’t available and the other few around us wouldn’t have been easy to work. We had to quickly make a plan B.

Plan B binned off the candyfloss idea and switch it out for clouds. Then instead of a studio, we would use a woodland instead. 

It was now time to DIY the clouds. I hunted for my glue gun to create the clouds and only found adhesive spray. It would do. Probably. Turns out it was so much faster than using a glue gun! Potentially messier, but I managed to cover 4 lanterns and a cloud of around 1.5m x 1m in just over an hour! And i only used around half of a 500ml can! 

There really isn’t too much to go into with this other than make sure you’re in a ventilated area, wear a mask and gloves and protected the environment around you. The first layer of glue was absorbed super fast by the initial fluff touch, so I had to use extra glue on top to attach more fluff to build up a textured cloud and to fill spaces. The spray adhesive really shone here and made everything so easy! I will admit that I definitely inhaled a fair amount of glue and my head was pounding. Don’t make that mistake!!!

I left the clouds to dry outside for a few hours then stuffed them in the car with all the other gear ready for the next day.

The model I chose for this shoot was Kateymodel (on insta). We work together often and she is incredible and just super easy to create magic with. We hadn’t set an official time until the day before as we had been having storms the whole week with more forecast. We checked the weather apps constantly and joked about how we would so be getting caught in it!

Arriving on location, I did a little run (actual run too) to locate the best place to part so I wasn’t dragging gear too far. Luckily I found a spot about 50 metres away that was super accessible. 

I dragged out our clouds, the stool, Colorama, 3 C stands, 3 sandbags, boom arm, grip arms, softboxes, camera bag and lighting and trekked it all to our spot. It’s safe to say I was a little warm after it.

I set up a grip arm with the Colorama on and clipped and bagged the bottom to keep it tight. I placed this pretty much against the wind as the sun was around 30 degrees behind where Katey would be and high in the sky and act like a hard-rim light. Without the sandbag on the Colorama, it would have been loose and blown absolutely everywhere. 

Next, I set up the cloud wall by punching a couple of holes on the back edge, threading a fishing line through it and tied it to the second grip arm. The paper lantern clouds were placed in front of the stool where Katey would be placed.

I popped open a 150cm octa, attached my Godox AD300 to it, placed that on a boom arm and then a C stand. I was super conscious about the wind catching this and potentially blowing it over. 

That’s the basic setup. We shot some frames and they looked incredible. The sun and clouds were forever changing, so we decided to incorporate them into the shots. Some shots looked obviously flashed, some dappled lighting, some overexposed and almost glowing, all with the same camera settings! (Asides from the odd few frames of adjusted shutter speed). 

Throughout this, it kept threatening to rain hard! We kept getting plenty of micro rain showers but not enough to stop. 

After a quick review, I added a second light, a Godox AD200 in a standard reflector dish directly in front of the 150cm octa to add a hard light punch coming from the soft light source. This hard light added such a beautiful kiss of contrast and really made the highlights in Katey’s makeup pop!

We shot some more, different angles and crops to give a wide variety to choose from and started to wrap up. It must have been a real-life minute after putting the final pieces into the car, the heavens really opened up and that storm that had been forecast and threatening all day finally arrived! Luckily, we just missed it. 

The whole using AI as inspiration was pretty awesome and gave us a huge opportunity to put our own spin on things. Being open and easy to change too allowed us to flow with the things presented to us and created such an awesome set of images! Jump over to mine or Katey's instagram to see more:

https://www.instagram.com/thammondphotography/

https://www.instagram.com/kateymodel/

Our post link - https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu2dg9xMFz0/?img_index=1

I allocated an hour setup time, 3 hours workshop, with the first hour being alot of the essentials in both studio lighting, triggering, and how to use gels. We then built up our first light setup with a single light, then added a second, moved it around, showed the difference between using grids and removing them in the exact same setup, and fine tuned that setup before giving the trigger over to the attendees to shoot their own shots.

During their shooting time, myself and the model had inputs to improve composition, different angles to shoot, and things the models are looking for when working with a photographer.

We then moved to a second setup which added a third light, introduced the concept of subractive colour (colours adding together to create white light), and used a white light alongside the gels for a more pastel feel and clean light as the key light.

Our last setup would be 2 coloured rim lights, in this case magenta, and a blue key light to light the model. Our first blue we used was light and gave us a more subtleness. So we switched it out for a denser and darker blue for richer tones. Once the attendees started shooting, we also introduced the idea of placing items in front on the lens as little elements of diffraction.

We finally wrapped up with a little discusion on working with models, the importance of putting your work out there, imposter syndrome, and reiterated how things never go right on a shoot. We decided these things were important to portray to the attendees as working in a studio and with profesional models can be intimidating at first and the expectation of gettings things "correct" can add so much pressure, especially when you are experimenting or learning a new skill.

I have a couple of perfect examples of this! I had planned on tethering to show images, but lightroom didn't work. AT ALL! I had used Captureone for it all before but decided not to renew my license. Lightroom just wasn't detecting my XH2 no matter what I did, so after half an hour I had to abandon the idea. Instead, I left the lighting diagram I made as refernece for each setup displayed on the laptop, which decided to go to sleep and not unlock for over an hour! My thumbprint scanner just decided to not work at all and I couldn't even get the keypad or password box to open. My laptop just bricked for a good hour for no reason because why wouldn't it?! A few other little hicups we had too were grids not fitting reflector dishes, those dishes also wasn't magnet (for attaching gels), and a lose kettle plug socket on a flash head that required adjustments to keep the head powered on. I could probably give more examples but who cares. Even with these hiccups that happen on every shoot, we powered through and the attendees got to see these things happen in real time and understand that things always happen!

In all, it was so much fun and I got some really good feedback and it was great experience for future events I'm going to hold. I'd definetly recommend everybody attend at least one event (even if it's not one of mine), and get a feel for how other people work. This photography event was about using gels to create portraits, but also about working with models and the in studio setting too. This combined experience was one of the biggest confidence builders for one of the attendees. The event gave him more of an understanding on using gels, but also the confidence to use them more effectively, and to work with models at the same time. Being able to help provide that kind of experience makes it all worth while!

Get in touch if you'd like to be informed of future events I'll be running and I'll start a mailing list for them!

In the meantime, here's some gelled light setups from the shoot.

Our first setup. A 2 light setup that we ended up using an orange gel to go alongside the teal

Set up 2. We used the same colours as setup 1 but added the white beauty dish in

Set up 3. Very lower key and saturated than the previous setups

Our original plan was to meet in Snowdonia for an epic shoot, but as Katey was over 100 miles away with a full 4 days of work with me slotting in between, it made little sense to spend half the day just driving especially as we were aiming for a sunrise shoot. A little search for something closer leads us to the Shropshire hills, specifically Long Mynd. The views were beautiful and the most crucial part, there’s a road leading to pretty much to the top! This made it a total no-brainer and would drop my own drive from 6 and a half hours to 4 and a half. As you can imagine I was happy about that!

One of the benefits of sunrise being around 5.10 am was there being very little traffic on the roads, mainly on the road up the hill. Which was basically 20 a degree incline, single track, and scared the absolute hell out of me! However, it was only 1.2 miles and we didn’t meet any cars to try and manoeuvre past so I call that a huge win. 

We got to our spot just after sunrise, jumped out of the car and gave the area the quickest scout in case my original spot had a better place to shoot from. Our original spot had epic views and had the sun literally rising directly in front of us! (Behind Katey).  With those views though came the wind.. The spot was very open to the elements and the wind was very much present! I ran back to the car and grabbed a C stand, heavy-duty boom arm and sandbag. I threw my Godox AD300 on it and attached a Godox 90cm parabolic softbox but I was convinced it was going to literally fly away! I switched it for a 60cm x 60cm pop-up softbox, which gave my about 5% more confidence I’d be leaving with all my equipment.. 

As we all know, the light changes so fast! We had Katey wrap herself in red tulle as fast as we could, I got my settings down in record time and fired about 20 shots, changed lenses and ripped another 20. At this point, I could see Katey was freezing so we stopped shooting and got her back in the car to warm up. In the time it took to get warm again (about 5 minutes), the sun had risen higher and gotten harsher. We had our epic sunrise shots so it was time to look for another spot with a different feel to it. 

Luckily this spot was about 20 metres away from the first. But it felt way more precarious for my equipment and it was a way steeper angle and a decent drop for my whole lighting rig to disappear down. I jumped on my C-stand legs and tried to get them embedded in the ground. If they could have briefly grown roots to help me out I’d have appreciated it, but they chose not to. Rude. 

At this point, the thread on my boom arm decided to give up too, so I had a boom arm on top of the C stand that didn’t tighten. The only thing stopping it from spinning like a helicopter was the sandbag hanging from it and resting in the C-stand base. Katey was never at risk from the rig, Only my wallet and pride were.

We made it work though. For this second set, I wanted to have a different feel to our first set. We still shot the red dress, but I chose to embrace the light and get close to overexposing the background, because why not! With an epic location like this, it's easy to think of doing the most “epic” and dramatic skies in every shot. I could have shot at 1/4000th and got a moody sky, but we already had that vibe covered. Instead, I chose to shoot at 200th, ignoring every fibre of myself screaming it’ll be too bright and wrong! To say autofocus wasn’t happy would be an understatement too. Everything was heavily backlit, making autofocus struggle to actually focus or missing altogether. Just a little bit of a challenge for it to overcome. But the little Fuji did alright. 

Again, the wind and coldness were relentless. We made sure to work fast, mixing it up between close-up shots, wider shots, horizontal and verticals, and all the angles I possibly could. We ended up with around 150 shots in total before running back to the car and getting back to normal temperatures. We spent a solid hour shooting, admiring the views and speaking to the sheep, before getting back down the “hill” and avoiding any traffic. Result. 

We stopped for a little comfort Starbies coffee and porridge breakfast and reviewed shots. At this point it was around 8 am, we’d been awake nearly 5 hours, and already had the most epic shoot possible. All that was left was the 4 and a half hour drive home to look forward to..

The local studio is quite intimate, so I've capped capacity at 7; Myself, our model Miss Black Reign, and 5 attendees. The studio is a white 4m wide infinity cove too, so attendees will be able to see how I control light and the pit falls of being slack with light control and placement.

The gelled lighting event will run for 3 hours, with 3 different setups. I'll go through attaching gels, light placements, and setup all in real time, and we'll allow a short period of time at the end of each set up for attendees to shoot a few frames.

If this is something you'd be intrested in, check out this Eventbrite link for more deatils. Tickets to this gelled lighting workshop are super limited so jump right on it and I hope to see you there!

Gelled lighting workshop link - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/655912661427

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I’m just aware that the perception of other people’s work, process and skill SEEMS more fluid and natural than my own. I’m aware that other people potentially feel the same way about my work too. This is where my imposter syndrome comes in hard! Imposter syndrome is basically where you constantly doubt your skills and abilities and feeling like a fraud regardless of what you achieve. 

When working with people, I often ask for their input and opinions on various things. On occasion I’ll get a  reply of “I don’t know, you’re the artist”, and that makes me feel like a massive fraud! My internal monologue screams “You’re not an artist, you’re creative at best!”. 

By definition, (going on the Merriam-Webster dictionary here) an artist is -” a person who creates art (such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing) using conscious skill and creative imagination”. By that definition alone, the imposter syndrome is completely redundant. But it’s all about the feeling. I don’t feel like one! And that’s OK. I see myself as more creative. To me, it feels like I have to put a lot more effort into a shoot and make specific points to remember. I have to actively plan a whole lot and put a tonne of effort into the planning process. 

There is a massive differnce between imposter syndrome and a lack of skill however.  A lack of skill includes consistently producing low quality work, getting negative feedback from people, not having technical knowledge and skills to produce quailty work, etc. But that's ok aslong as you're aware of having a lack of skill and where those areas of improvement are required. That gives you something to work from and a defined direction of skills you need to build. I know exactly where I lack skill and knowledge and actively work to change these within my work.

Shoots with me tend to go like this; I’ll have a variety of general inspiration shots, I’ll have a few light setups in mind or planned, and a few gel colours sorted. I try to get a few different camera angles and crops in the back of my mind too. Depending on the model, I may have posing inspo too. Outfits I don’t have too much input in, just a few general requests. I’ve started keeping specific tag words in mind during a shoot too to try keep it fitting a general theme as it all progresses. 

This is a reason why I love the long exposure side of my work. Once the technical aspects are set, the control is partially relinquished and that’s super refreshing. It’s a little piece of the process I can’t full control or predict the exact final outcome, which is exciting and liberating! I’ve set all the technical parts, then I get a creative aspect to just play with. 

Having said all of that, I never have a super strict shoot. Everything is pretty relaxed and things can change or evolve instantly as and when needed. I like to think of it as fluidity. Which comes in so handy when something goes wrong, as it always does, and you can just adapt on the fly.

Remember though, this is me saying how it feels like others get similar results with alot less effort. However, the reality is that it’s not true. Other people definitely put similar amounts of effort into their shoots, if not more. Otherwise the also wouldn’t be getting the results they’re getting. The whole “winging it” thing can get decent results, but it can’t be consistent. With everything in life, no plan is a plan to fail. (Or whatever the saying is). The more you plan, the more higher chance you have of having a successful shoot. 

Before our shoot, I had made a Pinterest board with literally just 5 ideas on (Usually I'd pin about 20), with the idea that these would be great places to start and build upon. We ended up going with about 4 full setups within 2 hours, and had a little intentional camera movement and shutter drags with a couple of set ups too. I'm trying to get away from cramming as much into shoots recently, however, these turned out pretty well!

I'm going to share with you one of those images, give you the gelled lighting diagram for it, and break the shot down too.

Firstly, I knew I wanted to use my Pixapro Octabox 150 as a background. My Viltrox 75mm usually works great combined with the Octabox 150 as a background down to compression, but the studio doesn't have the most amount of space (I think its around 6m x 4m or 5m), so my 75mm Viltrox would only be good for super tight portraits, basically headshots. Ashena (the model) also had a really cool red latex top and leg harness that I wanted to get in frame too. Basically, the 56mm was the only compromise I  had. I had my back fully to the wall and Ashena about half a foot from the softbox.

For lighting I used my Godox AD300 with a magenta gel in the Octa 150 on around 1/64th or 128th power. That gave a nice dark magenta, with a little wrap around on Ashena. But at such a low power the creases on the front diffuser shows up. To counter this we'd usually up the power and blow out the detail. However, it's the opposite to what I wanted to achieve. I just knew there would be extra post processing to do.

The key light was just an Godox AD200 with a blue gel fired into a white umbrella and placed close to Ashena, also at a low power. I think I under exposed this by about a stop to preserve skin detail. I knew I'd have to bring the exposure up in post on the blues too. At a higher power the skin just seemed to lose all detail.

Essentially that's all there is with setup. Both really low power, shot at f2.8. with lights placed as close to the model as possible.

Post processing, I pulled the magentas down in luminace even more and tweaked their colour to be more.. magenta. Blues was similar. I increased the shadows, pushed the blues towards a darker hue, and dropped it's luminance. Then moved to photoshop where I had to fill the spaces around the frame the softbox wasn't big enough to fill, crop in slightly too, then basic retouching and colour grading.

The images that came from this set, in my opinion, just screams out of the screen. The neon pink demands attention, is borderline asbo worthy, and I love it!

I’m jumping straight in here. I upgraded from a Fuji XH1 to an XH2 about 7 months ago now. What was the real cost?

I got the XH2 on release day so paid full price for the body at £1899. I didn’t have any CF express type b cards (to use both slots and make full use of the speed of the XH2 buffer) So I got one of those too. My research concluded in the cheaper ones, no surprise, are trash. Either with reliability or their speed, being about the same as an SD card. I opted for a 165GB Prograde Cobalt at £199. Now we needed a card reader. Throw another £50 ontop. The camera comes with a battery, but one isn’t enough. Another £80 for 2 batteries and an external charger. My computer loved the XH1 files, but the XH2 files slowed it down drastically. It was either to update the old sever pc or swap out and upgrade. So that’s what I did. £1299 for a 16” vivobook pro. A laptop means I’m portable and able to tether.. With a £50 tethertools cable. (Should have got an Area 51 cable but I didn’t). All those files chew through storage, so I needed more. 8TB at £200. Then to make the most out of the sensor, I purchased a Viltorx 75mm 1.2. 

• XH2 - £1899
• CF express type b - £199
• Card reader - £50 (a cheap one)
• Batteries and charger - £80
• New laptop £1299
• Tether cable - £50
• Extra storage - £200
• Viltrox 75mm 1.2 - £449

Total - £4226

So as you can see, that’s an extensive list really for a new camera. Seeing that total there is a little eye-watering too! Admittedly I could have got away without a few of those purchases, however, some of them were essential or would be required in the future, and my viewpoint was just to bite the bullet and get them over with. Things like storage are a constant requirement, but these files and how I edit just chew through storage! Although it’s nothing compared to video shooters! 

Let’s be frank, I didn’t really need the upgrade, I just wanted it. I mainly shoot portraits and my XH1 has been absolutely perfect, albeit with autofocus which isn’t the fastest. But for studio portraits, it’s not an issue. The 26MP sensor of the XH1 was more than fine and manageable, but, I do love the ability to crop and have plenty of pixels left with the XH2. I did expect, naively, for the autofocus to be massively better than the XH1, and the eye auto-detect to work great. That isn’t the case though! The focus is definitely faster, but not that much faster. Eye auto detect I have off for the most part as it’s not the most reliable. Making that irrelevant for me too. Build quality and how it feels in the hand is definitely subpar to the XH1 too.

It sounds like it’s all negative, which it really isn’t. I absolutely love my XH2 and the images I’m able to capture with it are awesome. Here is the big but.. If I had fully thought it through and managed to talk sense into myself, I wouldn’t have upgraded. We all know bodies depreciate so fast, and it’s the lenses that give us the image quality. The Viltrox paired with the XH2 is just beautiful. That same Viltrox would be 95% as good on the XH1 though. Image quality itself isn’t everything either. It’s the subject matter that makes great images. I could have still got the laptop and lens, then invested the other amounts into shoots. I could have redone a full portfolio. Or taken a decent trip away!

I’ll reiterate, I love my XH2. But if I could have curbed my GAS, then I’d have been able to do more, and better things. Having the body is cool, but at the end of the day, that's exactly what I have. A camera body. It sits there and gets used. But it’s a thing. I could AND SHOULD have waited to buy the body. I would have had a much more fulfilling time spending that money on shoots. I used a Nikon D700 until about 4 years ago, so I know the camera makes no real difference. I could still shoot a 12MP D700 and get basically the same results. 

That’s my advice to you reading this. Spend the money on shooting, not the gear, UNLESS you actually need it. Then I’d still recommend just hiring it. For a small fee, you can decide whether you actually need that piece of gear full-time or not. Most of the time you’ll find you don’t. I get it though, spending money on gear makes it feel safe. Like that money has been spent on something that “will improve” your photography because it’s better. Whereas spending it on shoots feels like a gamble. You don’t know if it’ll be decent, and not having anything tangible feels like the money has just disappeared into the void. 

The point I want you to take away from this is you spend your money however you wish. But if you really want to get better or even just interesting photos, you need to invest in yourself and be infront of interesting things. And both of those cost money too. 

Previously I touched upon the thinking that augmented and VR would be big parts of the photography world, but they haven't really been taken up. Other than VR in the real estate world, and virtual galleries etc. And I didn't mention the computaional photography, which is a version of AI, and the advancements being made there. But I wanted to see if AI had an idea of the kinds of innovations coming. So I decided to ask chatgpt what it thought the future of photography would look like, and this was it's answer;

That sounds like a profound statement, I know. But hear me out. When digital photography first came around in the 2000’s, it was totally dismissed by most people. Those early adopters embraced the new technology and flourished. Those that didn’t, DIDN’T. Just look at Kodak. Once the giant of the film era, now… I will add though that I’m now one of those that kinda hates adopting new tech. I LOVE new tech, but having to integrate or change everything to accommodate, not so much.

If we take a quick look at which companies are investing heavily into AI, we can see Adobe has added a tonne of features into photoshop and light room, and has just announced a platform called firefly which is all about generative AI artwork! What this fully means, I’m not yet sure, but having the option to type in a phrase and have a computer literally generate the artwork for you is crazy!

There are other platforms that have been focusing on AI for a while, for example, Luminar. Which, when first released had a fair amount of criticism for “having the computer edit for you”. Things like sky replacements could be done in seconds, and alot of people saw this as cheating. Then photoshop came out with the same feature. Whether this is still considered cheating or not, it has opened up alot of options. A few years on and Luminar Neo has plenty of AI tools to help edit and creatively control your photos in a few clicks and sliders. 

Then we have the likes of retouch4me. I keep debating buying a few of their products as it will make portrait editing so much faster, but it the letting go of control part I can’t get over. Retouch4me is another suite of AI plugins aimed, as the name suggests, at retouching (portraits). With just a quick run of the plugin, skin blemishes, dodging and burning, masking, and even backdrop cleaning, can all be achieved in next to no time. Whereas manually doing all of these will usually take me at least 30 minutes. On single images it’s not so bad, and I even enjoy it. But on a set of 30, it adds up so fast. Asides from the cost, I’m apprehensive about giving up my control over retouching to an AI program. But it’s so good I’ve been tempted!!! 

The rate at which these AI tools are progressing is insane. Generative tools that last year made very obvious AI looking art are now, 6 months on, creating art that is indistingusibale from real artists. Understandably this has gotten people both scared and excited about the future of photography and art in general. There’s going to be people that hate everything about this new era we’re entering into. Others will be thinking that using AI isn’t real art, and using it as a tool is just basically cheating. You need to earn your stripes and go through all the hardships of learning how to use a camera, lighting, photoshop etc. My personal viewpoint is that I’m glad I’ve had to do it all that way. I’m glad I’ve learnt how to retouch photos with frequency separation, dodge and burning, everything before AI and even mirrorless cameras were a thing. It’s giving me a wealth of understanding I wouldn’t have been able to achieve, and the experience to be know when, and how to implement specific tools. But that’s just the editing side of things!

I’m really excited to start using AI generative art with my photography! I get random ideas all the time, so being able to plug them into a generator that’ll be able to throw out an image or images of my idea and seeing the results instantly, with amendments made in real time, is going to give shoots a drastically new direction. Especially if you cant find existing examples of the idea. But not only that, 15 minutes searching for that specific inspiration, or 2 minutes generating inspiration. 

Of course big businesses will utilise this kind of thing too and inevitably some photography jobs will get taken over. Think commercial catalogue jobs where a company is spending 10k for a season of products on a model on white seamless. Those will get swallowed by the AI tech. It’s unfortunate, but that’s just life. Other jobs, like weddings and events, won’t be affected. AI cannot replace that kind of work. AI can assist in adding an expedient workflow, added products, etc, but it’ll never take them over. 

“Real” photographers will always still be in demand though! People will always want the personal and creative aspect that comes with an actual photographer. Just the same as people still want drawings and paintings, even though they have a phone in their pocket with cameras that are more than capable.

I think we’re in for another massive shift starting this year. It’s going to be super interesting to see how things develop. As I said above, I’m personally going to start using some AI generative tools to see how it compliments my photography and hopefully improve it. I think this AI in photography and art trend/era is something we all need to embrace and adapt to quickly or fall behind the curve. 

The model for this shoot was Vix (TheInkedVixxenn on Insta), and once I put the church idea forward to her, she sent me over a photo of a purge illuminated mask she had to shoot in. Now we just needed to make it work.

I wasn't sure how bright the mask would be but knew I'd probably need to mix flash and natural ambient light to get the shot. But, to what extent..? Basically, the church was DARK. It was around 6pm when we got to shooting this setup and with the church being located in a pretty rural location with no street lights, and the interior being light by around 18 battery operated candles, you can imagine the light we had to work with was minimal at best.

My main considerations were increasing ISO but maintaining a relatively clean image, getting a decent depth of field, and getting the actual glow of the mask to show. (This was my XH2's first outing on a proper shoot too!)

The first step was to get an exposure. I was thinking 1/60th would be in the ballpark, and the flash popped too. This was the result.. Not mask light showing! (Vix is wearing a dressing gown because it was freezing!!)

I switched to 1/5th of a second, ISO400 and f5.6. then added flash on a super low power. (flash would be needed to freeze the model with long shutter speeds). The results were still "meh" at best. But it gave a point to work from. 

The mask needed a longer exposure or higher ISO. I opted for a longer exposure. First trying out 1/4 second. As you can see from the shot. the mask exposure is alright. I shot with a beauty dish and added a grid to it.  As you can hopefully see from the test shot below, the main light stops at the chest area. This was intentional not to get much flash on the mask (and reflections). In the final shots Vix took a step forward so the mask recived a little more light, giving us a sharp mask. I added a rim light and background illumination light too as background needed some light pop too otherwise this may aswell had been shot in a black studio!

We were close,  but I still wanted a little more though. I dropped the shutter speed to 1s which gave the background exposure I was after. I gelled the lights too and started to feather them/angle the, to their final spots. Dragging the shutter for a full second on front curtain sync was giving some experimental looking shots, but nothing to be excited about. I then switched the camera into rear curtain sync and started to add intentional motion into the shot. 

With rear curtain sync, you have to be mindful of where the subject will be in your frame as the flash fires at the end of the exposure, and once the shutter opens, the viewfinder is just black! So this requires a bit of guesstimation.. 

The final shot is below. Shot at ISO400 / f5.6 / 1s with rear camera sync, we have the mask illumination and ambient light from the windows dragging across the scene.

Here's essentially what the whole setup was, minus the mask. I don't remember flash outputs, but they're pretty irrelevant. Just know the beauty dish was around 1/64th (low power).

That's all there is to it! A nice little experimental shoot and something a little different I got to shoot this Halloween, and in a location I didn't think would be so easy to access!

Usually, I'm not the type to jump on gear hype and get the latest and greatest. Up until a few years ago, I was still shooting with a Nikon D700! (I loved that camera and wish I had never sold it!!) At the moment I'm shooting with a Fuji XH1, which I absolutely love, but a few little things annoy me about it.

They're not massive issues, but they're definitely things that have made me look into a new camera. Those mainly are the focusing. To say it's bad is an understatement, but it's not the greatest.

Firstly, the speed. It could be snappier. My XT2 focuses faster and in lower light conditions. Not just a little either. It's pretty noticeable! Do I need lightning fast focus? For the most part not really. I shoot alot of studio work or portraits so it's not essential, but For shutter drag stuff it'd make my life alot easier to focus in the dark than having to illuminate a subject, have them keep their position then shoot. Again, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it'd make my life easier.

Secondly, sticky eye detection would be incredible! I don't bother using it on either the XT2 or XH1 as I don't really trust it, and nor is it essential, but it's definitely something I want.
There are a few other little things that go with it but who even cares? My point is that I was looking at maybe getting an XT3 as a slight upgrade, but going up just on generation isn't usually a big jump. So, I started looking at the XT4. The price is close to a brand new XH2 which is soon to be released. I had a quick eyeball at Nikon z6ii or maybe a Sony, but I do love my XH1 and didn't wana start another new system again.

The XH2s has been out for a little while with some mixed reviews and the focus system really appealed to me, £2500 body only is steep! The XH2 price has just been announced for around a week and £1900 body only! That's £500 less than the XH2s and £400 more than an XT4! After seeing the stats too, (I'm not really a stats person but 4 and a half years newer technology is going to be a massive jump for me), my mind was made up. I was going to wait until people had tested them and given a review before I ordered.

Except that didn't happen. I spent 2 days questioning everything and justifying to myself that it'd be a good purchase, that I'd have to do a couple of weddings to pay for it (I HATE weddings), so it was fully justifiable. Then the email came through which confirmed my XH2 preorder..

That dreaded "due to unexpected preorder volume, there maybe a backlog on Fuji XH2 orders being fulfilled". First come first served. The scarcity made me jump straight online and preorder it! It was almost like I read that email and decided it was a challenge!
As I said above though, I'm not usually a new tech person! For the most part, a few new lenses and trips would be a better purchase than the Fuji XH2, but apparently I wanted to be a guinea pig with it. So expect plenty of Fuji XH1 vs XH2 images comparisons, downloadable files and impressions as the weeks go on.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't super excited to get it though! I'm feeling like a child waiting for Christmas!!

My goal(s) were simple. Learn to shoot gels and take some decent shots. That's all. While this sounds like a very low bar to set for myself, the plan was to shoot as much as possible. Sometimes two or three shoots a week. With a standard day job and editing ontop, it was going to take up a lot of time when I'm not asleep. 

I basically decided to dedicate the whole year to around 90% gelled portraits and creative gel photography, however you want to describe it.

The first couple of gel shoots were EFFORT! Not just in the shooting and editing, but the research beforehand, finding gear that wasn't going to bankrupt me (gels are more expensive than you think, especially when you need MULTIPLE sets!), and learning on set too. We all learn as we go of course, but with gels you have to see in a very different way to normal lighting to prevent colours from bleeding into each other, and a "correct" exposure for light levels and colour saturation. Then there's the shutter drag stuff. 1 in every 10 shots will be alright. You may pan the camera too far, or get a weird light streak on the model, etc. You get my point.

Having said that, I love learning new things. It's a massive achievement to see things actually come to life in front of you, with a level of repeatability that you can take onto other shoots, so it's been super rewarding.

Not only have I learned a tonne of new things, this new direction I've taken has gotten so much more attention. My work before was ok and got a bit of notice but there was nothing about it that really gave me my personality. It just got lost in the sea of photography. Now, I'm getting messages daily from new models that wana work together, people telling me they love my work, and I have an actual identify that stands out from the crowd. Just little things that didn't seem to make a difference before, but now it's refreshing. 

I wasn't really sure on what to expect progress wise from this little goal though. I'll show you a little progress from the end of Januray to now and you'll see how much better my stuff has gotten. It's the focused intention and dedication that has really done it I think. I don't expect my work to get better at the same rate as the past 5 months, but that's ok. 1% better each shoot makes a huge improvement over time!

If any of you are wishing they started a focused intention project (I just made that up), then do it! Don't wait for the new year to come around to start. There's still five and a half months of the year left. Just imagine how much you can improve by putting in as little as 2 hours a week! That's 50 hours by the end of the year!

Anyways, here's 2 shots, 5 months apart:

Light setup for featured image:

Featured image setup

A 23mm Viltrox prime lens on my Fujifilm XH1 gave me a great field of view, even though I was basically part of the wall trying to get the shot, with flash being triggered by a Godox X pro F trigger. 

I left outfit choices down to the model Vixx and she brought along a wide range of outfits and lingerie. She chose this white set and the gel uptake on her skin etc just works really well! I set white balance to flash as I know I'd be playing in post and with some colour adjustments and general retouching to get my final shot.

If you have any questions I haven't addressed then feel free to comment or drop a message and I'll answer the best I can! 

In all, it was a super successful shoot, and I was fully exhausted by the end of it. My train was early enough in the morning that the only part of London I got to see was the train station, a restaurant, and a Starbucks for coffee! I still have an itch I need to scratch!

The inspiration I gave Katey (the model), for the shoot was some simple and elegant looks. A little bit of colour, a little bit of drama, but a whole load of beautiful portraits. I'd sent over around 12 shots but aimed to complete 3 looks in our 2 hour slot. Quickly, we smashed out 3 different looks and had around an hour to play!
What was I going to do for the hour?!

As it turns out, the quoted delivery date on the snoot was wrong! I was quoted a 3 week delivery time, whereas, in reality, it took 4 days. Which had it turning up the day before shooting with Katey! Can you guess where this is going..?
I had unboxed the snoot and had the briefest of plays with it before packing it away, just in case.. The extent of which was seeing if it'll fit my AD300 pro strobe. So not much in the way of learning.

Back to the spare hour. I pulled out the snoot with the intention of shooting a nice hard light circle on Katey and it looked terrible! Not because of Katey, but because I was winging it. I had Katey in our previous setups position - 6ish feet away from the black wall, and wondered why the spot wasn't reaching the wall, let alone looking circular.. Focusing the light didn't work either.

My stupid ass realised after that I needed Katey super close to the wall. Basic stuff, but learning on the go had me not thinking correctly! Pushing Katey back, I had to move the strip box rim lights and the bottom light too. Camera left strip box I intentionally leaned slightly toward the wall to pick up a little more texture.

With the lights in place, a gobo was added to the snoot and slightly defocused so the lines wasn't overly sharp. I switched my angle to the side, and what you see is the final product.
Below is a brief overview of the light setup we used. The gels were Lee filter gels, which I'm totally in love with! A slight tweak and colour grade in photoshop and we have a final product!

I get dramatic, moody and colourful Hollywood vibes from this. A couple of Hollywood inspired shots were part of our inspiration, just in case the snoot came, and I think we've pulled it off quite well! It's making me want to use the snoot for so much more!

The set up: