Our Photography Courses Blog - Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

Another varied group of students took to the river at Henley in order to brush up their photography skills. This particular class was particularly good at landscape composition, and managed to frame some lovely properties along the river while excluding some of the rubbish in the foreground!

Henley is one of the coldest places we visit when the sun is not out, but when it is it is gorgeous! The River and rowing Museum is a great venue and never fails to treat us well. The cafe is a particular highlight! We try to get a Henley at least once a month, and thoroughly enjoy teaching photography courses there.

Wide angle lenses are not just for wide landscape views. There are lots of situations where a wide-angle lens can give a more interesting perspective. Stanley the Lakeland terrier came to the photography course at Henley, and as usual with small dogs made a good subject for a wide-angle lens. this picture was taken with a Tamron 10 to 24 mm wide-angle at about 12 mm, giving 16 mm of actual focal length on the crop sensor camera.

 If we had taken this picture with a standard 18 to 55 mm kit lens, that you would have been 27 mm at its widest, and would have included considerably less sky, dog owner and background and would have been a much more boring picture.

We hear all the time, particularly from older people who are used to film cameras, that their wide angle shots of disappointing compared to what they remember from using film. This is because the crop sensor camera gives you a bit of extra zoom – in this case 50% more on a Nikon D3200.   The end result is that kit lens pictures are often not very wide and don’t show the wide view that we expect from a wide angle lens. We are big fans of the Tamron 10-24 mm  – there are versions for both Nikon and Canon cameras for about £300 new. The Canon and Nikon equivalent lenses are about £600, and not worth the extra money. If you like landscapes, or quirky detail shots, this might be the lens for you!  If you go here you can see this fantastic lens on Amazon. We also hear good things about the Sigma version.

Beautiful blue skies today in Henley, which always helps! The Creative photography course got off to a flying start with some really great, imaginative shots…..and as per usual, Rachel sent her poor, un-suspecting students out almost straight away to photograph ordinary, household objects in an extraordinary way!

Then, some amazing shots related to specific themes…don’t forget that it’s always best to have a ‘job to do’ when out with your camera! No snapping without intention!

if Photography Made Simple had a coat of arms, there’d be ducks on it!  We like to use a shallow depth of field to draw the attention, and we practice on rubber wildlife first!  Both these shots were taken on photograph courses in Henley on Thames.