THEAPPRENTICE
Professional wildlife photographer Laura Galbraith shows PhotoPlus Apprentice Helen how to capture top pet paw-traits
APPRENTICE
NAME:
HELEN BL ACK
CAMERA:
CANON EOS R6
HELEN IS a former IT trainer for a recruitment agency based in Peterborough. She’s always had a strong interest in photography, although when made redundant ten years ago, she found more time to spend with her hobby. She developed a love for wildlife photography during the pandemic, using a pop-up hide in her garden to take lovely photos of birds and other garden visitors. While she’s confident photographing wildlife outside in day light, she admits that studio flash is a new world, so we’ve paired her up with pet pro Laura to show her the ropes.
CANON PRO
NAME:
L AURA GALBRAITH
CAMERA:
CANON EOS R5 & R6
LAURA WAS an IT and maths teacher, but seven years ago decided to pursue her passion and become a full-time photographer. She now runs a successful pet photography and workshop business. She’s had great critical acclaim too, winning the Guild of Photographers Bird Image of the Year title in 2019 and Nature and Wildlife Image of the Year in 2020. We met up with her at her home studio in Burwell to teach Helen to take some top pet pictures. lauragalbraithphotography.co.uk
THEAPPRENTICE
TECHNIQUE ASSESSMENT
SHOOTING IN MANUAL
TO GET started Laura asked Helen to put her Canon EOS R6 into its Manual mode and opened the aperture on her 100-400mm lens to its widest f/5.6 at 400mm for a shallow depth of field to create separation between Leonardo and the background, so he was the clear focal point. Laura set a shutter speed of 1/400 sec to freeze the dog and eliminate camera-shake. The low light levels needed a whopping ISO of 10,000!
ANIMAL EYE AF
LAURA shoots with Canon EOS R5 and R6 full-frame bodies and both feature Canon’s incredible Animal Eye autofocus. Helen used the Animal Eye AF on her Canon EOS R6 to quickly lock onto pets’ eyes make sure they were pin-sharp and the focal point of her portraits – it also came in handy when shooting the high-speed action shots. Helen set up double back-button focus on her EOS R6 so AF-ON activates autofocus while the * button activates Animal Eye AF.
HOT SHOT #1
HELEN’S COMMENT
"I met up with Laura at her home studio in
