THE APPRENTICE
SHOOT WITH APRO
This month Canon professional landscape photographer Jack Lodge teaches PhotoPlus Apprentice Gary to chase the light and take top photos around the Isle of Purbeck
APPRENTICE
AFTER suffering a heart attack 10 years ago, which resulted in a triple bypass surgery, Gary is now semi-retired, and loves to get out shooting with his Canon cameras in his spare time. His passion is motorsports photography, but he’d love to take more landscapes if he was a little more confident with camera settings for outdoor scenes. He’s written to us asking for help understanding Manual mode and how to use filters for better landscape photos.
CANON PRO
BASED down in Wimborne, Dorset, Jack is perfectly placed for great landscapes and seascapes on the stunning Jurassic Coast. His image ‘Winter at Win Green’ was shortlisted in the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2022, and he runs landscape and wildlife workshops, from Dorset to Snowdonia, all year round. He also spoke on the Canon stand at The Photography &Video Show. See his Insta @jacklodgephotography for his wonderful photos and visit his website to book a workshop: www.jacklodge.co.uk
EXPERT INSIGHT
THE RIGHT light and weather are essential for good landscape photos, so Jack is constantly monitoring them with apps on his smartphone: The Photographer’s Ephemeris app enables you drop a pin on amap to visualize where the light will be hitting your scene at different times throughout the day, and is invaluable for planning sunrise and sunsets. Ventusky is a weather app that helps Jack clearly visualize the low, medium and high cloud at scenes throughout the day, so he can plan ahead.
TOP GEAR #1
JACK SWITCHED from Sony over to Canon a few years ago. Now shooting on a Canon EOS R5 body he says it’s his dream camera that does everything he needs for landscape photos. “There’s something about the colours on Canon cameras that I love,” says Jack. He has turned many of his favourite photos into prints that you can buy online and the EOS R5’s 45MP full-frame sensor certainly comes in handy when blowing up images to print them at sizes of up to A0!
HOT SHOT #1
I met up with Jack mid-morning near Corfe Castle in Dorset to avoid the worst of the wet weather. This worked out perfectly as an opening in the clouds allowed sunlight to light up this Corfe Castle scene beautifully. We shot with the sun behind us for better even lighting across the scene and he suggested using an aperture of f/11 for crisp images with a deep depth of field, and lowering the ISO to its base setting of 100 for the ultimate image quality. I zoomed in to 100mm to crop out the ‘dead’ space in the foreground, focused on the castle and used a 2-sec Self-Timer.
