Comments for Duncan Grove FRPS Photography Blog

Comment on PhotoMag Articles by Matthew Phillips

Matthew Phillips — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:55:04 +0000

Hi,

I’m the webmaster for Bookham Camera Club, and would be grateful if you could send me a short summary of the presentation you are planning to give us which I can put up on our programme on our web site.

Any web links much appreciated too.

Regards

Matthew Phillips

Comment on Duncan Grove awarded Fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society! by Duncan

Duncan — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:13:30 +0000

Enrico – thank you for your kind words – they make me blush!

Comment on Duncan Grove awarded Fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society! by Enrico Di Vito

Enrico Di Vito — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:11:04 +0000

Duncan, your sport photography is 2nd to none the Wimbledon shots outstanding congrats and god bless !!!

Comment on Duncan’s talks at Focus on Imaging 2011 – thanks for listening! by Duncan

Duncan — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:07:17 +0000

Hi Geoff
I don’t know how to respond to such a generous comment other than to say thank you! I have checked out your new Zenfolio site and it looks great – bright and fresh! (I told you Zenfolio was easy!!) Your images are good too.

You now need to get people visiting it and linking to it. Here is a link for starters! http://geoffoliverphotography.co.uk/ .

Comment on Duncan’s talks at Focus on Imaging 2011 – thanks for listening! by Geoff Oliver

Geoff Oliver — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:07:45 +0000

Duncan, don’t put yourself down! Your story struck so many chords with me that I couldn’t find the words to thank you properly on the day. I’m also in the bottom photo (standing, blue jumper) and I was really impressed with your demonstration of Zenfoilio and it’s integration with Lightroom (thanks to Jeffrey Friedl’s plug-in). Since then I have signed up to Zenfoilio myself (thanks for the 10% referal discount :0) and I finally have a website that is both a showcase for my work and (hopefully) a starting point towards becoming semi-professional. Thanks again Duncan, your talk was genuinely inspiring.

Geoff

Comment on Duncan’s talks at Focus on Imaging 2011 – thanks for listening! by Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:02:01 +0000

Hi David
Sorry to be slow in replying but shooting Tideway Week and the Boat Race has taken a lot of my time of late.
It is kind of you to write but don’t thank me – it should be me thanking you for wasting your time listening to me prattling on. As my wife (not my greatest photographic fan!) rather disparagingly commented, the subject matter of my talk suited me down to the ground. My two favourite subjects – photography and me! To be honest, I did enjoy giving the talk because I know and am passionate about my subject matter and had an audience of like-minded people.
I have enjoyed looking at some of your work. Your gallery “Bernard (Sep 2010)” has taught me something. Most of your images (like mine) have the foreground subject in focus and the background blurred. Image 8 stands out and works especially well because the main subject is out of focus but the background subject is blurred. I shall remember this “tip”, so thank you!
Do keep in touch.
Regards
Duncan

Comment on Duncan’s talks at Focus on Imaging 2011 – thanks for listening! by David Rowe

David Rowe — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:51:14 +0000

Just wanted to say thanks for a great talk at FOCUS. I was one half of the couple of sat down on the floor at the front (in the last photo) and one who was happy to admit to you that I read your blog. We had to shoot off straight after you stopped talking to head to another seminar/talk so didn’t thank you at the time. Thanks once again for sharing your knowledge about how you began and got to where you are now.

David

Comment on New kit! by Duncan

Duncan — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:57:56 +0000

Hi Kim

Believe me I share your pain but the sad fact is that more then any other genre, sports photography requires good kit. Your pixelworkshop.co.uk site indicates that you might be in business yourself or perhaps freelance. The business seems to be photography related so don’t forget that if you pay 40% tax and are VAT-registered, the kit essentially comes at half-price or at slightly less discount if you pay tax at a lower rate. It is though 100% allowable as long as you are using it for business purposes. See my article on this subject at http://www.duncangrove.com/photo-pro-mag-may-2009-tax-article.pdf . Alternatively, for special events you could consider hiring. I have found Fixation in London to be very good – contact Paula or Alina and say that Duncan told you they would do you a good deal. In the meantime, keep practicing with the kit you have. The results are not that bad but consider white balance – shooting in RAW will help you, especially if you take a grey card reading.

Regards
Duncan

Comment on New kit! by Kim Roberts

Kim Roberts — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 12:24:03 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Duncan. I like your style. …but I have to say that you’ve left me slightly depressed.
Wow! I just checked the price of the Nikon. I think I’ll just have to make do with what I have. To be honest I got the Minolta D7 on Ebay because my Sony A300 couldn’t hack it at all – not even fitted with an old Nikon f1.4

Here’s the best I can do with the Minolta (bless it);
http://www.sockology.co.uk/motesquash/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=category&id=40&Itemid=99

Keep up the exeptionally good work.

Regards,
Kim

Comment on New kit! by Duncan

Duncan — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:09:44 +0000

Hi Kim
I fear that it is probably your camera that is not so good at high ISOs. I tried even my Nikon D3X with f/2.8 lenses and found the noise so high that the images were unusable. I ended up using a Nikon D3S with 50mm & 85mm f/1.4 lenses and a 200 f/2.0 lens. The D3S has superb high ISO capabilities.
1/125 is far too slow a shutter speed for squash action shots – I would rarely drop below 1/800, and this just further compounds the noise issue since you would need even higher ISO.
The sad fact is that squash is a nightmare to shoot and you really do need the right kit to do the job properly. Having said that, next week I shall probably see a stunning squash pic on the front cover of Sports Illustrated that was taken by a skilled photographer using a pin hole camera! There are a lot of people who are better photographers than I!
Good luck with your endeavours!
Regards
Duncan

Comment on New kit! by kim roberts

kim roberts — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:08:47 +0000

I’ve been doing some photography at the Mote squash club in Kent.
I don’t know where I’m going wrong but pics tend to be pretty noisy. Typically I’m shooting from behind the glassback at ISO800, 125th and f2.4. I might get 20% usable pictures from this. Maybe it helps to have darker backgrounds of a show court? Maybe it’s because my Dynax D7 Minolta isn’t quite up to it on the low light front. Any tips would be most welcome, thanks.

Comment on New kit! by Duncan

Duncan — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:49:36 +0000

Hi Antonella
Checked out your site – nice pics!
To be honest I have not really used my new f/1.4 lenses in anger yet.

I did hire both last September to shoot the ROWE Squash Grand Prix (I was Official Photographer see http://www.duncangrove.com/rowe-british-squash-grand-prix-images-2010 ). Whilst I know that the 50mm has a stellar reputation, I definitely found the 85mm to be the sharper of the two. When reviewing the images, a warm glow came over when they switched to ones taken with the 85mm to ones taken with the 50mm.

These lenses are not really primarily designed for indoor sports but they are remarkably effective for squash. (If you check out the photos be gentle in your judgement – they were all shot through the thick glass walls of the squash court and lighting was horrible.) I also used the 200mm f/2.0 – amnother fine lens that just about has the edge over my normal 70-200 VRII.

I would recommend that you consider hiring an 85mm for yourself for a few days – it’s the best way to evaluate and you can often recover your hire fee if you eventually buy.

Regards
Duncan

Comment on New kit! by Antonella Muscat

Antonella Muscat — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:11:46 +0000

Good choice! I have been using the 50mm 1.4 for more than a year and a half and it is my main workhorse! Just wondering how the 50 and 85 compare in terms of sharpness…

Comment on Duncan Grove awarded Fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society! by Duncan

Duncan — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:19:53 +0000

Thanks Bartosz – kind of you to take the trouble to comment!

Comment on Duncan Grove awarded Fellowship of The Royal Photographic Society! by Bartosz Morawiec

Bartosz Morawiec — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 00:40:20 +0000

Duncan, that’s a very serious stuff Congratulations !! I do enjoy your photos very very much. Keep it that way next year !!

All the best