Fergus Kennedy

I’ve been having a play with the new Canon 8-15mm f/4L USM fisheye lens.  Lots of fun and interesting perspectives to be had. It can be used on a full-frame body, like the 5D Mk II, where you can achieve anything from a circular fisheye to a 180 degree diagonal fisheye. Used on an APS-C (crop) body like the 7D, the lens will give you a 180 degree diagonal field of view at the wide end and a considerable zoom in on that at the 15mm end. I was shooting in and around Brighton- the shot on the left is Brighton Pavilion shot at dusk.There are a bunch more photos taken with the lens here including some BMX ramp action and skateboarding.

The current (nov/dec) Nat Geo Traveller has an Oman supplement with one of my pics on the cover. This is an image of the Wahiba Coast- a wild and remote area where the huge rolling dunes meet the Arabian Sea. Shot nearly 10 yrs ago on an EOS 3 and Fuji Velvia film.

I’ve recently returned from a family holiday in Mudeford, Dorset, U.K. We were pretty lucky with the weather, and as well as a few nice sunsets over the marshes I managed a few shots of the Egrets feeding in the muddy shallows whilst I was out walking the baby at sunrise. In the shot on the left, the Egret seems to be catching a large tadpole, although I’m not sure whether it really is that or a fish. I would have thought that the water there was too saline for tadpoles. See more of the new photos here.

I just got round to processing some images from a recent diving trip to the Northern Red Sea, with Alex Mustard and a bunch of other keen underwater snappers in the area round Sharm El-Sheikh. It was my first time diving in this area and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I didn’t do much still photography as I was mainly shooting video (3D this time, but more on that later!). But I managed a couple of dives with the Canon 7D in Nauticam housing. We spent 3 days diving the wreck of the Thistlegorm, a British armed freighter sunk by German bombers in 1941, which now lies in 30m of water, and is full of all sorts of interesting cargo, including trucks, motorbikes, rifles, ammunition, steam locomotives and armoured bren-gun carriers. The remainder of the week was spent exploring the reefs of Ras Mohammed and Tiran areas. You can see a web album from all photographers on the trip here, and a selection of my reef shots here

http://www.vimeo.com/21154275 Here is a short 3D timelapse video I shot in London and on the South coast of the UK. Best viewed in full screen mode & you’ll need the red and cyan anaglyph 3D glasses to view the 3D effect. Better still, if you have a 3D monitor or TV connected to your computer you can view the side by side version here.

The videos were created by shooting large numbers of still frames with two Canon 7D cameras, aligned on a tripod and synchronised with a split signal from a timer remote. The still frames were shot in raw and processed with lightroom and Gunter Wegner’s excellent lrtimelapse software, which allowed you to create ramped pans and zooms, and gradual changes in all settings eg. white-balance, exposure as the timelapse goes on. Finally, the 3D convergence and rendering was carried out with Tim Dashwood’s 3D Stereo Toolbox LE, a plugin for Final Cut Pro which is an excellent and relatively easy to use tool for creating 3D movies.

I’ll be adding more to the 3D timelapse library, so if you’re interested in this technique, check back soon.

I’ve just posted a new gallery of images from the Red Sea here. It was a great trip with Alex Tattersall of Nauticam UK, amongst other underwater photographers. More details to follow.

 A topical image for the day: I found this lucky formation of sea-urchins (Diadema setosum) whilst diving a dead coral patch off Sur, Oman last year.  The fish are cardinal fish.

http://www.vimeo.com/17859306 With a good weather forecast I got up early the other morning and headed down to the coast in the darkness to set up for a timelapse shot of the sunrise. At this particular spot the sunrise just peeps round the edge of the cliffs in the depths of winter. I was able to ascertain this from the comfort of home using the excellent TPE software (The Photographer’s Ephemeris). This tool for photographers lets you visualise the angles of sunrise, sunset, moonise and moonset in the context of the landscape on a google map/satellite image of your area of interest for any date of the year. I can see I’ll be using it a lot for planning landscape photography. The video shown is a series of 618 still images, taken with the Canon 5D Mark II with Canon 24-105mm f4 lens on a tripod and equipped with the TC 80N Timer Remote, set to take one image every two seconds. My settings were shutter speed 1 second, aperture f7.1 and I briefly stopped the series a couple of times to adjust the ISO as the light changed. Images were stacked into a movie with Quicktime 7 and graded and edited with Final Cut.

It’s all gone now, but at the end of last week we had a good foot of snow in Sussex, and a gloriously sunny day on Friday. Couldn’t resist getting out with the camera, so I headed for the chalk seacliffs at Seaford Head, where I could have a quick play on the snowboard and take a few landscape shots. Walking up and boarding down worked up a good sweat, which kept me warm while I snapped. For more of the photos look in UK gallery here

http://www.vimeo.com/14740173 Some video shots from a trip to Oman earlier in the year. I was shooting for a display at the new Visitors Centre at the Green Turtle nesting beach at Ras Al Jinz, on the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Surface video shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, and underwater with a Canon EOS 7D in Nauticam housing with a Tokina 10-17mm lens. The Green Turtles (Chelonia mydas) nest year round on beaches in the Ras Al Jinz area, but peak times are June-September. This species is classified as endangered and the nesting beaches in Oman are of global importance. Also shown in the video are some of the inhabitants of coral areas closer to Oman’s Capital, Muscat.

http://www.vimeo.com/13149714Here’s a very short video clip of a Basking Shark from the recent Cornwall trip. I was shooting stills mainly, but took the opportunity to record a short bit of video of one of these magnificent sharks swimming by. Canon 7D in a Nauticam housing with a Tokina 10-17mm lens.

It’s never easy getting out of bed at 2:45 in the morning, but for me, if anything will do it, the opportunity of swimming with Britain’s largest fish species is well up there. The Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus) can reach a length of over 12 metres (40 feet) and a weight of 19 tons.  These giants of the sea feed on plankton, and as a result can often be spotted feeding at the surface, particularly in the summer months, along the west coast of the British Isles.  I had previously spotted these sharks on several occasions from boats and once had a very fleeting underwater encounter, so for years I had be itching to get a proper close-up encounter, so when Alex Tattersall of Underwater Visions got in touch recently, I jumped at the chance. Read more »

I was recently lucky enough to spend a few days staying in a beach hut on Mudeford Spit, near Christchurch in the south of the U.K. As well as being a very chilled and relaxing place to stay, it is bordered by some fantastic wetlands, with marshes and reed beds harbouring a profusion of plant and animal life. Going for a quiet wander with a camera on a summer’s evening is a very rewarding experience. I managed to bring my tripod, but forget my tripod plate, so all the photos are taken handheld, exploiting the great low-light ability of the Canon 5D Mark II. I also used a graduated grey filter for most of the shots. The photo on the left was taken handheld at ISO 3200, in near complete darkness. I had to illuminate the top lcd on the camera in order to read the settings. Click here to see the rest of the photos.

 Well, with the weather so awful at the moment in the UK, it’s been difficult to get much motivation for outdoor photography. Getting desperate I was poking around in our front drive and noticed that the moss has sprouted sporophytes. These gave me an opportunity to play around with some macro photos, with the Canon 7D, 60mm macro lens and a couple of wirelessly triggered speedlites. Having read a bit more, it appears moss has a pretty interesting and bizarre lifecycle (if you’re into that sort of thing!). Click the links in the text to get more info from wikipedia. I’ve put more of the moss photos into the macro gallery.

There’s a new article by Doug Harman up on the Canon Professional Network website about shooting video with Digital SLR cameras like the 5D Mark II and the 7D . It features tips from Richard Walch, Richard Jobson and myself, and covers a wide range of subject matter and shooting styles. Check out the article here

The Canon ‘Exlploring EOS’ DVD is now available in camera shops throughout Europe. We shot it in and around Cape Town, South Africa late last year and it includes lots of tips on using the Canon EOS 500D, 50D and 7D. It features Nadine Kagi, a photography student as she travels around the Cape area, learning from various experts in different fields of photography. Paul Brehem gives tips on macro photography, Lambro Tsiliyiannis helps out with portrait photography, Duane Howard explores the landscape possibilities and I am featured in the Wildlife Photography section (plus that’s me on the cover!). It was a fantastic experience, the trailer can be seen here.

I’ve just posted a small selection of photographs taken whilst shooting the ‘Exploring EOS’ DVD for Canon Europe. The shots were all taken around Cape Town, South Africa. Some in Buffelsfontaine Game Park, some (the whales) around Hermanus, and others around the Cape Peninsula area. It’s a fantastic place to visit, and I’d love to go back with a bit more time to explore. Click here to have a look at the gallery.

http://www.vimeo.com/8670550 I’ve put together a short underwater film from the Red Sea. This includes some recent (November 2009) footage shot on the Canon 5D Mark II and some older footage from the Mark II and the Sony HC7. It’s a personal perspective on Red Sea diving. Stars of the show include Green Turtles, Dennis the Dugong, Spinner Dolphins and Oceanic Whitetip Sharks.

Well, all the snow we’ve been getting in the UK recently has a few advantages. Yesterday evening I was able to get out for a quick session on the snowboard on nearby Mount Caburn. It is unusual enough to get any snow down here, let alone enough to ride a board top to bottom. The sunshine was the icing on the cake. Thanks to my Dad, Finn for taking the photo.