Focussing On Photography

Name: Focussing On Photography
Address: 18 Truswell Road, Sheffield, S101WH, GB
Telephone: +447967921781

Home
United Kingdom
Sheffield
Focussing On Photography

Bespoke commercial, event and portrait photography. Official photographer at Hallam FC. Welcome to Focussing On Photography. My name is Antony Baker. Antony

I’m a creative, reliable and friendly commercial and portrait photographer in Sheffield. I also provide photography training to help you to get the best from your camera and to take control of your photography. As far my photography services go, everything I do starts with a free, no obligation chat so you can tell me how I can help you. Photography isn’t just about a photographer taking photograp

hs, it’s a collaboration. When you’re investing time and money it makes sense to have a shared understanding. I also sell greetings cards. These can be left blank for your own handwritten message or you can request that any message, text and/or logo be included. I sell prints and canvasses of my landscape photographs too. Do take a look through my website https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/ and if you like what you see please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.

10/02/2026

A busy afternoon at a very well attended Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry AGM at the Memorial Hall, Sheffield City Hall, last Thursday.

In addition to the formalities, the CEO gave details of the future direction and strategy developed with members and stakeholders.

The Chamber thanked its outgoing president and welcomed its incoming president after which the keynote speaker Niall Shamma, Chief Operating Officer of Warp Films talked about the twenty year journey from a garden shed in Sheffield to the Golden Globes and why Warp is, and will continue to be, based in Sheffield. Warp have just won a number of awards including Best Independent Production Company.

Special congratulations to the long service members in attendance receiving anniversary certificates.

My thanks to the Chamber team for their help in ensuring my afternoon went smoothly and to the team at the Memorial Hall for their help and hospitality on the day.

If you’d like me to photograph your event please get in touch.
There are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/events/

05/01/2026

Photography Basics 10 – Neutral Density Graduated (ND Grad) Filters

When you’re photographing landscapes or cityscapes where the sky is much brighter than the foreground you’ll either have an overexposed sky or an underexposed foreground (unless you take two images, one exposed for the sky, the other exposed for the foreground and blend them together in software).

However, the reason for this series on photography basics is to help you to take control of your photography and to use your knowledge to get the picture that you want without software. This also means that it’s relevant whether you use a digital camera, a film camera or both.

Using ND grads allows you to see the effect of the filter or filters (you can use more than one) on the final picture before you press the shutter button. There are two types – hard and soft, with the latter being more commonly used.

ND grad filters are rectangular pieces of plastic that are half dark and half clear. Hard ND grads are dark at the top and fully transparent at the bottom. They’re used when the horizon is a straight line such as in seascapes. On other occasions soft ND grads tend to be used. These are dark at the top but gradually become lighter until the plastic is fully transparent. Both types come in different strengths, so for example a three stop filter is darker than a one stop filter (see Photography Basics 5 for an explanation of what a stop is). A filter holder is attached to the front of the lens via an attachment ring which is screwed into the thread on the lens. The filter is placed in the holder and then you can look through the viewfinder (or on the back of your camera if it’s digital) and move the filter up or down to see the effect.

The first picture shows the component parts of the filter system.

The second shows how it looks on camera.

In picture three the foreground is exposed correctly but the sky is overexposed.

In the fourth the sky is exposed correctly but the foreground is underexposed.

The fifth picture shows how the use of a soft ND grad balances the exposure for both.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

10/12/2025

I’m delighted to have been designated as an Official Recommended Supplier at OEC Sheffield for the photography of business events and social occasions. My thanks to the team at the OEC. I look forward to continuing to work with you and developing our partnership.

01/12/2025

Photography Basics 9 – Why use a polarising filter?

These two pictures are identical except that the first was taken without a filter and the second was taken with a polarising filter.

Polarising filters

· reduce reflections from water (and glass and other shiny surfaces). You can’t replicate this in software

· increase colour saturation

Circular polarisers work by attaching the filter to the front of the lens and then rotating it either clockwise or anti clockwise to increase or decrease the effect of polarisation and you can see the effect as you do so. You do lose upto a couple of stops of light (so shutter speeds will be longer unless you change the aperture and/or ISO but you’d generally be working with a tripod anyway and if so that’s not an issue).

When you’re shooting waterfalls try starting with a shutter speed of ¼ second to get some movement in the water. Too fast and you freeze it, too slow and it looks milky (although I personally like that effect). It does also depend on the rate of flow so it’s worth experimenting.

Whatever the shutter speed, aim for an aperture of f11 or f16, manually focus a third of the way into the scene for front to back sharpness and use a low ISO for maximum image quality.

If you’d like learn more about this or any other aspect of photography please see my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

Antony

07/11/2025

Photography Basics 8 – White Balance. How To Balance Ambient Light With Flash

When you’re using flash indoors with the lights on the chances are that the available (or ambient) light will be warm. Most houses, restaurants etc tend to use this type of lighting because it’s more inviting than lighting which balanced for daylight (which is cooler).

When you’re using flash (which is balanced similar to daylight) in warm lit settings you have two (or more) different colour temperatures to consider. Bear in mind that you need to expose for the ambient light first and use the flash as a fill light. In this way you’re able to correctly expose the subject(s) and the background. If you rely on the flash to light the whole scene and don’t expose for the ambient light you run the risk of a dark or black background if the room is large or the flash isn’t powerful enough.

The first picture is a shot of a room as I saw it. The ambient lighting is very warm with a yellow cast.

In the second I used fill in flash with the white balance set to flash. As you can see the skin tones are too red, the white shirt has a slightly warm colour cast whilst the background appears slightly cooler.

In the third I used the same set up but this time I set the white balance to tungsten. This time the skin tones and shirt have a bluish colour cast and the background is less yellow which I what I’d expect as the tungsten setting gives a cooler colour temperature.

In the final picture I used a 0.5 CTO (Colour Temperature Orange) gel (they come in different strengths) on the flash and set the white balance to tungsten. Skin tones appear natural and the shirt appears white and this is what I wanted to achieve. The background appears cooler but that isn’t as important as skin tones and whites appearing as they should.

There’s usually a trade off when you’re trying to balance lights with different colour temperatures so you need to make a judgement on how you’d like the final shot to look. If you find that you have so many colour temperatures that you can’t get the look that you want then you can convert the picture to black and white which will solve the issue.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

31/10/2025

Photography Basics 7 – White Balance

When we are in different lighting situations (outdoors in the day or indoors with the lights on for example) we are generally able to distinguish colours (and white) fairly accurately.

Understanding white balance is important because camera sensors can’t do this and need to be set accordingly. I want to control white balance so I never use the auto white balance setting.

Photographers use the Kelvin Scale (K) which measures the different colour temperatures of light. These range from warm tones like candlelight and standard household indoor lighting to neutral tones (like the midday sun on a clear day) and cooler tones (such as a deep blue sky or shaded areas).

There are different white balance settings on cameras which you can use to set a suitable white balance. The symbols and settings measured in K can vary depending on the make of camera but essentially they all do the same job.

On my Canon cameras (together with the symbols used) these are:

Daylight (sun) 5200 K

Shade (house) 7000 K

Cloudy (cloud) 6000 K

Tungsten (lightbulb) 3200 K

White fluorescent (fluorescent light) 4000 K

Flash (lightning flash) 6000 K

Custom White Balance setting (a rectangle with 2 white triangles inside it)

Specific white balance settings are used for:

Accurate colours

Setting the correct white balance ensures that colours are rendered naturally, without an unwanted colour cast.

Creative control

By adjusting the white balance you can choose warm or cool tones for a specific mood or artistic effect.

Consistent results

Manually setting the white balance to the custom setting using a grey card helps achieve consistent colours across different photos, even when lighting conditions change.

The pictures below are all lit by one ceiling light and two table lamps all with standard (warm) household bulbs.

You can see how the white balance used in each picture affects the tones. (I used the flash setting without actually using flash just to show the tone of that setting).

I’ve also worn a white shirt which will hopefully help you to see how white balance settings work.

The most accurate setting is achieved by using a custom white balance using a grey card (available online or from photographic shops). You fill the frame with the grey card, take a picture and then set the custom white balance (see the instructions for your camera on how to do this).

As you can see, the tungsten white balance setting is the nearest to the custom setting, which is what would be expected when warm lighting is used in houses and restaurants etc.

Be aware that whilst phones and tablets generally show reasonably accurate colours, monitors of computers and laptops can be quite inaccurate unless they’re colour calibrated.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

Antony

08/10/2025

Photography Basics 6 - Exposure Compensation

The exposure meters used in cameras measure the amount of light reflected off the subject towards the camera. Digital cameras can have different modes, for example metering for the full scene, centre weighted (more emphasis on the central area), or spot metering (metering on a very small area). Most of the time the metering is pretty accurate but…

…reflective light meters are calibrated to middle grey (like pavements) and this means that in scenes with a lot of brightness (like shooting a snow scene or against a bright sky) or dark tones (like at night) the camera will render the whites or blacks as middle grey.

In these situations you can use your cameras exposure compensation feature which allows you to adjust your cameras meter reading by up to (usually) plus or minus three stops (see the previous post in the series for an explanation of what a stop is).

The first picture was taken on a white background with the camera in semi automatic mode (in this case, I set the shutter speed letting the camera select the aperture). The camera has metered for middle grey and the picture is under exposed.

In the second picture I decreased the shutter speed by two stops allowing more light to reach the camera sensor.

For the third picture using a black background the camera was in semi automatic mode (in this case, I set the aperture letting the camera select the shutter speed). Again the camera has metered for middle grey but this time the picture is over exposed.

In the fourth picture I increased the shutter speed by two stops to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor.

As a general rule white reflects light and can result in underexposure, black absorbs light and can result in overexposure.

However, this varies depending upon how much white or black is in the shot, how reflective it is (a matt black surface will absorb more light than a reflective black surface for example) and on the metering mode used so you may have to experiment to get the result that you’d like.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

01/09/2025

Photography Basics 5 - The Exposure Triangle

Aperture, shutter speed and ISO (covered in the previous three posts in the series) between them determine the exposure.

I’ve listed below some values of each.

Aperture values

f2 f2.8 f4 f5.6 f8 f11 f16

Shutter speed values

4 sec, 2 sec, 1 sec, ½ sec, ¼ sec, 1/8 sec, 1/15 sec, 1/30 sec, 1/60 sec, 1/125 sec, 1/250 sec

ISO

100 200 400 800 1600 3200 6400 12800 25600

Each value either doubles or halves the amount of light hitting the camera sensor than the value either side of it.

For example:

Changing the aperture from f2.8 to f4 halves the amount of light coming through the lens (yes, it’s counterintuitive, the smaller the number the more light through the lens).

Changing the shutter speed from 1/8 sec to 1/4 sec doubles the amount of light reaching the sensor.

Changing the ISO from 400 to 800 doubles the amount of light reaching the sensor.

Each of these steps individually is known as one STOP. So if you double the amount of light you increase the exposure by one stop, if you halve it you decrease the exposure by one stop.

This means that you can interchange these three sets of values to get the desired final effect. For example if you’re shooting sports you’ll usually need to keep your shutter speed high enough to freeze action (unless you want to show movement). If you want to draw your viewers attention to part of an image you’ll need a wide aperture and to focus on that part. If you’re shooting landscapes you’ll need a small aperture.

Having decided which value is most important you can make changes to one or both of the other two elements of the exposure triangle to achieve this.

Note that each of the three sets of values are sub divided into one third and two thirds of one stop enabling you to refine your chosen exposure.

The pictures show how the values of each can be changed although the final exposure (amount of light hitting the sensor) is the same.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

05/08/2025

Photography Basics 4 - ISO

ISO refers to the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor (or of the film if you’re using a film camera).

Increasing ISO increases noise in a picture which shows as unwanted imperfections particularly in solid blocks of colour in darker areas like pavement in shadow.

Have a look at the pictures below (you’ll see the differences more clearly on a monitor, especially if you zoom in).

They are all of the same scene at the same exposure. I’ve increased the ISO and used a faster shutter speed in each to achieve this. I’ve kept the aperture the same so the depth of field remains unchanged.

You’ll notice that as the ISO increases so does the noise and the pictures progressively degrade.

As a general rule use as low an ISO as you can (tripods for landscapes are invaluable even in good light).

That said, if you’re shooting sports or wildlife for example, don’t be afraid to increase the ISO. It’s far better to have a sharp shot with noise than a blurry one without.

There are, of course, noise reduction software packages and whilst these can be very useful just bear in mind that there is a trade off between noise reduction and retention of detail.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

07/07/2025

Photography Basics 3 - Depth of Field

Depth of field (DoF) refers to how much of a picture is in sharp focus in front of, and beyond, the part of the picture you’ve focussed on by changing the aperture setting of the lens. You can use it to guide your viewers eye to where you want them to look. It’s one of the three factors that determine the exposure of a picture (the others are shutter speed and ISO, the preceding and following posts respectively in this series).

There are three main factors to bear in mind about depth of field

A) The amount of light entering the lens (measured in f stops on your lens). For example f2.8 is a wide aperture so more light comes through the lens giving less depth of field, whereas f16 is a small aperture so less light comes through the lens giving more depth of field

B) The shorter the focal length of a lens the greater the depth of field appears to be at the same aperture. For example a 24mm lens at f8 will appear to have a greater depth of field than a 300mm lens at f8

C) Roughly one third of the picture will be in focus in front of the point of focus and two thirds will be in focus beyond the point of focus at any given aperture

Have a look at pictures 1 to 3 (you’ll see the differences more clearly if you view them on your monitor or rotate your phone to landscape).

You can also use a shallow depth of field to create depth to a picture (No. 4) by throwing the foreground and background out of focus.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

05/06/2025

Photography Basics 2 - Shutter Speed

Shutter speed refers to the amount of time that the sensor (or film) is exposed to light. It’s one of the three factors that determine the exposure of a picture (the others are aperture and ISO, more on these in the next posts in the series).

To avoid what’s called camera shake (a misnomer, it’s actually photographer shake), stand with your feet shoulder width apart, tuck your elbows into your body, hold your breath and squeeze, don’t press, the shutter button.

There’s a useful guide to the lowest shutter speed you can use to avoid camera shake – don’t use a slower speed than the reciprocal of the longest focal length of the lens you’re using. So if that’s 200 mm don’t go lower than 1/200 of a second. Or use a tripod.

Action shots need a faster shutter speed to freeze the subject, as in the footballers and the gannet below.

You can also use shutter speed creatively. See how the different shutter speeds used in the waterfall/trickle (we could do with more rain), freeze the flow or slow it down.

The final shot was taken late morning. It was a grey, overcast day with a breeze. I decided to use a tungsten white balance to cool the temperature and a neutral density filter to slow the shutter speed (more on these later in the series). It now looks like it was taken in the still, pre dawn.

If you’d like to know more about this and other aspects of photography there are more details on my website

https://focussingonphotography.co.uk/photography-training/

Address

18 Truswell Road
Sheffield
S101WH

Telephone

+447967921781

Website

http://www.focussingonphotography.co.uk/contact.html

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Focussing On Photography posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Featured

VixPhotography

Want your business to be the top-listed Photography Service in Sheffield?