Barry and Trish - Wedding Photo Shoot at UCC and Cork city /  by Jan

Is this one of the most unique weddings I’ve photographed yet? I think it might be!

The couple: Barry and Trish.

The briefing: “We aren’t doing a traditional wedding, we want this to be a bit different.” I scribble down, “Not a wedding” in my notepad.

The location for the (not a) wedding photography: Not just one location, not two, not even three. But basically everywhere in Cork city.

Pre-Wedding Pampering at Tom Winter’s Barbers

This wedding day already started off uniquely with a visit to Tom Winters Barbers on North Main Street, which is incidentally my first of the three favourite moments of this wedding day.

“ And to finish it off, a little drop of expensive whiskey. What a way to start your wedding day!”

The morning of a wedding can often be very stressful as anxiety and nerves fill the body. I know, I have been there myself! So is there a better way than getting pampered at this special barber beforehand? After all, this isn’t a usual barbershop, here we have warm towels wrapped around your face, a steam machine, even light massages to complete the whole pampering package and more. I was getting jealous just watching! And to finish it off, a little drop of expensive whiskey. What a way to start your wedding day!

This is also the first time I’ve ever photographed in a barbershop. Another location to add to my growing list. And I must say, the barbershop made for some great photos too.

Now, Barry isn’t getting ready for his actual wedding day, more like a wedding celebration. Because Barry and Trish actually eloped the week before in Iceland. I was contemplating getting eloped too, but my wife didn’t allow it! Haha! So for me, this is another of my favourite parts of this wedding. That they went ahead with getting eloped and resisted the pressures of having a local wedding.

Cork Wedding Photography

Remaining in Cork for the wedding photos, we had the luck of having the brother-in-law chauffeur us around the city, to all the spots in Cork that meant something special to Barry and Trish. So we ended up with these beautiful wedding photographs all over Cork, with a sneaky set of drinks at Le Chateau.

Google 5 Star review from Trish

We booked Jannik of Save The Journey as our wedding photographer in Cork and I simply could not recommend him highly enough.

From our first communication he just came across as a lovely guy and nothing was too much bother for him... From organising canvas prints for us to taking gorgeous photos on the day to sending the photos on really quickly afterwards.
Overall it was a really lovely experience working with Jannik and excellent value too compared to your "normal" wedding photography charges.

Thank you so much Jannik... you have a great career ahead of you in photography.

Sneaky Drink at Le Chateau

Photobombing

In a moment of madness, the two photobombed this group who were being photographed for the newspaper. Guess who ended up in the newspaper themselves?

Wedding Couple Shoot at The Electric on Grand Parade

And finally, we conclude with my third favourite moment of this wedding day. A simple gathering of all friends and family. I put this down as one of my favourite moments for the exact reason I was happy I didn’t end up eloping with my wife. It would have been such a shame to not be able to share that special day with all your friends and family. The wedding couple did it perfectly, get eloped in an intimate ceremony and have an unforgettable trip, come back home and share your big day with a gathering in this lovely event room at the River Lee Hotel. Perfect. A string quartet during the day, and a DJ for the night. A bar with a fantastic selection of cocktails, amazing food, plenty of room to dance and all your closest people around you. And of course, me as their wedding/event photographer.

Oh, and scattered around the room were large, canvas prints with the photos from Iceland, to share their elopement.

What a treat this day was to photograph! So many locations, so many people, so much excitement and happiness. Congratulations!

Enjoy browsing these wedding photos, but also have a look at this outdoor wedding at the Castlemartyr Hotel for a more traditional wedding.

And remember, besides professional wedding photography, I also photograph the following:

• Couples Photography in Cork

• Newborn Baby Photography in Cork

• and more!

Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 Super Wide Heliar III Aspherical Sony FE Review /  by Jan

I have a lot of love for compact, super wide angle lenses. A lot of love!

When I was still photographing with the Fujifilm system, one of the first lenses I bought for it was the Samyang 12m f2.0 (review here). Except for the weird distortion and the plasticky feel of the lens, I loved everything else about it. It was pretty compact for being the lens it was, and on top of that; it was super affordable, almost cheap. So I had no qualms throwing it around, really closely to the action. Like I did with the basketball game here. Yet, it could still hold up really well for professional work, like photographing for real estate agents (photos and review here).

At the end of last year I decided to move to the Sony eco-system. I got a great deal on an A7 III with the Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 DG DN. My priority then was to find the perfect 35mm lens for me. And I did. Eventually. And then a ±50mm.

I was really happy with those three lenses, and then I realized, there aren’t really any lenses directly equivalent to the Samyang 12mm f2.0 in the Sony system. Sure, there is the Samyang 18mm f2.8, but personally, I don’t find the image quality on par with the 12mm, and the weirdly coloured vignetting really turned me off. Distortion was also poor.

Add to that, that the quality control of Samyang’s autofocus lenses seems to be an absolute mess as well, which is such a shame because I have absolutely loved their manual focus lenses on the Fujifilm system (especially the Samyang 21mm f1.4 and the Samyang 35mm f1.2 - reviews here and here). Not just that, but their other autofocus lenses, like the Samyang 75mm f1.8, the 85mm f1.4 mkI (not so much the mkII) and the 50mm f1.4 mkII all produce absolutely beautiful images. Living in Cork though, a very small city in Ireland, we don’t have access to any of the large photo stores, so I’m always stuck just buying lenses of the internet based on reviews. The returns process can then turn into a real mess, really quickly, and it’s difficult to judge how well these Samyang AF lenses are built. Will it die on me or cause freezing issues with my camera at the pinnacle of the wedding shoot; the first kiss? I’ll give them a try at some stage, but for now I’ll stick with the Sony, Sigma and Zeiss lenses. They’ll be reliable for sure.

I have always had a soft spot for Voigtlander. I think they produce some amazing lenses, and wished they would start making some autofocus lenses too.

I came across their Voigtlander 15mm f4.5 III Heliar lens one day. Checked out some photos online, and man, this is one hell of a lens! The build quality is impeccable, the image quality is fantastic and it’s just a really nice looking lens. That’s what really stood out to me actually, was just how beautiful the lens looks. I love the focus rings, with the large cut outs for a nice grip. So much better than using rubber, especially the rubber that Zeiss uses on their Batis line up! And it gives the lens that timeless and classic look.

The built-in hood is so classy looking too. Never mind practical. The font is so clean. And the de-clicking of the aperture, it is a feature I will never use, however, I can appreciate how well this system has been integrated into the lens. Simply push the ring underneath the aperture ring towards the lens hood and twist it 180 degrees, till the yellow marker is on the front side, instead of the white dot. That’s it. Simple as.

De-clicking aperture ring

“Simply push the ring underneath the aperture ring towards the lens hood and twist it 180 degrees, till the yellow marker is on the front side, instead of the white dot.”

Distortion

The one thing, that really bothered me about the Samyang 12mm was the distortion. In portrait and action shots, it was fine, but for architectural work, it was really annoying. I’ve seen the distortion described online as a “moustache style”. If that’s really true, it would make a lot of sense, because I was never really able to fix it in post in a way that I was 100% satisfied with.

Which is why I was delighted to read that this Voigtlander has no distortion at all! I was very surprised by that. Much less so when I imported it into Lightroom, applied the lens correction and it did indeed correct for distortion. Ok, it’s only a tiny little bit, and it’s impressively well corrected before digital corrections. But finally I didn’t have to mess around with the manual distortion corrector in Lightroom! So a big thumbs up from me on this point!

Vignetting

What is odd though, and I can’t find an exact explanation on why this is, but for some reason this seems to be the only lens in the world where stopping down the aperture has absolutely no impact on the vignetting. It will vignette just as much wide open at f4.5 as it does full closed at f22, and everywhere in-between. Not a big issue, just strange. It’s always nice to have the option of minimized vignetting for certain shots, but obviously, Lightroom exists.

Image Quality

What I really like about this lens is that optically, it fits in perfectly with my two favourite lenses; the Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 and the Sony Zeiss 55mm f1.8. The colours, the contrast, micro-contrast, sharpness, etc. This is a beautiful trio to use together. Whereas, in comparison, photos taken with my Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 stick out like a sore thumb. Although any of the current zooms would. I’d say the Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 G2 would probably come the closest though. But regarding the image quality, it’s all thumbs up from my end.

Also, the lack of CA is a dream! Especially compared to the above mentioned Zeiss lenses.

Miscellaneous Positives

The compact size is great, and compared to the manual focus Samyang lenses I have used before on the Fujifilm bodies, this lens has electronic connections. It’s a minor thing, and I would definitely be able to identify this Voigtlander lens in Lightroom library just by being such an extreme wide-angle. But just having the actual EXIF info is such a nice, little benefit and makes for easy digital corrections.

Quite a bulbous front element, but it easily fits filters.

Miscellaneous Negatives

Now this is a very personal negative. I don’t know how many people will share this complaint with me. What I don’t like about this lens is that it is difficult to focus when using it as a ‘throw around lens’.

The Samyang 12mm was so great at f5.6 because everything was in focus. The depth-of-field was so large. Due also to the APS-C sensor. So I’d just chuck a flash on the camera, set the focus at about a meter, and that was it. The (supposedly) purposefully stiff focus ring on this lens ensured a set focus point even after having a few drinks and dance or two.

By moving up in sensor size and focal length, the depth-of-field is narrower and the infinity point is at a greater distance. The latter is a topic that is rarely brought up in depth-of-field conversions across different sensor sizes. Yeah an Olympus 25mm f1.2 is roughly equivalent to a Sony 50mm f2.5 if you have your subject 80cm away. But what about 3m? With the Olympus you’ll already have maxed out your focus distance and hit infinity so there’s no way of blurring the background anymore. The Sony would still have a little bit in it.

With the Voigtlander, it’s the same issue just in reverse. At night or in dark situations, for me, it’s just not as easy and fun as the Samyang 12mm was. Suddenly I have to pay attention. The photos wouldn’t be massively out of focus, but enough to annoy me.

I’ve tried stopping the lens down to f8-11. It helped, but didn’t seem to cure the issue. The side-effect of that also, is that you need to power up the flash a lot more, and you end up blinding all of your friends.

I also found it to be a little bit too wide for me, didn’t think there would be such a difference in angle-of-view between an 18mm and a 15mm. I really wish this was the lens for me and it really could have been. After owning it for about 6-9 months, I have decided to sell it (if I can). For now the wide end of my zoom, will do me fine and if I need a super-wide angle again, I will maybe opt for the Tamron 17-28mm f2.8 or the Zeiss Batis 18mm f2.8.

Verdict

If you do enjoy this focal length though, I’d 100% recommend getting this lens! But I’m such a Voigtlander and Zeiss fanboy, so maybe don’t take me too seriously.

Four Brothers - Family Portrait Photo Shoot /  by Jan

I think I’ve set a record for a family shoot with the tallest average. But seriously, look at these brothers, aren’t they just an adorable bunch?

This was a very short notice family portrait shoot, since the oldest brother, just 16 years old was heading to Latvia to play basketball for the national team. So the mom (who’s pictured in photos below and coming in at a way shorter height!) decided to get these family photos while they’re all still together.

I decided to go to my favourite spot for family portraits; Fitzgerald’s. It’s just a perfect spot for these portrait photo shoots! There are a load of different backgrounds in a small area, it’s central in the city and easy to get to, plus, everyone knows where it is!

I have been so blessed this year with amazing weather as well. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been with sunshine! So we used that to our advantage and got these lovely, sunny family shots!

And for being teenagers, man were they easy to deal with and up for anything. I usually get on really well with teenagers and kids, but these guys were just great. I loved they’re little interactions in the photos, especially with the youngest brother. It’s moments like these that make me wish I had one or several brothers!

After some posed photos, I thought it would be a good time to head to the playground and get some action shots! They’re always nice photos to get and the prospect of some fun later on, makes the posed shots go by easier for some reason.

I’m so happy how well these family photos came out. Being faced with having to photograph three teenagers and a child, you never know how things are going to turn out, but this shoot could literally not have gone any better!

If you’d like to book a portrait photo shoot for your family, contact me here for availability.

And remember, besides family portrait photography, I also photograph the following:

• Couples Photography in Cork

• Newborn Baby Photography in Cork

• Wedding Photography in Cork

• and more!