About

Hi. I'm Ian Weatherburn. I've been learning the pleasure and fine art of digital photography since 2005.

I discovered a great synergy between the creative side of digital photography and my analytical side on the computer which has always been a hobby of mine.

Digital photography is a wonderful medium that allows for instant feedback and rapid refinement of one's art and skill.

I am blessed to live in South Africa which is a fantastic venue for Wildlife and Birds which just so happen to be two of my biggest photographic passions.

My other passions in life are of course my wonderful wife Wendy who puts up with me wandering off into the bush now and again. And of course, my two beautiful daughters: Michelle and Laura-Ashley.

I shoot with Canon equipment only using a Canon-EOS 1D Mark II N mostly for my bird and wildlife photography with it's phenominal 8.5 frames per second. I also use a Canon-EOS 1Ds Mark III which is a magnificent 22Mp camera for portraiture and landscape photography. (For more details and a complete equipment list see below.)

Together with those cameras and a plethora of lenses and studio lighting paraphenalia I am equipped to meet most of your requirements for stock, portraiture, wedding or fine-art photography.

When I'm not pursuing these photographic interests; I'm spending time with my family or working Monday-Friday at my job as one of the Directors of a bespoke software development company - ITQ Business Solutions. This usually doesn't leave anywhere near enough time to go out and shoot or learn all that there is to learn about photography - but we try?

I hope you enjoy visiting my site, looking through the Galleries and reading the news-items and tutorials that I've put up for you.

Thanks for stopping by.
Ian.




Equipment List

I am often asked what equipment I use to shoot the photographs that you see in my gallery. Here is the complete list:


Camera's
∙ Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III - a 22 mega-pixel full-frame camera.
∙ Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II - a 16 mega-pixel full-frame camera.
∙ Canon EOS-1D Mark II N. An 8.2 mega-pixel camera with a 1.3x sensor crop that shoots at a remarkable 8.5 frames per second for up to 48 consecutive frames.
∙ Canon 20D - this was the first digital camera that I owned. It's still a great camera and really easy to use. It just lacks the finesse of the 1D range. It's an 8Mp camera with a 1.6x crop factor.

Lenses
∙ Canon 600mm f/4 L IS USM
∙ Canon 400mm f/2.8 L IS USM
∙ Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS USM
∙ Canon 17-40 f/4 L
∙ Canon 16-35 f/2.8 II L USM
∙ Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L USM
∙ Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro
∙ Canon 85mm f/1.8
∙ Canon 50mm f/1.4
∙ Canon 17-85 f/3.5-5.6 IS

Studio Lighting
∙ 4x Hensel 500J Strobes
∙ 22" Hensel Beauty Dish
∙ 2x Honeycombs
∙ 3x Reflectors
∙ 2x Umbrellas
∙ 2x Large Soft Box
∙ 2m Octabox
∙ 9" Hensel Reflector with Barn Doors and coloured gels
∙ 12" Hensel Reflector with Barn Doors and coloured gels
∙ Narrow Snoot Reflector
∙ Hensel Backlight Reflector
∙ 3x Hensel Alu-Stands II
∙ 2x Hensel Air-Cushioned Alu-Stands III
∙ Hair Light Boom
∙ 20cm Stand
∙ Hensel Radio Trigger
∙ Backdrop Stands and 5x various backdrop colours
∙ Sekonic L-358 Light Meter
∙ Whibal White Balance Reference Cards
∙ GretagMacbeth Colorchecker

Extenders
∙ Canon 1.4x II
∙ Canon 2x II

Extension Tubes
∙ Canon 12mm
∙ Canon 25mm

Flash
∙ Canon 580EX II Flash
∙ Canon 580EX Flash
∙ Canon MT-24EX
∙ Stofen Omni Bounce Flash Diffuser
∙ Sunpak Flash Diffuser
∙ Canon Speedlite Bracket SB-E2

Tripods
∙ 2x Wimberley Gimbal Tripod Head
∙ Wimberley F1-Telephoto Flash Bracket
∙ Gitzo G1348 MK2 Mountaineer Carbon Fiber Tripod
∙ Manfrotto 058B Geared Tripod
∙ Manfrotto 190PRO Tripod
∙ Manfrotto 499RC0 Ball Head
∙ Manfrotto Monopod
∙ Manfrotto 234RC Monopod Head
∙ Manfrotto Ball Levelling Mount
∙ Vehicle Bracket Gimbal Mount
∙ Panning Plate
∙ Beanbag

Filters
∙ Polarising Filters for all lenses
∙ 77mm ND2, ND4 and ND8
∙ 77mm GND2, GND4 and GND8
∙ 77mm Infra-Red Filter
∙ Canon 250D Close-Up Filter

Light Tents and Reflectors
∙ 2x differently sized Light Tents
∙ 5-in-1 Reflectors

Storage
∙ 2x 12GB Sandisk Extreme III CF Cards
∙ 2x 8GB Sandisk Exteme Ducati Edition CF Cards
∙ 4x 1GB Sandisk Extreme III CF Cards
∙ Epson P-5000 80GB Portable Hard Drive with 4" LCD Screen
∙ FlashTrax XT 40GB Portable Hard Drive

Bags
∙ Lowepro Lens Trekker 600 AW
∙ Lowepro Nature Trekker AW II
∙ Lowepro CompuTrekker AW
∙ Pelican PCS180 D'Exec Shoulder Bag

Image Processing Workstation
∙ Intel Core Two Duo 6700 @ 2.66GHZ
∙ 8GB RAM
∙ Windows Vista x64 Ultimate Edition
∙ 2x 160GB Western Digital Raptors (10,000 RPM) in RAID-0 Configuration
∙ 2x 400GB Seagate-NL Hard Drives
∙ 2x Seagate 750GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drives
∙ IoMega 250GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive
∙ Intel NAS Storage Device on a 1Gbps Network (1.3TB storage space from 4x 500GB HDD in Raid-5 Configuration)
∙ Drobo Storage Robot with 4x 1TB drives (2.7TB Storage space with redundant backup)
∙ Nvidia 8800 GTX 768MB Graphics Adapter
∙ 2x Apple Cinema 23" LCD Displays (1900x1200 @ 32-Bit)
∙ Wacom A5 Wide Tablet
∙ Microsoft Wireless Desktop 8000
∙ Spyder 3 Studio Monitor and Print Calibrator

Printer
∙ Epson Stylus Pro 3800 (9-ink Epson UltraChrome K3)

Other Accessories
∙ Canon WFT-E1 Wireless File Transmitter
∙ Canon CP-E4 Battery Pack for 580EX II
∙ Plamp
∙ Hakuba Spirit Level
∙ Canon OC-E3 Off Shoe Flash Cord
∙ Canon Remote Timer TC-80N3
∙ Canon Flash Bracket
∙ Better Beamer Flash Extender
∙ Artic Butterfly Cleaning Kit
∙ Lenspens etc
∙ Delkin Digital Sensor Scope
∙ Dust-Aid DSLR Sensor Cleaner
∙ 2x Grepe Card Safes
∙ 1x Additional Canon NP-E4 Battery for 1D Mark III Body
∙ 1x Additional Canon NP-E3 Batteries for the 1Ds Mark II and Mark II N bodies
∙ 16x Rechargeable GP 2700 Batteries
∙ PowerEX Eight Cell Battery Charger