Jonny Gios (@jonny.gios) is a photographer based in the Lake District, UK. He says that his claim to fame is that there is no one else with his name. Originally from Manchester, Gios moved to the Lake District where he's been pursuing landscape, wildlife, event and street photography seriously since 2020. "Since then," he says, "there hasn’t been a single week where I haven’t been out with my camera!” We saw this image he took during a special event in his area and wanted to learn more about how he captured it. Keep reading as he shares his story behind the shot in his own words.
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–Sony Alpha 7R V
–Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G
Photo by Jonny Gios. Sony Alpha 7R V. Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G. 1/6-sec., f/6.3, ISO 4000
Finding A Proper View
The event is called Lakeland Festival of Lights and it's primarily a fundraiser for local charities in the area. Hundreds of people get involved to create art on the mountain with light. This year the event was postponed and pushed back to August due to the bad weather in April. I've shot this event before and always had in mind to use my telephoto lens to get a good zoomed in shot of the people coming down with their lights on. I didn’t venture onto Catbells in Keswick where this was taken, but instead ventured to Isthmus Bay on Derwentwater to get the shot from a little further back looking across.
Pairing A High-Res Sony Alpha With A Sony Super Telephoto Zoom
I shot this with my Sony Alpha 7R V and Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G. I was able to get the shot due to the incredible image resolution of the Sony Alpha 7R V at 61mp. I had this on my sturdy Leofoto 365 Tripod with its Arca Swiss Bracket. I love my Sony 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G – not only is it great for aviation and wildlife, but also landscapes. There aren’t many places it doesn’t go with me now – what a lens!
Finding The Proper Exposure
Due to the nature of the path going up to Catbells and people coming down – there were multiple ways of shooting this shot. I opted for portrait orientation to get as much detail in as possible and the path coming down.
It was shot at 1/6-sec., f/6.3 and ISO 4000. The shot couldn’t be too long due to the many people moving around and walking down. It was also a challenge with the lighting as it had already gone dark and I needed to crank up the ISO to make it bright enough. The whole shoot was no more than 30 mins with different variations.
The Post-Production Process
I am thankful that I have a subscription to Adobe Lightroom - one of the first things I do is scan my sets once imported to see what works compositionally and mark them 5 stars. I then do my first rough edit to see what is possible with each one to bring the best out of the RAW file.
I then use LR Denoise facility which has been a game changer to bring back some of the detail that is lost with shooting at high ISO. I try to ensure the crop is balanced as a shoot and all distractions are removed or cropped out.
See more of Jonny Gios’ work on Instagram @jonny.gios.
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