You are currently browsing the archives for December, 2010.
Here is an image of a snake that I took on Orcas Island in Washington.
Snake Eyes
The shot was taken with a D300 and a 105 f2.8 macro lens. The exposure was 1/60 of a second at f4.8 and an ISO of 200.
Please feel free to use the form below to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
I hope you are enjoying the day with those you care about.
This picture was taken last year in Riverside, CA at the Mission Inn.
Mission Lights
The image was taken with a Nikon D300 and a 70-200 f2.8 lens. The exposure was for 1/30 of a second at f2.8 and an ISO of 1600.
Please feel free to use the form below to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
An oak tree in the morning fog in Atascadero, CA.
Foggy Oak
Taken and processed with the PhotoForge app on my iPhone.
Please use the form below to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Still out of town visiting family.
Here is one of my mom’s favorite wall sculptures.
Circles on the Wall
The image was taken with my iPhone and post processing was also done on my phone with Photogene.
Please feel free to use the form below to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
As are most of you, I am enjoying the holidays with my family, so I will be posting mostly images until after the new year. Enjoy.
With SoCal getting over a very wet six days, here is an image of a water drop hitting the water.
Water Drop
The picture was taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 105 f2.8 macro. The exposure was 1/250 of a second at f16 and an ISO of 200.
Please feel free to use the form below and let me know what you think.
This week’s photo is from Mission San Antonio de Padua in central California.
I liked the pattern and some of the and texture of the roof.
Mission Roof Tiles
The picture was taken with a Nikon D300 and a 70-200 f2.8 at 200mm. The exposure was 1/1250 at f8 and an ISO of 200.
Please use the form below and let me know what you think.
Here are the posts and sites that I found this week that I think you as a photographer should read. Not all of them are always related to photography, but they are worth looking at and will probably make you think.
POSTS
Photography and the Law – A great synopsis of the legal rights of photographing in public.
Copyright Photoshop Action for Photographers – How to easily add IPTC information and prepare images for submission to the copyright office.
A Downloadable Flier for Confronted Photographers – Another great resource from Bert P. Krages II
45 Free Photoshop Actions – Some good. Some bad. All at Vandelay Design
Your Photographic Rights Explained – A well written, easily understood explanation of photographers’ rights.
SITES
Social Media Examiner – A great site for understanding and using social media.
Michael Frye – A good nature/landscape site with good images and information.
Outdoor Photo Gear – This is a fairly new online store that sells good photo equipment for outdoor shooters.
Pro Nature Photographer – The business of outdoor and nature photography.
Life - Online home of Life magazine with some great images from the past and present.
Please take a moment and take the poll below.
Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think.
The exposure is controlled by three important settings on your camera. Shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.
The first two can affect the feel and focus of your image. Slow the shutter speed down to give the feeling of movement. Speed it up to freeze the action. Open your aperture up and create a shallow depth of field causing the subject to be the only thing in focus, thus drawing the eye of the viewer toward it.
Shot at a slower shutter speed allows the motion of this actor to be blurred as he does his flip.
By using a large aperture, the singer is in focus and the background is slightly blurred.
Shutter speed and aperture have a huge influence of the artistic side of the image, but ISO is the setting that can make or break the picture. It controls the quality of the image and, when used right, can allow the photographer to use the other two settings to match the image to their vision.
Setting your camera to a low ISO, like 200 on Nikons or 100 on Canons, allows the highest image quality available from the camera, but it limits the sensitivity of the sensor. This can make the fast shutter speeds or small apertures that a photographer is looking for in some situations, hard to achieve. Especially high shutter speeds.
Remember, you should be using at least the reciprocal of your lens length. So if I’m shooting with a 150 mm lens, I should be using at least a shutter speed of 1/150 of a second in order to not introduce any camera shake into the image.
I was in a high school theater to shoot the images used in this post. The stage, even when under full light, was dark. As a result I had to use a very large aperture (usually 2.8) and a low shutter speed for the lens I was using (70-200), but by raising the ISO from my normal 200 to 1600, I was able to raise the shutter speed up to a point that helped eliminate camera shake and get most of the shots I wanted.
The trade-off? High ISO settings can introduce a lot of noise into an image. If you know the limitations of your camera, you can reduce the affect of the noise in your images. My Nikon D300 produces good images up to ISO 1600, so I was able to set the ISO at 1600 and still get usable images.
At this size. the image still looks good even at ISO 1600
You can see in the image above that the higher ISO setting doesn’t affect the quality that much, but if you click on it, you will be able to see a larger version and how the noise is beginning to affect overall quality of the picture. But even then, it isn’t that bad yet.
Don’t be afraid to raise your ISO to get the image you are trying to capture, but be aware of the possible affects it is going to have on your pictures. It is one of the tools we have as photographers and if we know how to use it, changing ISO can help.
You can read more about ISO settings at The Digital Photography School and The Digital SLR Guide websites.
Please feel free to leave comment and tell me what you think.
I listen to a lot of podcasts and I have noticed a trend recently; a lot of the “photography” podcasts are discussing using DSLRs as video cameras. I have a problem with that. Video is NOT photography. OK, you are using the same camera, but if you are a photographer, you are not shooting videos.
Photography is about capturing a moment in time. You can hold a photograph. You can pass a photograph to other people. A photograph can be looked at for a moment or for a long period of time. A photograph needs only one person to take it and you only have to worry about the light.
A video must have technology to view it. You can’t hold a video. You can’t give a video to someone else. A video forces you to watch it on its own time line. To properly produce a video you need a crew or at least two people. At least one to operate the camera and one for the sound. When producing a video, you MUST have good sound and good light.
I have nothing against video. I think with the iPad and other new technology, we are going to see more and more opportunities to use video, but video is not photography. Just because your camera can produce video doesn’t mean that you have to use it. Yes, I have been in situations where a short video would be nice, but I wouldn’t want to focus my attentions to it. And when I listen to a photography podcast, I want to listen to something about photography.
If you are going to produce a photography podcast, blog, book, or whatever, focus on photography. Not on video.