That’s right, profanity. It’s offensive to me when I show someone a photo and the first, or maybe second question is something like; “Is that photo heavily Photoshopped?” As if to tell me that the photo looks too nice and I could not have created it myself with only my camera. This photo is a good example and one that I got that question from more than one person about. The facts: Yes I edited the image in Photoshop. I edit all of my photos…
Neutral density filters limit the amount of light entering a camera lens in order to intentionally increase exposure length or to reduce light that is too bight to be controlled by reducing the aperture. This may, at first, seem strange since from the beginning of most people’s journey into photography, the emphasis is on getting the fastest shutter speed possible to help eliminate blurry photos. So why then would you ever want to intentionally extend the amount of time the shutter remains open? The answer…
I told myself that I had no reason to do it for years, The cost seemed prohibitive. None of my DX lenses were going to work on a full frame, so I would have to buy a new set of lenses. The pain wouldn’t stop there though; the lenses wouldn’t seem the same. I was accustomed to seeing 450mm worth of zoom from a 300mm lens. Using a lens on a crop sensor camera not only gives photographers 1.5X magnification, but it uses the sweet…
Here’s some news for many of you. Regardless of what manufacturers of point and shoot and phone cameras say, those devices are not as good as a DSLR with a good lens on it. As of the time of this post, point and shoots (this is meant to include smart phones) are inferior. All point and shoot cameras are inferior to high end cameras, especially DSLRs. They may produce images that people are willing to live with, but when compared to a good DSLR they…
If you have been studying photography for any period of time, then you have probably read tutorials, blogs, and other sources of opinions about how to take great photos. Somewhere in all of your reading have likely encountered claims that great photos come from great photographers and the equipment is far less important than the person holding it. How true is this? Well, people with no artistic vision will almost certainly take very few stunning photos no matter how awesome the camera they shoot with…
I’ve heard this so many times. I’ve also heard “You cheated” more times than I can count. Where do I hear these phrases you ask? No not on the playground or when I’m playing cards, but when people look at my photos and ask if I use Photoshop. Frankly, it starts to grate on my nerves sometimes. As if using Photoshop to adjust the exposure, saturation, and sharpness in my photos is cheating. Where do people get this silly attitude from? People tell me occasionally…
Adhering to the rules of composition is important. Well, usually. 99.9% of the time I try to place elements of my images according to the rule of thirds or golden ratio whenever possible. This frequently requires post shoot cropping since elements in the world are not aware of how important their placements are to my photography efforts. I like the idea of drawing a person’s focus to the intended point of interest in an image and doing so without conscious effort on the viewer’s part.…
