Category: How To Articles

Articles on photographic techniques, both with camera and in the digital darkroom

Learning to Use Your Camera

Grand Canyon North Rim

A good friend of mine who conducts workshops tells the story of one of his attendees who showed up with a top-of-the-line camera.  He proceeded to set everything on automatic – exposure, focus, white balance, everything.  When my friend questioned this, suggesting he at least use aperture priority, the person said that he bought the best camera so that the camera could make all the decisions.  He was under the false impression that a great camera would automatically take great pictures.  And, apparently he didn’t want  to have to think about all that stuff that we think about when we’re out shooting.

In my own workshops I notice that some attendees often lack the basic knowledge of the workings of their cameras.  I recall a photographer in the dark passages of Antelope Canyon asking anyone if they knew how to get the camera to take exposures longer than 30 seconds.  It’s a little late to be trying to figure that out when it’s so dark you can barely see your camera.  Or when I talk to people about exposure compensation or bracketing it’s a bit surprising how often they don’t know how to do that.

A great camera is like a great musical instrument or a great golf club.  Having one doesn’t make you a great photographer no more than a great golf club makes you a great golfer.  But, just like the right golf club can imporive the game of a competent golfer,  a great camera in the hands of an accomplished photographer extends the photographer’s range of expression.

A lot of photographers get carried away with their equipment.  They buy the best of this and the best of that.  But not always to they get their money’s worth; that is, they don’t use their equipment to the fullest.

That’s why it’s a good idea to include workshops and other training opportunities in your photography budget.  A quality camera without the knowledge to use it will not produce the images it is capable of creating.  And a workshop is more than being taken to beautiful places.  It is an excellent opportunity to learn to exploit the great features built into your camera.

Workshops are also an excellent opportunity to expand and stretch your creativity.  With an emphasis on composition, light, personal expression and more,  workshops can challenge you to focus on the way you see the world and communicate it to others.

Click here for some workshops to consider.

Click here to see more of my work.

Click here to join me on Facebook.

(736)

Digital Camera Program Modes

Photography Tips – Your Digital Camera’s Program Modes

 

Modern digital cameras are in reality complex computers.  They have memories, processors, input and output devices.  And, like computers, their capabilities (read ‘processing power’) doubles every 18 months to 2 years. 

One of the advantages of all this progress is the program modes that are available.  In this photography tips article we’re going to take a look at some of these modes and get an idea of what they can do for us.

Often the program functions are accessed via a dial on the computer.  In other cameras they are accessed from the menu.  Or, some cameras use a combination of both.  Your camera manual will spell this out for you.

The modes are divided into three broad categories – automatic, semi-automatic and manual.  Let’s look at each beginning with Automatic. 

Continue reading “Digital Camera Program Modes”

(1271)

180 or 360 ppi?

I print my fine art prints with Image Print, an excellent RIP.  And I print on an Epson 4800.  Image Print gives you the option of printing at 180 or 360 ppi.  I’ve printed a lot of great looking, rather large photographs at 180 ppi.  A lot of my friends are shocked.  They say I’m compromising the quality of the print.  But no matter how close I scrutinize the prints I really can’t see any difference.

Enter Genuine Fractals.  Genuine Fractals really objects if you try to resize an image to 180 ppi.  The smallest it is comfortable going is 240.  To get it to accept 180 ppi I have to fake it out. 

But the fact that it defaults ot 240 raises all sorts of questions.  What if I resize at 240 ppi and print at 180 or 360?  For that matter, is there a difference between 180 and 360.  So the other day I was printing some 16X24 images and decided it was time to finally ran a test. 

Continue reading “180 or 360 ppi?”

(1338)

A Ten-Step Program for Grad ND Filters

I have a couple of Lee graduated neutral density filters in my camera bag.  I don’t use them very much because I’m kind of an HDR guy.  But the past couple of mornings we’ve had some very clear sunrises and given the location of our home in the Southern California foothills this turned out to be a good opportunity to play around with my grad ND filters.

I discovered a few very interesting things.  I’m just going to provide a checklist here without any illustrations.  Hopefully it will make sense.

Continue reading “A Ten-Step Program for Grad ND Filters”

(2330)

Sharpening

Happy New Year!  This is the first post for 2009.

I get a lot of questions about sharpening so I thought I’d share with you the way I do it.  Let’s begin with the question…,

Continue reading “Sharpening”

(853)

The Photoshop Two-Step

I have a good friend who is a very fine photographer who hates Photoshop.  Not me.  I love it and will spend days and weeks on a single image.  But my friend hates Photoshop and wants to get done with it as quickly as possible.

So I showed him a simple two-step approach to Photoshop that gets you a long ways toward a great looking photograph.  And I’d like to share it with you now.

Continue reading “The Photoshop Two-Step”

(1073)