When I posted the article with tips and advice for second-shooters, it generated a lot of conversation in the comments. I want to follow it up with a related article on how to improve your technique as a photographer. It is general advice for any photographer. And it is especially pertinent if you're a second photographer / 2nd shooter.
Camera technique can be distilled into a few elements:
- composition & framing, including lens choice
- timing of the photograph, ie that moment
- choice of aperture (for depth of field)
- choice Read more inside...
photography: how good / sharp do your lenses need to be?
Olena, who I photographed during a recent personal photography workshop in New York.
camera settings: 1/320 @ f/3.5 @ 800 ISO (available light)
I was trying out the new Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 VC (B&H) for the images I shot during this workshop. (It comes in a Canon version too.) It appears to be a fantastic lens. Build quality is good. The feel of it is good. The zoom ring has a nice throw. And it features stabilization! Nice touch.
However, shooting other images at wide open aperture, I wasn't sure I was happy Read more inside...
What photo gear had a fundamental impact on your photography?
In tracing my progress as a photographer, I can see how the things I learned from other photographers really helped me - whether through magazines, books, workshops and presentations. Sometimes it's a dramatic impact; sometimes it's just an incremental change; but it is there. And all this has a ripple effect on how I approach photography. Accumulated knowledge, coupled with experience.
In the same way, some photography equipment also had a huge influence on how my style and technique developed.
For example, getting Read more inside...
There are numerous tips and ideas in photography that helped me improve as a photographer over the years. This came via magazines and books and other photographers. Many sources.
One of the best tips that helped me develop a style over time - when using a zoom lens, zoom to the longest focal length, and then frame your shot by walking forward or back, to where you have the composition that you want.
Doing so will result in the most compression in the image, helping to isolate my subject against an out-of-focus background. (Of course, using a long lens with Read more inside...
One of the most interesting stories unfolding in photography in recent years, was the accidental discovery of an incredible body of work by an unknown photographer, Vivian Maier. Incredible in terms of quality and the sheer volume of photographs. If you're not familiar with the backstory - in 2007, John Maloof, a real estate agent in Chicago, who was working on a project documenting the one neighborhood in Chicago, discovered and bought a vast collection of negatives and prints of a completely unknown photographer, Vivian Maier.
What makes Read more inside...
review: Fuji X100 camera - photo shoot with a model
First of all, for those who haven't heard of the Fuji X100 (affiliate) yet, it is a beautiful retro-looking rangefinder-mimicking 12 megapixel digital point & shoot camera (with a fixed 35mm equivalent f2.0 lens), that gives remarkable image quality. That about sums it up.
For all those reasons, quite a buzz developed around this camera. Quite unlike anything since ... oh, the Leica X1. Or the Olympus Pen EP-2. Or the Sony NEX-5. There was greater excitement building up around the Fuji X100 though than other cameras, Read more inside...
An interesting comment came up in the article on choice of lenses for wedding photography. The observation was that the photographer, Lou, felt like he was the proverbial bull in a china shop when he carried two cameras over his shoulder. With the lenses protruding on either side, it was tough going through doorways without knocking something.
There are numerous camera strap solutions available on the market - rapid straps and holster systems. Most of them work well. I still like the old-fashioned camera strap on the camera. One thing I Read more inside...
In teaching workshops on flash photography, I frequently encounter newer photographers who are overwhelmed by flash photography. Overwhelmed to the extent that they fear their flash, and would rather not deal with flash photography at all. Instead, they adopt the idea that they will only specialize in available light photography. Now, that kind of thinking is an artistic dead-end. As a photographer that aspires to truly being creative, you need to understand light, regardless of how it is supplied to us.
I do feel that flash photography is one of those Read more inside...
A question that popped up in my web stats was interestingly phrased: Do natural light photographers always use fill flash? The question curiously implies that you might not find natural light which is perfect. However, as photographers, that is something we're constantly searching for: perfect light. It is out there, somewhere. So, resisting the temptation to just answer with a cheeky "no", let's consider an example of when you would not want or need fill-flash.
The thing with natural light, is that you have to look at it. You have to look at Read more inside...
I noticed that search engine query come up in my web-stats - 'which metering mode for outdoor photos'. So it might be a good idea to answer it specifically. Which metering mode should you use for outdoor photography? Or for that matter any kind of photography?
The basic approach is quite simple: Since I'm using manual exposure mode nearly exclusively, no matter which route I take to get to a specific shutter speed / aperture / ISO combination ... I would be getting the exact same exposure regardless of which metering mode was used.
In this Read more inside...
