Field of View Table with the horizontal, vertical and diagonal FOV.
There are times that it is handy to have a FOV Lens Chart, also called Angle of View charts. These charts tell you in degrees the angle of view for lenses used on cameras with different size digital sensors. Why might you need to know that information? I am glad you asked.
The Beatles, February 9, 1964.
60 years ago today I was watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was huge. I was in junior high school. I thought they were fun. My girlfriend thought they were fabulous. I quickly figured out that I should go along with her assessment.
12 Sunsets by Ciro Russo
I love this collage. It has gone viral. 12 photos of sunset from the same location, January through December. I found the site that says the photographer is Ciro Russo (he signed the collage twice), but gives no additional information about him. As nearly as I can tell, he is Italian, but I have been unable to find a web site with more details about this set of images.
“NT” on Facebook, October 25, 2020.
This all started when I learned that an older acquaintance on Facebook was being taken in by a fake account. He really believed he had a special friendship with a beautiful young woman half way across the country. I was not able to convince him he was being scammed until I showed him the photo and the account of the real person whose photo had been stolen to create the fake account. “But she is so nice,” he said. In his head he got it, but in his heart he still wanted to believe it was a real woman that really liked him.
Selina, Downtown Columbus Ohio. January 29, 2010.
Selina and I created this image 14 years ago this evening. Some models are a dream to work with and Selina is one of them, which is why we did more than one photo shoot. The windchill when I took this photo was 4°F. We scheduled this photo shoot weeks ahead of time and we knew it would be cold in January, but not THIS bone chillingly cold. I contacted her before she left home and asked if she wanted to re-schedule. She wanted to go ahead with the shoot despite the forecast and she drove up from Kentucky.
Snowy Owl looking for prey.
If there are cold enough temperatures and plenty of snow cover on the ground, the northern United States has a winter invasion of Snowy Owls. These are magnificent creatures and well worth your photographic time and attention. This series is filled with tips on how to find and photograph snowy owls.
Martin Luther King’s “Other America” speech should be as well known and well listened to as his other more famous speeches. People need to learn what life is like in the “other America” King describes in powerful and compelling words.
This is the audio (with still photos) of the entire, powerful, prophetic speech MLK made to a packed church in Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 April 1968, just a day before he was assassinated.
This is the final and famous highlight from the powerful, prophetic speech MLK made to a packed church in Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 April 1968, just a day before he was assassinated.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Today is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929. He was a Baptist minister and a prominent civil rights advocate. King was the youngest person to receive a Nobel Peace Prize when it awarded to him in 1964. He was assassinated April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
One of his most famous speeches was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial August 28, 1963. Often referred to as the “I have a dream” speech, it is one of the most significant and powerful speeches of the 20th century. A portion of the speech follows. Links to the full speech and an audio file are at the end of this post.
Martin Luther King, I have a dream, the full speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial August 28, 1963.
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States. This is a 5 minute highlight from the end of the speech which was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial August 28, 1963. A video of the whole 17 minute speech is here.
Some of the winter travel items I carry in the trunk of my car. This is the “kitchen” and “furnace”.
I grew up in Colorado where strange weather can strand you in any month of the year. Even though it is rare, I’ve seen blizzards in the Colorado high country in July. So I learned to carry some safety essentials when doing winter photography in remote locations. You never know when you might be stranded for several hours, a whole day, or longer, until the blizzard abates and someone can come find you. This is what I carry in my car when I hit the road in the winter and pretty much any time I am going to be in the High Rockies. I include a few winter travel tips, too.
Kristina in the Snow
The white snow in a winter scene can and often does fool a camera meter into underexposing a portrait, so here are the steps to take to get the right exposure. I throw in a few portrait suggestions too.
Mount Hunter from a Bush Plane. Denali National Park. Alaska.
Metering for scenes with a lot of snow can be tricky since the bright snow fools the camera meter. I see a lot of winter photos with gray snow, which means the camera meter did exactly what it was designed to do. The solution is quite simple provided you know what to do.
Last Light on Long’s Peak and the Keyboard of the Winds, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
Thinking about a photography trip to one or more U.S. national parks this winter? You can benefit from the work I have done. Some national parks look better in the winter than others. You will want to make them a priority. After you read this article I recommend you also read the companion article: The Best National Parks to Photograph in Winter.
Bryce Canyon
Winter provides some wonderful photo opportunities in our national parks. But some national parks look much better in the winter than others. So if you haven’t gone into hibernation for the winter, here are the best national parks to go photograph this winter, grouped by state from the west to the east. There are a few bonus locations thrown in too. At the end I give you my “best of the best” list.
Have a joyous holiday season!
Kristina at Christmas, Columbus Ohio
On Christmas eve I found myself doing Christmas portraits for Kristina’s portfolio. She is a friend of mine who is a model and actress in L.A.. There isn’t a lot of space in my studio when the Christmas tree is up so I had to improvise a bit with the lighting and I needed to get the right mix of flash and ambient light for the look I wanted.
Geminid Meteor photographed at Home Lake, Lamoni Iowa, December 14, 2020. Cropped from the original image.
Tonight (December 13-14) and tomorrow night (December 14-15) are the best nights to see and photograph the Geminid Meteor Shower. This article will tell you what you need to know to photograph what is often the best meteor showers of the year. The meteors have their radiant (origin point) near the bright star Castor in the constellation Gemini. From there they can go in any direction across the night sky.
Graceland University, “Sounds of the Season” concert.
The Graceland Jazz Band, Harmonium, and some soloists did a casual, fun, light-hearted performance of Christmas music in the foyer of the Shaw Center, December 10, 2023. If you want to purchase prints of any of these images, go here.
Seagate External Hard Drives
I read about a professional photographer who lost a bunch of photos because they were all on just one external hard drive with no backups. The cost of recovering the photos, if they can be recovered, will run between $500 and $5000 depending on the number of photos and the complications involved in the recovery process.
Five Seagate external drives daisy chained via the USB ports.
Don’t lose your digital photos to disc-rot or a hard drive crash. Choose the best archival storage options. Continue reading
Memory Cards in Think Tank Memory Card Holders
Memory cards are the “film” for your digital camera. Quality is important. You don’t want to have a card failure and lose your important photos. A reliable brand is important.
Granite Ledges and Otter Cliff, Acadia National Park, Maine
Your camera falls down a mountainside or off a cliff. An unexpected rogue wave drenches your valuable photo gear in salt water. Your photo backpack is stolen from your home, motel room, or trunk of your car. To add insult to injury, you learn your homeowner’s insurance will not replace the value of your damaged or stolen gear.
Andromeda and two other galaxies.
My plan was simple. Drive 5 minutes to the lake. Spend 5-10 minutes photographing photo gear for a photo blog article. Drive 5 minutes back home. Total time 15-20 minutes. Melissa (my wife) was thinking about getting dinner ready. I told her I wouldn’t be gone long. After a few minutes doing what I intended, the lure of planets, stars, and the Milky Way sucked me in. 2 1/2 hours later I was still totally immersed in photography of the sky. 3 hours after I left home I called to tell Melissa I was on the way home.
RØDE VideoMicro in use at Acadia National Park.
Let’s face it. While many recent DLSRs, ILCs and smartphones can give you excellent visual quality in the videos, the sound quality of the built in microphone leaves a lot to be desired. For a modest amount of money you can bring the sound quality up to par with the visual quality. That is why video mic sales have exploded.
My Favorite Photography Magazines
There are a lot of photography magazines out there but some are clearly better, more accurate, more useful, and with better images. The magazines that follow are, from my point of view, the best of the best photo magazines.
When I was growing up, we spent many a Thanksgiving at grandpa’s house in Haxtun Colorado. Thanksgiving was a much anticipated and happy time. We would leave home on Wednesday afternoon after dad got home from work. It was a long 7 hour drive to Grandpa’s house in those pre-interstate highway days, so it would be really late by the time we arrived.
