The lab you choose and the kind of file you send to your lab can make a big difference in the quality of print you get back. How do you pick a good online photo lab? How do you get the best results from your lab? What color space should you use for your digital files and how do you convert your files to the right color space? How big a print can you make from your digital files?
Incident Light Meter. Photo © Jim Doty Jr.
There’s no question that in some complex metering situations, an incident light meter can be quicker, faster, simpler, and more accurate than the meter in your camera. Many incident light meters can also measure light from an electronic flash, a huge bonus when you are using a flash in the manual mode.
“What are your favorite memorable photos?” That’s the question I was asked by one of my friends yesterday. This is one of the images that moves me deeply (click on the photo to see a larger version). The expression of love and tenderness on the mother’s face as she bathes her 16 year old daughter. The daughter’s face and body showing the ravages of Minamata Disease. The play of light and shadow. To my eyes this is a stunning image, even if you know nothing about the story behind this photo. It is clear why many photographers consider W. Eugene Smith to be one of the best photojournalists of the 20th century.
Photography is about inspiration and great photography is one of the sources of inspiration. Once a week I receive a “Celebrate What’s Right With The World” photograph from Dewitt Jones, and you can too.
JPEG and RAW Files, both overexposed by two stops and both corrected in Photoshop
RAW files have a number of advantages over JPEG files, one of them being the significant advantage in exposure latitude. You can prove this for yourself by doing a simple exposure test and learn your own camera’s exposure latitude.
Cemetery for Military Working Dogs, Fort Irwin California
This cemetery for military working dogs is at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin California. Something about this place touched my heart. It was good to see the dogs that serve our country remembered in this way. The crosses indicate the dog’s name and the month and year the dog died.
Mushrooms
One of my neighbors couldn’t wait for me to get home from a long trip so he could show me the mushrooms in his back yard. While I was gone he mowed around several bunches of mushrooms, pine needles, and leaves so he wouldn’t disturb the scene, hoping I would get home while the mushrooms still looked good.
Denali Sunrise from Reflection Pond
You can have many of the advantages of a $300 – $400 incident light meter for less than $20. Sound too good to be true? It isn’t too good to be true. This is about as close as you can get to a photographic “free lunch”.
The Chalice of Life
This morning I was sitting in a waiting room with not much to do when I became interested in the play of light through a wall made with glass blocks. I decided to have a little fun with my iPhone and some apps.
This remarkable video was filmed by a GoPro camera on the back of an eagle in flight. GoPro cameras have become the “go to” cameras for exciting, high definition action video.
Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies
With 12 books, hundreds of magazine articles, over a dozen instructional videos, and numerous workshops to his credit, digital photography expert Tim Grey really knows his stuff. In one of his eNewsletters, Tim gives this excellent recommendation for Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies:
Martin Luther King Jr.
50 years ago today on August 28, 1963 at the Lincolm Memorial, Martin Luther King delivered one of his most famous and stirring speeches, known as “I have a dream”. A portion of it follows. Links to the full speech and an audio file are at the end of this post.
Exif Viewer, GPS Photo Location Data
Your smartphone is designed to geotag the locations of your photos and store it in the photo’s “metadata”. Many other cameras do the same thing. This means if you take pictures of your family and post them online, anyone (including some very unsavory characters) can pull up a map of where the photo was taken. Is there really a danger? Yes. Burglars and kidnappers are already using online photos to track potential victims. Law enforcement offices are warning that sexual predators can do the same thing. See the articles and videos linked below. What can you do to protect your family? Keep reading.
Originally posted August 13, 2013. Revised and updated January 28, 2015. Updated again Dec. 17, 2016.
Kristina
A backlit, window light portrait can be challenging to meter, but the photographic possibilities are definitely worth it.
United States at Night
The Strip, Las Vegas with Fireworks
You can point your camera at the sky in auto exposure and autofocus modes and fire away whenever you see a burst of fireworks, but for the best quality photos, it helps to know a few tricks of the trade. It’s easy when you know what to do.
Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale, 1800
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.â€
From the Declaration of Independence, signed July 4, 1776. Written by Thomas Jefferson (1762-1826). 3rd US President (1801-09).
More images (including Thomas Jefferson’s original draft and George Washington’s personal copy) and the complete text follows the break.
Banff, Alberta
Happy Canada Day to all of my Canadian friends!
Photographer Using an ExpoDisc
There are a lot of advantages to using an incident light meter, and you can read about them in this article. But they are expensive. What if you don’t to buy an incident light meter? There are several less expensive alternatives, and one of them is to use an ExpoDisc.
Incident Light Meter, Gossen Luna-Pro F
In a lot of photographic situations an incident light meter is faster, simpler to use, and more accurate than a reflected light meter. This article will compare the two and tell you how to use an incident light meter.
Bull Elk Bugling, Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park.
What do you meter when your subject has multiple tones? You could let your camera meter the whole scene and hope that gives you a good exposure, but that isn’t very precise and it won’t always give you the best exposure. It certainly wouldn’t give you a good exposure for this photo of a very dark bull elk at sunset.
This is a list of articles that will take you to the best photography books in a variety of categories. Trying out ideas from the best “how to” photography books is a great way to become a better photographer. Out of hundreds of books in my photography library, these are my favorites.
According to Steve Wilhite it is pronounced “JIF” with a soft g (he should know, he invented it), so it sounds like the peanut butter brand. That was his five word message, presented as an animated GIF, when he received a Lifetime Achievement Award (at this years Webby Awards) for inventing the GIF file format in 1987.
Canon 50mm lens set to an aperture of f/2.
If you want to speak your camera’s language and make it do it’s tricks for you, you need to understand the language of exposure.
Fireweed, Brainard Lake, Colorado
Sometimes you head out with one photographic plan in mind and need to switch to another. As Dewitt Jones often puts it: Â “If you go out to shoot waterfalls and Nature (God) is giving you clouds that day, shoot clouds!”
Wedding photography mixes several of the challenges of portrait photography, street photography, news photography, and event photography, all in a fast moving, anything can happen, “no second chances to get it right” environment. It is one of the most challenging kinds of photography I know of.
I recently had the following online conversation with a friend who is an experienced photographer (which explains why I didn’t answer some of these questions in more detail).
