I was at a swim meet for my son a couple weeks ago. Various teams often print up t-shirts with motivational sayings on them — usually about swimming, of course, but I saw one that I believe is equally applicable for us “wanna-be” photographers, too: “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” I […]
Category: Blog
The rise of the third parties
A long time ago, I bought a 35mm camera kit — one of those deals where you got a couple of zoom lenses, a bag, and a bunch of other junk. The telephoto lens that came with it was made by a company called Kalimar; I think it was probably something like an 80-200mm zoom. […]
Basics of Composition: Subject
I recently had the opportunity to talk to a meetup group about the basics of composition, albeit on short notice. As long as my presentation is still (relatively) fresh in my mind, I thought I’d try to capture a bit of this material in a short series of posts. This, then, is the first in […]
It’s a journey
Some people buy cameras to take snapshots, and they’re probably going to be fine with whatever their camera turns out on “auto”. You’re not one of those people, though. You’re trying to make images that make an impact on people, and you’ve probably experienced some disappointment along the way. You’ve doubtless had photos come out […]
So close…
I saw an announcement yesterday about a new strobe that uses a Lithium-Ion battery pack. This, in itself, isn’t ground-breaking: I know there are at least a couple other strobes like this out there. As I read the announcement, though, the benefits of Li-On technology included (1) longer-lasting charges (great), and (2) no more need […]
Intro to Winter Hiking
We’re now well into winter 2013-14, complete with polar vortexes, snow rollers, and assorted other crazy weather phenomenon. While these conditions can be truly dangerous if you’re not dressed for them, they can also produce some great winter scenes and some magnificent icy sculptures for those prepared to go out and capture them. If you’re […]
PC Build, addendum
This summer, I put together a write-up on a PC I built for photo editing and software development. That article has been really helpful any number of times in documenting what I put together, but after a few months of living with this build and explaining why I chose each of the components, I think […]
Lowepro Nova 17L Preview
About a week and a half ago, I got an email from Lowepro telling me I won a Lowepro Nova Sport 17L AW bag — very cool. It showed up promptly this week, and I can’t wait to start using it. I’ll post a full review once I’ve put a few miles on it, but […]
Budget tripod shootout, Part 3
In Part 1 of this shootout, I previewed the three tripods I’m comparing and discussed some things I’ll be looking at in all three. Part 1 also covered the Velbon CX-300 — a typical “big box” store tripod that’s better than nothing, but just barely. Part 2 of the shootout looked at Dolica’s AX620B100, which turned out […]
Cherish the flaws
I love music. I’ve got a pretty extensive collection, and some of the performances I like best are from live albums. I’m sure that to some extent, this is because I haven’t heard the live versions of songs as many times as the studio cuts, but I think there’s another reason, too — the live […]