During the analog years of photography, it was possible to photograph pictures taken in the Infrared part of the light spectrum. Quite often, it led to a images that were simultaneously eerie looking (for the shift in colors) and slightly blurred by a reduced quality/resolution. It was only a matter of buying an IR filter and some IR-sensitive film. Then, you had to experiment.
Today, in the Digital Age of the Pixel, infrared photo became a little more difficult because, while the digital photo sensor is by nature very sensitive to infrared light, this is counteracted by filter removing this sensitivity (most sensors as so sensitive that they would produce bizarre-looking pictures if left untamed). Now, this is even more true for DSLR cameras which are nearly systematically closed to Infrared light (mostly, the only solution is a conversion involving replacing parts in the SLR camera and a lot of trial and error).
However, the images may be worth the effort if you look at some pictures produced by patient photographers.
Found at RobertBenson.com, here is probably the best description of how a photographer evolves in time (from larva to beautiful butterfly, one would say). You may be any location on this evolution chart, but it’s good to recognize that you still have the possibility to move forward to the right of the graph.
Stages of a photographer
Knowledge
Quality of Photos
How good you think you are
Where are you located? Please, use the comments below.
During the warmest days of the Northern hemisphere, it is more pleasant to go and photograph the stars or even the storm coming at the end of a day too hot.
You could do much worse than learning from the best wildlife photographers. Actually, the BBC Wildlife Magazine is now providing an impressive list of compact training courses for wildlife photography. There are titles like:
Wild Places
Mammal Portraits
Plant Portraits
From Dusk to Dawn
Underwater Photography
Invertebrate Portraits
Birds in Flight
Animals in their Environment
Bird Portraits
Reptiles and Amphibians
Creative Visions of Nature
Wet Weather Wildlife
Cold Weather Wildlife
Black and White Photography
Urban and Garden Wildlife
Zoo Photography
Bird Behaviour
Mammal Behaviour
Extreme Close-Up
Innovative Wildlife Photography
The World in our Hands
Those are complete courses that have been published previously on paper in 2006 and on. If you did not get them at the time, you can now grab the PDF files. You will appreciate the progression from mostly animal portraits to more sophisticated or more subtle kinds of pictures. All of them are great.
If you are as found of action movies and action video games as you love photography, you may appreciate the looks of this small hot-shoe accessory which will help you align your camera with your subject. Four separate reticles (Point, Circle Point, Circle Cross, Cross), two colors (green, red), and three laser strengths define this CR2032-battery-powered $45 gadget.
It’s probably better for wildlife photography if you are not afraid of looking like a weirdo hunting wildlife with extremely unusual devices (it never looked as appropriate as today to associate this news to the “shoot” category/theme.
While sorting and choosing the photographs of my recent trip to Botswana, I quickly remembered a list of criteria I like to use to objectively (more or less) decide which pictures are worth extracting from the huge bunch of files in the memory cards of my photo camera.
As a matter of fact, I count 1 point for each of the following criteria:
A – Attitude, Activity, Action
L – Light and Exposure
C – Composition of the image
I – Interaction of the subject with its environment, model placement
D – Crisp Details, no blur
After all, if you want a top photo, you could do much worse than try and fill all these conditions. A good photographer will remember these criteria at shooting time; An excellent photographer will apply them without even thinking about it; For my part, I still need to remember them while sorting RAW files under Adobe Bridge.
As a matter of fact, this tool is simply able to control a digital SLR camera. The big button on the side is a knob to set the focus and it is de-multiplied enough to warrant the name of micro-focus.
Bu the most surprising or the most noticeable is that if you have an iPhone available, you can slide it into the device and it will display the aperture, the focal length or zoom factor and a few other parameters.
The best of all worlds, the miracle combination. But, most of all, a great little trick of engineering: a radio remote control for your photo camera which communicates with a small gadget fixed in the flash shoe of your SLR camera and transmitting the image right from the SLR direct AV connector.
GigaPan announces a new motorized panorama head: Epic Pro. This robot-like tripod-based camera mount automatizes the shooting of pictures that will be assembled into one giant panorama image. This leaves GigaPan with a full range of panorama mounts:
GigaPan range of panorama heads
The EPIC costs $349, the EPIC 100 $449 and the EPIC Pro $895. All three should start shipping in April 2010.
With these, you will be ready to do great panoramas. If you want to get some inspiration, I suggest you jump to this panorama of Paris, France: 26 billion pixels.
Paris @ 26 giga-pixels
Nota bene: I love this image image because I live in Paris, but I have to admit that when you zoom deeply into it, you will see that the photo should have been a little more crispy and detailed. And be sure to cut to loud speaker before jumping to www.paris-26-gigapixels.com.
If you want to have fun, you could look for the two clocks showing a different time and the old guy in front of his window.
The plague of many photographs and photographic hardware devices is of not being able to produce nicely sharp pictures, nearly crunchy images (Nota bene: I do understand that this is not the ultimate goal of a photographer and that many a picture is technically mediocre or fuzzy or foggy and still is a great photograph).
A few tips and tricks I grouped for you in order to reach the maximum possible sharpness on your photos (and my photos):
Light: Darkness is not favorable; It brings fuzziness when the subject moves and a difficult automated focus.
Speed: A fast shutter speed is good to freeze the subject in place.
tripod: In order to be stable, there is no better solution than screwing the camera to a good old sturdy tripod.
ISO: Choose a sensitivity high enough for the shutter to stop all movement, but not too high (to avoid blowing the digital noise up).
Autofocus: An AF finely tuned (for those who have micro-setting of the AF), using the AF in the right mode (according to the subject -moving or not- there are different AF modes on your SLR).
Autofocus Zones: The choice of the AF zone(s) is also critical (it is all too often to focus on the background rather than the model). It is quite important to focus on the eye of the subject rather than on the nose.
Subject: If everything else is already optimized (especially in low light), make sure that the subject itself does not move.
Sensor: Of course, use a camera whose sensor is as high resolution as possible; But do not let figures fool you: The more resolution, the more digital noise. do not use a 10MP+ P&S, or a 18MP+ D-SLR with an ASP-C sensor, for example).
Lens: It’s always better to use a lens with a pro sharpness (and a pro price, too) but each glass has its optimal conditions for use (hardly the full aperture, often not the most closed diaphragm).
Filter: shun unnecessary filters (like the Skylights or the UVA/UVB) or low quality filters (who add their own optical defects to those from the lens).
Software: Do not push to the limit of the noise reduction software settings (while NR crunches noise, it also removes details and image crunchiness).
Format: Avoid JPEG or use JPEG at a low compression rate (the compression artifacts start by eroding the fine quality of your image). Stay in RAW (or in TIFF)
Camera tossing is all about sending a photo camera up in the air while in long exposure settings to record the whirling moves of the camera into a somewhat different picture. This is an obviously dangerous photo technique (How many times can you strike such a move without letting the camera fall on the floor?) but this is also a way to get out-of-the-ordinary photos.
Wired has an article about this technique. And Flickr allows to search for images resulting from this perillous exercise.
For the last few years, I have been strongly recommending the Sanho disk-based photo viewers and portable memory, to empty your Flash cards into a big portable disk drive. Visibly, they have a very powerful technology which leads to features like:
Extremely fast copying from card to hard disk drive
Superb autonomy
Compatibility with many card formats
Now, Sanho is launching a new product (or product series), the HyperDrive Album, and it boasts pretty nice and precise cons:
2GB per minute downloading, with full data verification
640GB configuration for $599.00 (or 160GB for $349.00 and any other intermediates)
4.8-inch display (800 x 480 resolution)
200GB of transfers between battery charges
Compatibility with the new SDXC card format (and all other common ones)
Underwater photography is a technique specifically difficult to master. As in all other photography genres, there are some parameters to take into account in order to create a nice picture (even if a good technician is not enough to produce great photos).
Dive Photo Guide
More than in any other photography types, you have to adapt to a very harsh environment: Limited light or no light, density of the medium, incompatibility between water, pressure and mechanical or electrical hardware, optical characteristics of water.
This is why it is often necessary to acquire a number of core competencies before becoming able to produce nice images. I admire all the more those divers who invest a large part of their hobby time (or their professional time) into underwater photography.
For those willing to try or develop this technique, I would recommend heartily a web site which I found in Photography Blog: Dive Photo Guide. Hardware informations, techniques, tips and tricks, tutorials, ideas; All you may need for underwater photography for photo-divers.
Sunshine is a Danny Boyle movie from 2007 which scenrizes the crew of a space ship sent to save a dying sun. The American Cinematographer offers us a long interview with Alwin Küchler who designed the shooting and the light of this film. Even (or preferably) for a studio photographer, it will be quite interesting to understnad the way light, color and their relative organization were used to sustain the psychological intensity of the movie.
But, if this is not enough and that yo want to dig deeper into the studio lighting technique, I recommend you start a browser window on Strobist’s Lighting 102 (Introduction). An exceptional source of information.
After that, we only have to try and apply these advices and these examples. Can you reproduce these studio flash lightings?
Here is an exceptional photo. Nothing was Photoshopped, its author, Richard Heeks, only reinforced a little the colors to make them a little more vibrant. This a soap bubble popping in front of the camera.
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