When I started doing photography years ago, I really wanted to shoot fantastic shots, I wanted to make sure that my photographs would be considered for a gallery showing. All I had was Canon 10D and a flash. Most of what I shot was candid and in the style of photo journalism and even though this was fine I wanted more.
What kept me from shooting clean studio like portraits was the mistaken belief that I needed loads of expensive equipment.
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Adding a vignette to an image involves adding a subtle (or not so subtle) edge effect to it. A popular vignette technique involves darkening the edges of your image – it gives the image a slight border which helps keep the viewer’s eye in the photo. This is an effect which has been popular for years and which was is a feature of some classic film cameras such as the Holga (click to enlarge image below).
The “A.I.R” = Affordable Inflatable Reflector
Tobi Troendle created the A.I.R reflector. Aside from having a cool name it also folds to nothing.
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Whether you are expecting your first child or your fifth, your pregnancy is a special time in your life. As such, you will want to capture these remarkable months with photos that you can cherish forever. By keeping a few key thoughts in mind while taking maternity photographs, you will be certain to have some amazing photos to share with your child when he or she grows older.
In this post Gary Cosby Jr. shares some great tips on shooting with available light.
Shooting available light can be both liberating and enslaving.
Sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? In fact, shooting available light frees you from all the encumbrances of dragging strobe equipment around with its stands, modifiers, strobes and possibly even power packs. On the other hand, shooting available light chains you to whatever the light is willing to do at a given time of day. So you see now how it can free you or chain you up. There are a few tips and techniques you can use to tame available light and bend it to your will in many circumstances. Best of all, you don’t have to purchase a thing to use this technique.
Most Digital (and film) cameras today offer a nice feature called Manual Focus. This has not always been the case. The older more experienced folks remember that in the good old film days there was a big excitement when auto focus was introduced as a new feature.
There are many reasons to use Auto Focus – it is fast, accurate, and let you, the photographer concentrate on composition, lighting, framing and other technical and artistic factor of your picture.
However, there are still many situations when Manual focus can give better results than auto focus.
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Do you know those weekends when it is just to hot to get out of the home? Well just for those weekends we have a great weekend project. Actually we have two weekend projects.
The first project is a Foamcore softbox. We’ve had those before, even for small flashes. But this one comes complete with build and assembly instructions by Paul Both. To top sugar with cream (or light with diffusion) Paul also made a nice strip light – again complete with plans and chocolate syrup. (The designs were made for the 580EX2 and 430EX Canon flashes, but will fit any flash with minor adjustments).
The following post on The Secrets to Ultra-Sharp Photos is by San Francisco based photographer Jim M. Goldstein. Learn more about him at the end of this post.
Today Natalie Norton shares with us a series of 6 tips for photographing babies. It’s an appropriate topic – because yesterday (15th June) my wife gave birth to our 2nd son and I’ve spent a lot of my time today taking his photo! I hope you enjoy these baby photography tips.
