Coping with Shutter Lag
Sometimes when making candid photographs your subject stays right where you hoped but occasionally something or someone steps into the scene blocking your chance of capturing the moment, all because of shutter lag. Out here in the real world, there are two kinds of shutter lag: The first is the amount of time that it takes from depressing the camera’s shutter release to when an image is saved onto a memory card. During that time, the...
Camera-of-the-Year 2013?
For the past several years, I’ve presented an annual Camera of the Year award nicknamed the Ernie, in honor of the late Earnest E. Mau, a photographer, computer pioneer, and friend who didn’t live long enough to get his hands on a really good digital camera. My main rule for giving this award is that it is based on my hands-on experiences with a camera I actually used and shot under all kinds of conditions but in 2013 not many...
Wordless Wednesday #014: “Platte Valley Medical Center in HDR”
This HDR image of the Platte Valley Medical Center was made from a five shot bracket with a nominal exposure of 1/500 sec at f/11 and ISO 320 using a Sigma 10-20mm lens set at 18mm. Three .NEF files were combined using Adobe Photoshop’s Merge to HDR function to produce the final image. ©2012 Joe Farace
It’s Shark Week on Business Friday
Small businesses like photographers are a lot like sharks: Every year during the Discovery channel’s Shark Week, a sonorous narrator reminds viewers that if a shark stops swimming, it dies. I believe that when a photographer or studio stops promoting and marketing itself, it dies too, but there are obstacles in the way of becoming a lean, mean marketing machine. Some photographers (and I am just as guilty of this as the next guy) are...
Holy Utility Belt, Batman!
Snoochie Boochies, Batman! I’m not the only kid who has wanted his own utility belt and now Think Tank Photo has redesigned its Modular Rotation System Skin Components to provide for easier gear retrieval and better equipment fit. The Modular Skin Set V2.0 includes the Skin 50 V2.0, Skin 75 Pop Down V2.0, Skin Strobe V2.0, and the Skin Body Bag, all of which fits inside a breathable Large Travel Pouch. All of the elements can...
Little Things Mean a Lot, Location Lighting Kit, part 2
In the first part of this series, I began with the most important component of any location lighting kit—the lights! For my wife Mary’s kit, I’m using Olympus FL-50R wireless speedlights but the kit works just as well with any shoe-mount flash, such as Canon’s 580EX II speedlite or Nikon’s SB-900. By using speedlights that have built-in wireless control you eliminate the needs for accessories to trip the lights, but that’s not to say...
Winning a Copy of “Studio Lighting Anywhere”
Since my book “Studio Lighting Anywhere” was launched a few months ago, readers of this blog and my followers on Twitter have been asking “when are you going to have a contest and give away copies of the book.” Well, the answer is November. Since my lucky number is five I am going to be give away three signed copies: The first on November 5, another on November 15, and a third copy on November 25. The winner...
