If there’s any secret about making great travel photographs it’s that using your camera has to be instinctive because when a photo opportunity presents itself you may only have a few seconds to get a shot.
The most important tip I would like to share about travel photography is never buy a new camera or lens before traveling to Bhutan or even Carhenge. The next most essential travel photography secret is that using your equipment has to be instinctive; when a photo op presents itself you may only have a few seconds to get a shot. There’s no time to think about what menu to use or how to turn on continuous AF, or what exposure mode you’re in. Using your camera has to be instinctive; you should see—or even anticipate—then click the shutter. It’ll make travel more fun, too.
There are those situations when you can't (or don't want to) carry a tripod or there's just not enough space to set one up. That's when a monopod comes in handy. Monopods are the ideal camera support for nature photographers and backpackers, to who size and weight are important considerations. A monopod is especially useful when working with long lenses in...
"Only the mediocre are alwlays at their best." --Jean Giraudoux
Two quotes this month: The first by Alan Kay was on my mind while replying to the editor of my book The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography--I didn't choose that title. He asked: "If I want to emulate the look of color IR film is a plug-in or (digital)...
There's an old photographer's joke that goes: "If God invented light, then the devil invented fluorescent light." How times do change. With digital capture, fluorescent light can be your friend and I don't mean those long tubes hanging in lighting fixtures from the ceiling. I'm talking about a new breed of portrait lighting tools designed...
Portrait lighting sources have 4 major characteristics: color, direction, quantity and quality. When working with any light source, from speedlights to moonlights, the best way to improve the quality of your lighting is with modification devices such as an umbrella or a lightbank. Each one has their own advantages and disadvantages. But no matter which one you chose, each device is governed by this important rule. The closer a light source is to the subject the softer it is; the further away the light source is, the harder it becomes.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officially refers to quadcopters as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) but they obviously have more in common with the kind of hobbyist’s radio-controlled aircraft that have been around since I was a member of the Poly Aeroneers in high school. Yet tech blogs and social media endlessly refer to quadcopters as “drones” when the only thing a General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and a DJI Phantom 1 have in common is that they’re capable of flight. But they’re not without some controversy.
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”—Groucho Marx
Other than live motorsports I don’t watch much television, preferring movies on DVD or Blu-ray, but during the winter racing hiatus I found two programs whose photography is nothing short of sensational. The first is, not surprisingly, BBC...