Shutterbug Editorial

Forgive me if I catch my breath for a second but I just returned from the PhotoPlus Expo show in New York City and it was an exhausting show in many respects. But I say that in a most positive way.

The camera market is in a constant state of flux these days thanks to a still volatile economy and the popularity of disruptive, non-traditional imaging forces including smartphone cameras, GoPros, drones and a host of other wirelessly connected, social sharing-focused digital doohickeys. So it was not a complete surprise when a rumor started making the rounds of the photo blogs recently that Samsung was planning to exit the camera business.

At Shutterbug.com, we have a vast archive of how-to stories and tips pieces offering advice from photography experts on what you should do to take better photos. But after following the wacky and occasionally disturbing photography news this past month, I’ve come up with a list of five things you really shouldn’t do as a photographer.

I got a lot of feedback – mostly positive but with a few spirited rejoiners – to last month’s editorial “Smartphones (Still) Can’t Compete with Great Camera Gear,” that I feel I should “double down.” Again, this isn’t a knock against using smartphones for shooting images. As I mentioned last month, I do it all the time with some pretty decent results. And many serious photographers are constantly turning to that little phone in their pockets and have produced many spectacular photos.

If you followed the controversy over the World Press Photo (WPP) awards in March and care anything about the state of photojournalism these days, you might be a little sick to your stomach by now. In the latest debacle involving the WPP contest – and there have been a few in recent years – the organization revoked the first-place prize it had given to Italian photographer Giovanni Trolio for a photo story he had submitted called “The Dark Heart of Europe.”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: another one of Nikon’s new full-frame digital SLRs has a problem. In this case, a small number of Nikon D750s have been producing a dark, shadowy band in the frame when capturing images with lens flare. While the issue was first reported by D750 owners who took to YouTube to demonstrate the problem, Nikon eventually acknowledged that the lens flare flaw was real and said it would offer free repairs. Last week, the company issued an official service advisory for the D750, saying that Nikon service centers needed to a adjust the camera’s autofocus sensor “to resolve the occurrence of unnaturally shaped flare.”