Category: Photography

A Treatise on Tripods

Gear, Tools, Videos

Do you own a tripod? Do you use it? Is it something that sits in the back of the car rarely seeing the light of day? Do they annoy you? Are they more trouble than they are worth?

I see the full gamut of opinions on tripods, with photographers of all genres either swearing by them or swearing at them. Over the course of 40 years of photography, I’ve used all brands at all price points. I’ve now landed on a collection (yes, more than one) that works for me.

This is a YouTube video piece that I hope will help you make an informed decision about using tripods. Hopefully you’ll find a few points that you hadn’t considered – or even a few points that you had that lead you to a specific decision. Leave me a comment here or there about what works for you.

Vernacular Photography

Artistic Ideas, Interesting Stuff, Life, My Community, Photography

Hello and Happy 2022! Hope you had a pleasant holiday season and were able to enjoy it with family and friends, despite our ongoing Covid challenges. As mentioned previously, I spent the holidays working at a camera store and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But now it’s back to my photography. I’m dedicating myself to it this year, and hope to show much more new work shortly, so stay tuned.

But learning continues to be a focus as well. I thought I had heard of almost everything to do with photography – yes, there might be some obscure piece of equipment I had never heard of, but in terms of genres, I thought I knew it all. Not so. Listened to a great podcast driving to work about a totally new (to me) genre called “vernacular photography”. What is it? Read on.

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Never Say Never

Expertise, Life, Photography

I did something last week that I never thought I would do again. I started a new job. That’s right. I’m back in the workforce, earning bucks. It’s not full-time and may not even be for a long time, but it is an official job.

A few weeks ago, my local camera store held a job fair. Anyone interested could meet with management and have a chat. I happened to hear about the opportunity and thought, why not. I love talking to people about photography, I love helping people discover something new, and to be truthful, Covid has had such a bad effect on my psyche that getting out into a public space on a regular basis would be good for me.

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Verify Your Identity

Artistic Ideas, Expertise, Fine Art, Interesting Stuff, Laws, Photography

October is a wonderful month in so many ways. Cooler temperatures, changing scenery, more exciting landscapes top my list. But it is also a month for new and exciting technology. Many photography companies, whether hardware or software producers, release new products and new updates to existing products. This month has been ridiculously full of pent-up demand for new stuff and the manufacturers did not disappoint.

This article won’t review all of that. Many blog and vlog posts have already done so. Instead, I want to talk about one feature nobody seems to have really highlighted. Last week, Adobe released the latest versions of Photoshop and Lightroom, to much fanfare and focus on its superb and enhanced capabilities. The new masking tools are phenomenal. You can also do more and more with automation and “neural filters”, and even drop in assets and have them automatically be absorbed and “harmonized” into the scene you are creating. But there is even more for you to know.

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Is It Possible Not to Want the Latest Gear?

Gear, Photography, Tools

I’ve had an interesting experience since my last post (more than one, but only one worth writing about). The Canon EOS R3 was officially released, after many many months of rumor. The announcement confirmed everything rumored.

Full frame, completely new sensor, instant on, super high speed continuous shooting, multiple people and object tracking modes, eye-controlled autofocus, integrated grip for portrait and landscape shooting, huge ISO range. Additionally, file transfer through multiple methods, including wifi and network cable directly to camera. And lastly, new connection options in the hotshoe, allowing for seamless connection of microphones and other accessories.

And I have absolutely no interest in it.

Say what?

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Travelling with Friends

Landscapes, Life, Nature, Photography, travel

I recently took a trip – the first one in a long time. It wasn’t to an exotic far-away location, but rather about 3 hours north of my home. The area is very popular with city residents and tourists alike, because of its small towns, wide open tracts of land covered with trees, rock formations that are part of the Canadian Shield and fresh air.

I don’t travel much with friends, at least driving in the same vehicle and staying in the same hotel suite. I instead prefer to meet my companions at our desired destination and prefer to have a quiet place to myself at the end of the day. At least, that’s what I’ve concluded now after several trips done in more traditional fashion.

The bigger challenge, and the purpose of this post, is how to manage my photographic interests while travelling with others. It is hugely difficult when travelling with those who are not photographers – family especially. I won’t go into those details, for fear of alienating any family member who might choose to read this (ha!).

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The Canon EOS R5 is NOT a Video Camera!

Gear, Photography, Tools

For the past year, I’ve been using the Canon EOS R5 as my primary stills camera.  It is a superb piece of equipment, carefully engineered to fulfill all of my wildest dreams for stills photography.  I purchased it for what will become a recurring theme for me – how to make photography more convenient.

As I get older, there are aspects of photography such as the tracking of moving subjects, the determination of tack sharp focus, remembering to switch from high ISO back to normal ISO, remembering to switch from single shot to continuous shooting and back, that could use a little help.  The Canon EOS R5 provides that to me exceptionally well.

Its large, high resolution viewfinder allows me to arrange all of the important shooting information around the edge of the frame without affecting the ability to see the subject clearly.  That’s what defines a mirrorless camera frankly and separates it from a DSLR.  That clear view of the subject and the settings allows me to set up the shot easily even with my diminishing vision, and when I can’t, there are built-in warnings and colour overlays to help me.

Likewise, the LCD is big, bright, rotatable to any angle that saves my aging back and knees, and yet lets me get the camera into the right angle to capture any scene, no matter how high or how low.

I can customize essentially every button and dial to perform the function that works for me, I can set up and save custom shooting settings that give me everything from landscape setups to close up to action setups at the flick of a button.  And I can save out all my customizations to a file to store remotely, in case something causes the camera to need a reset.

Sounds like a gem, doesn’t it.  It’s fast, light, smart and takes pretty pictures too.  It even shoots video.

Say what?  Shoots video.  But the title of this blog is that it is not a video camera. Read on, intrepid friend.

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Let There Be Light – The Truth About Crop Sensors and Lenses

Expertise, Gear, Interesting Stuff, Photography, Tools

I consider myself a photography geek. I love the technical side of photography. Learning about how lenses work, the reasons why aperture, shutter speed and ISO contrbute what they do to image quality, different sensor designs, the technical differences between full-frame vs. crop sensor, etc. etc.

And more than seven years into this full-time journey, I thought I had heard most of the explanations about why cameras work they way they do. I get it. I can explain it. Even as new technology is released, I revel in doing deep dives into that too.

Of course, I should state that none of this helps the artistic expression in my photography nor will reading this article help your artistic expression. But it does lay the groundwork for quick decisions about how to possibly achieve a specific artistic effect. For example, to get that creamy bokeh, I know I need to do x, y, z. So, to be clear, knowing how your camera works isn’t the be all and end all of being a good photographer. But it will get you part way down that road.

That said, I find it fascinating when I run across a technical fact that I didn’t know. That’s what this post is today.

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Can You Really Do What You Love (for a Living)?

Career, Life, Photography, Videos

I recently watched an interesting YouTube clip from landscape photographer Mark Denney. He wasn’t talking about the latest natural wonder he had visited or even his plans to do so. Instead, he talked about his journey from corporate worker to artist. He had a financially lucrative and successful career, but decided in 2019 to give it up and turn to what he loved, landscape photography. He did that with a family of four to support.

His journey has been an interesting one, and it got me thinking about how I arrived at where I am today. I thought that would make a great subject for my new YouTube video, which I have sadly been remiss in producing regularly. But I got it done, and I would love it if you would check it out.

And at the very least, I’ve memorialized my Covid mop of hair for all time. I feel like I’m back in the 70’s, when hair was long on both girls and boys, and unkempt and flowing. Those were the good old days. Now where’s my mini-skirt?

Summer Projects

Artistic Ideas, Photography

Nice weather arrived in the last couple weeks, so working on a computer has become second priority – I missed my last blog deadline. Sorry. It was so worth it though – being outside in the garden has been a gamechanger for my mood and attitude.

Also, our camera club season has concluded, lockdown is still in place and I’m now left wondering what to do with all my “free time”.

There is the aforementioned garden to maintain, a backyard pond to enjoy and summer breezes wafting through the air. True, but night falls eventually.

Early summer is often a time to take stock, to clean out, clean up. In 2014, I started the tradition of preparing a photobook each year of the images of mine that I felt most emotionally connected to through the year. That lasted until 2018. I have a few years to catch up on. What better time than now. So I’ve set that as one of my summer projects, along with producing some larger prints of these very same images.

Many photographers have commented on the value of a tangible book or print. It somehow gives life and depth to the images we capture. And if an image is already compelling in some way, personally or technically, a hard copy seems to double that feeling. Understanding why can be the first step in a wonderful journey of discovery – corny but true.

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