The Phoblographer

If you’re a professional, your social media photo should really tell viewers about you and represent who you are. At least, that’s what your clients are aiming for when they come to you for shoots. Here are some tips on how to shoot these types of images both in studio and on location.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sigma launched a new portion of their website entitled Lens Finder. What it does is asks you to check off a couple of boxes and automatically recommends lenses for your purposes. I’m currently looking through for photojournalism, weddings and portraits.

Give it a try for yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments below. And if you’re confused by the terminology, check this out. Also be sure to look at our coverage of lenses to help you out as well.

With WPPI coming up soon in Las Vegas, we’re getting ready for some exciting times before it gets warmer and everyone wants their wedding photos done. Even if you’re a portrait/headshot photographer it’s going to be an exciting time as the slow season finally starts drifting away. If you’re interested in upgrading your gear or want to get into the industry, here are some items to take a look at.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of my readers, Jorge Quinteros, recently reached out to me saying that he loved my Guide to Photography Terminology. He loved it so much that he made it into a PDF version for use on the go. I was so excited about it that I thought I’d share it all with you. You can click this link (photographic_terms) and download the PDF to help you while shooting in the field. Enjoy!

Just a reminder, if you want to do something like this, always ask my permission first as I’d love to be involved in the making and promotion. Jorge was also kind enough to ask my permission as well.

Make has a link to a french guy’s forum (google translated for you) posting on how he built his own DSLR from scratch. What this reminds me of is the Open-Source DSLR project that one University is working on. It may only be a matter of time before us tech guys are building our own. If this is the case, then the products may become endlessly customizable.

Out of Focus

Story by Timothy O’Brian of Blind Photographers on July 30th, 2009.

I have had some trouble focusing recently. Not with concentrating (not more than usual anyway), but with my camera. Being visually impaired, I have to rely on my camera’s autofocus. Using manual focus requires that I can see the viewfinder. I use the viewfinder to compose (mostly), but definitely not to focus. Unfortunately, autofocus does not always save the day.

Over the last month or so, I have shot a baseball and two softball games. I had more than a few instances where I thought I was focusing on a player in the infield (the pitcher, batter or a runner), but the camera instead focused way off in the distance, usually the outfield fence. This ruined an unnecessary number of shots that would have otherwise been submitted to the paper. The photo editor commented to me about this, letting me know that he needed me to sort out this issue.

I had tried the different focus setting on my D40X, closest subject, dynamic and point. I had no luck whatsoever in getting consistent focus out of the camera. An unlikely rescue happened however. A young DC filmmaker came down for a visit to understand better the how photographic workflow is affected by visual impairment for an upcoming short film about (you guess it!) a blind photographer (follow news of The Blind Photographer movie on Twitter). I showed Isaiah, the producer, the raw results of the baseball assignment and explained the issue. He suggested a solution that seems to be quite widely known (except to me). Borrowing from an article, Turn Off Autofocus – Do it Yourself! on Photography Bay, by fellow visually-impaired photographer Chris Gampat, “As I’ve learned when shooting actresses in short films while in college, it’s best to zoom in the tightest you can, focus on the exact point that you want the shot to be, zoom all the way out and then recompose your shot. This way all the detail that you could possibly want to make your shot work will be available to you.” I have tried this out with great results. I zoom in on the subject (or on something of equal distance) and half-press the shutter to engage the autofocus. Then, I either hit the autofocus lock or turn the lens to autofocus mode as I have not yet fully mastered the autofocus lock yet. Success (most of the time).

Originally seen here.