Browsing all posts in exposure.

Photography 101: Fixed Aperture Explained

A reader recently sent me an e-mail, asking me to explain how fixed aperture lenses work. She was suffering under the misconception that a fixed aperture on a lens means that’s the only aperture that lens is capable of shooting. Apertures tend to be a subject that can be confusing to a beginning photographer. Primarily, [...]

Back to Basics: Exposure Explained

Exposure is one of the first, and one of the most confusing, concepts that a budding photographer learns. All of the numbers, abbreviations, settings and relationships can be overwhelming at first. Here is a simple guide to help clarify things. The Exposure Triangle: The three elements of exposure – commonly referred to as “The Exposure [...]

How To Photograph a Waterfall

The photo above demonstrates the lovely soft effect of photographing the motion blur of a waterfall. Here’s how you do it. 1. Arrive on location either just before dawn or just after sunset. The lower light level will help compensate the need to use a slower shutter speed in order to capture the motion blur, [...]

Five SOOC Tips

Hello friends! I was just e-mailing with Steve Russell, our regularly featured guest writer, about his weekend photography shoot. He was lamenting the fact that he had over 500 shots to post-process after a photo-heavy day. I, too, find it sometimes wearying to conceive of hours of post-processing after a long day of shooting. I [...]

Learn From Your “Bad” Photographs

For every one great photograph that we post on-line, upload to Flickr, share on Facebook, or show our friends and family, there are twenty “bad” photographs hiding on our hard drives that never see the light of day. The reason? They’re overexposed. Or underexposed. Or composed strangely. Or out of focus. Or just… off. Here [...]

Studio Session -Technical Aspects

Two weeks ago I posted an article on my first studio session. One post to the article and a few emails and comments from friends asked for more of the technical side of the session and I decided it was a fair request. However, before I go on, let me stress that this article is [...]

Back to Basics: ISO Explained

The term “ISO”, when used in photography, refers to the speed rating of film. “ISO” stands for “International Organization for Standardization”, and this organization is responsible for defining standards for many, many industries and disciplines. With respect to photography, the film speed ISO rating system was created to standardize the quality of film throughout the [...]

Finding Good Subjects to Photograph – Part 2

“Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform them by photographing them.” – Morley Baer   “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.” That happened to me this week. I had an article almost completed that was loosely based on the rules of [...]

Rainy Day Photography

Don’t let inclement weather deter you from breaking out your camera! Here are five tips for taking pictures in the rain. One – Protect your equipment. If you’re taking your camera out in the rain, do your best to protect it from water damage. Waterproof cases are available for many makes and models of cameras. [...]

Shortcuts and Rules of Thumb

Following are a few shortcuts and rules of thumb that help me in my day-to-day photography needs. Since I refer to them often enough myself, I thought I would pass them along to you. Using a Teleconverter Keep light loss in mind if you use a teleconverter in combination with your lens. In general, adjust [...]