Tip of the Day: Shallow Depth-of-Field in Photography

If you shoot portraits with a fast lens, such as a 50mm f1.4 or f1.8, you may often run into a situation where part of the face feels soft, while another part of the face is in sharp focus. This is due to a very narrow depth of field which occurs when your lens is set to a very wide aperture. To resolve this issue, either stay back from your subject, or stop down the lens. If you need more blur in your backgrounds, try to separate your subject from the background, and it will be thrown out of focus.

Tip of the Day: Increasing Sharpness in Portraits

Well, this tip may not make sense right away, but I promise this technique works. When the background in a photograph is distracting, a portrait will not look right. The more out of focus the background is, the better. This is because our brain will not pay as much attention to elements that are not in focus, and will naturally cause the eyes to seek out elements in focus. To increase the sharpness of the portrait, consider blurring out the surrounding area. Applying additional blur around the face will not make it sharper per se, but will cause an increase in perceived sharpness, because the rest of the photograph will be much blurrier. The easiest way to do this with Photoshop is with a layer mask. Create a copy of the background layer, and apply a blur filter to it. Once you got the blur the way you want it, create a layer mask, and use a soft brush to cover the area of the image which should remain sharp.

Black and White Photography Conversion Service

Folks, I am happy to announce that we are finally offering a long time coming All-Digital Black and White Conversion Service. We have been working on Building this service for quite some time, and it is finally Live. Please, check it out. The service is ideal for Wedding Photography, Formal Photography, Portraiture, etc. We have perfected a Custom Process, which was based in many ways on Ansel Adams' famous Zone System. Check Out this new Black and White Conversion Service.

Tip of the Day: Cleaning Film Before Scanning

Have you ever been disappointed with the quality of a film scan, because of small dust particles looking like dirty snow flakes on your screen? If so, you are not the only one. This happens to all of us. Rexton Anti-Static Film Cleaner is an ideal product. It , as the name implies creates an anti-static layer, which helps the film to stay clean. It is just an excellent product, and will keep your film dust-free, for scanning.

Tip of the Day: Using After-Market Inks

If you are an advanced amateur, and are looking to switch to after-market inks, you have to take a few things into consideration first. Do not just go for the cheapest stuff out there, as you know, you get what you pay for. Name brand inks such as Media Street, and Lyson are of excellent quality, and meet, if not exceed manufacturer specifications. Keep in mind, you will need to refill cartridges, or use a bulk feed system. If you have never refilled a cartridge before, you may want to avoid the process, and get a bulk-feed system. Also, you will need to get your inks color-profiled, since they are not the same as the OEM. Creating a profile is not easy, and will likely require you to either pay a service to do it for you, or you will need to acquire a special color reader and profiling software. If you are comfortable with this, you are good to go.

Tip of the Day: Keeping your Gear Ready

There is nothing worse than having to arrive at your shooting destination with little time before the actual shoot, and find that your lens or lenses are dirty and need to be cleaned. Surprisingly, this happens to many people, and causes them to loose great shooting ops. Clean your lenses ahead of time, and be sure they are ready to go.

Tip of the Day: A perfect Sunset

Sunsets are a subject we all love to photograph. They are tricky, yet rewarding. They are short, and we often miss them, before we got that great photograph. Next time you plan to shoot a sunset, arrive early, at least 30 minutes before. To find out when the sun will be setting, check weather.com, and look up the Zip code of your shooting location. Determine which lens you will be using, and if you are planning to use more than one, make sure it is ready. If filters are to be used, attach them ahead of time. The setting sun is best about 20 minutes to until about 5 minutes before the sunset.

Tip of the Day: Using Cokin Filters for Landscape Photography

Here's an easy tip. Instead of using round screw-in type filters, try a Cokin system for you landscape photography. The Cokin system is essentially an attaching filter holder, into which you can drop a huge variety of filters. Essential filters, such as split Neutral-Density, and other graduated filters become adjustable, and much more versatile. Plus, one filter will work on different sized lenses, with a lens adapter ring.

Tip of the Day: Zoom Lock

If you are looking to purchase a long telephoto Zoom lens, consider getting one with a Zoom Lock feature. Due to the heft of some long zoom lenses, the barrel sometimes shifts, when the camera, with the lens attached is tilted. Many modern lenses come with a Zoom Lock, which will prevent this unwated creep.

Tip of the Day: Capturing Patterns in Your Photography

By nature our minds and our eyes are drawn to patterns. When we try hard, we can find patterns in almost everything. A simple example is a picket fence, or a textured pattern on textiles. Interesting patterns also create interesting photographs. Look for old architectural elements such as doors with repeating patterns, windows, even shingled walls. Try a different angle, and you will find interesting images where you never thought to look before.

Tip of the Day: Why is Focal Length Important?

Focal Length is a measure of how much closer you can bring a distant object. A normal lens in 35mm format is 50mm. Normal is a closest measure of what your naked eye sees, when you look at any given subject. In other words, Any lens above 50mm focal length will get you closer to your subject. This, for example means that a 500mm lens will get your subject 10x closer than a standard 50mm. The longer the focal length, the closer distant objects appear, and the narrower the angle of view is. On the other hand, wide-angle lenses have short focal lengths (16mm for example), and have a broad angle of view.

Tip of the Day: Manual Focusing

Autofocus on most modern digital and film cameras is wonderful, quick, and in most cases very accurate. However, there are instances when it fails. Rather than wasting time trying to achieve focus in such a situation switch your lens, or camera to manual focusing. If you are lucky enough to have a distance scale on the lens barrel, learn to use it, and it will become a wonderful shortcut.

Tip of the Day: Concentrate on Textures

Even the best of us sometimes run out of things to photograph. If you hit that point, it is time to move on to something else. Consider refocusing your efforts on textures. Photographing textures is often difficult, and require a lot of attention to detail. I find that old things, buildings, doors, and other many natural subjects have an excellent and often unique texture. Remember, textures are usually lost in direct sunlight. Look for shadows, and indirect lighting. Look for partly lit scenes. Be sure to close in on the subject enough to capture its texture. Do not be afraid to crop in tight and use a bit of flash as a way of creating shadows, which will make the textures pop.

Tip of the Day: Photography in the Snow

The winter is coming and the snow season is around the corner. Shooting snow is often a rather bothersome endevour, never mind frustrating. Because cameras seek to average out the scene, in order to get a good overall exposure, the snow, being a lot white than anything else is usually exposed gray. Not what we want. Next time, take a meter reading of the snow with you camera, lock the exposure, and add another 1 1/2 to 2 stops. Recompose the scene, and shoot. Now we are talking, white snow!

Tip of the Day: Insulating your Tripod

I do not know about you, but my tripod's bare legs get stone cold on windy cool fall and winter days. Many modern tripods are equipped with insulation sleeves pulled over their legs. If yours is not one of them, here is a quick and easy fix. Check your local hardware store, like Lowes, Home Depot, or Ace, and pick up a piece of pipe insulation. Typical 1 inch and 1 1/4 inch insulation will work very well, and keep you from freezing off your fingers. Look for self sealing insulation, which has an adhesive liner in the slit. Cut it to size, and you are good to go. Three to four bucks, and your fingers will thank you.