Photo Tip: 10-day Power Trip ___ 06/2009

Gearing up to photograph for a ten-day trip without power—in this instance a sea kayak trip—has two obvious concerns: flash memory and batteries. You need enough capacity in both to shoot through to the finish. Still, ten days isn’t so long that you can’t keep it simple. On a recent trip around Isla Carmen in […]

Photo Tip: Lightroom Collection Efficiency ___ 05/2009

Edited 3/15/2013. Once a month I attend a local Audubon bird photography meeting, held at the local Unitarian Church in Kirkland.  We bring in digital images on flash drives for show and tell, discuss field trips, and teach each other tips and techniques. This tip grew out a recent meeting.  A bunch of us use […]

Photo Tip: Finding Perspective ___ 04/2009

In 1999 I made my first visit to the Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival, held annually at the world-renowned point break Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz, CA. It’s a lovely venue, and perfect for spectators who get a close-up view from the cliff that abuts the action. I shot film with a tripod-mounted telephoto that […]

Photo Tip: Gimme Dat DNG? ___ 03/2009

Like many folks, I wasn’t even aware of the DNG (Digital Negative) format for Raw files until I started using Adobe Lightroom in 2007. DNG is a publicly documented, open-source Raw format developed by Adobe, and a response to a potential format management quagmire that may evolve as camera manufacturers use and discard proprietary formats, […]

Photo Tip: A Matter of Numbers ___ 02/2009

If you work at composition—and what photographer doesn’t—you’re probably aware that number is a compositional element, and a powerful one. Consider that composition is a way of organizing a photograph. The best compositions paring down, simplifying, gett to the essence. It puts a stamp on who you are as a photographer.Number is one of many […]

Digital Thinking: A Vertical from a Horizontal __ 01/2009

For many of us, shooting verticals takes a conscious effort. The comfortable grip of most cameras—especially most dSLR’s—induces “landscape” shots. Only high-end dSLR’s have a built-in vertical grip that helps make “portrait” shooting routine. Still, rotating the camera 90° involves either a thought like “I should get this in a vertical for its cover potential”; […]

Photo Tip: Vision in Photography? __ 12/2008

I received some nice complements for my “American Dipper with salmon egg” photo, taken on a recent Seattle Mountaineers outing—complements like “great shot”, “outstanding!” and “great vision”. I’m flattered by the “vision” thing, though I’m not sure what that means. Vision implies seeing the future, in a non-obvious way, like getting a patent. I do […]

Photo Tip: RAW vs. jpg ___ 10/2008

Since going to a digital SLR in ’05, I’ve always shot RAW. Shooting jpg was for hobbyists—or so I thought. For the unfamiliar, RAW is a generic term for unprocessed image data straight from the camera. The formats are proprietary, with extensions like CR2 for Canon or NEF for Nikon. With RAW, all the image information […]

Tutorial: Adobe Elements 6 Panoramas ___ 08/2008

Edited 3/15/2013. Prior to Elements 6, on the rare occasion that I made panoramas, I stitched images manually. A big problem was that automated stitch programs produced banding in the sky, often accompanied by bizarrely-merged foregrounds. But when I saw a Mark Galer example (Adobe Photoshop Elements 6: Unleashing the hidden performance of Elements) demonstrating […]