Sony A6700, 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 @ f5.6, ISO 1250, 1/250s Wildlife photography is forever changed with the advent of fast, accurate, eye-detect-focus mirrorless camera sensors. With bird-eye tracking enabled, the camera (usually) detects the eye, and follows the eye even if the eye exits the focus area. This is huge. It makes composition and sharp-in-the-eye image […]
Ursa Major charter yacht in Lituya Bay, Glacier Bay National Park, June, 2002, scan from Fujichrome Velvia. Following suggestions by Mark Galer, I built a film scanner using wood, cardboard, a 2” drill bit, a light table and a mirrorless camera. My intention was two-fold: scan curated color slides, and re-scan selects to compare with […]
My last post considered extracting stills from 4K video. A caveat I didn’t mention for many cameras─aside from the small file size─is rolling shutter. Background: To cope with the demands of video, cameras use an electronic, rather than mechanical, shutter. Shooting 4K, the electronic shutters produces frame rates of 24 or 30 fps, faster than […]
An underused advantage of shooting 4K video is in extracting serviceable stills. 4K produces good-quality 3840 x 2160 jpgs at 24 or 30 frames per second in many cameras, a faster frame-rate than the stills obtained from high-end dSLR’s or most mirrorless cameras. Some cameras can even shoot 4K at 60 f/s; the demands of […]
Sorry my mouseovers don’t work right now. I’ll fix them soon. Like many photographers, I’ve had some difficulty photographing the night sky with my dSLR. Focusing the lens is an omnipresent concern. It’s dark as pitch when the Milky Way is out in all its glory. Autofocus doesn’t work. Looking through the viewfinder, it’s difficult […]
Starbursts are light rays emanating from point light sources — from the sun, moon, streetlights, sunlit waterdrops or reflective surfaces. They are creative photographic elements that can enhance an image — adding drama to a dull sky, a focal point to a silhouette or waterdrop, a twinkle to street lights. Starbursts are created where light […]
I enjoy creating panoramas, but I wasn’t excited about the new Adobe Lightroom 6 (and CC) Merge Panorama feature. I get great results from Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor), which creates pans from TIFs or JPGs at a quality better than I generally need. So why change? The case for Lightroom’s Panorama Merge are speed, […]
I upgraded to Adobe Lightroom 6 with some trepidation, after reading about and not being impressed by the new features. Adobe touted HDR and Panorama Merge especially, and my thought was “so what?” I’m no HDR fan, and for panoramas I get great results with Microsoft ICE. What I wish for in Lightroom is more […]
Early on, nature photographers are taught the necessity of using a tripod. The great teacher John Shaw calls the tripod a crucial, best single accessory. Pros use tripods. With a tripod you slow down, take control and become a better photographer. You can better fine tune compositions, pick and choose elements like line and shape, […]
Last year (2012/09 Photo Tip), I wrote about using Lightroom Development tools to create Pop and Mystery in a photo. The gist: darken skies, selectively increase color saturation and increase contrast. Ansel Adams famously said the negative is the score, the print the performance. The RAW file you create in camera is a digital negative; […]