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About David Williams

Dave is a travel photographer and writer, and photography and Photoshop instructor, from the UK. Find Dave at idavewilliams.com or @idavewilliams on all platforms.

How and why to “quaranclean” your your camera gear during the coronavirus pandemic

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I made a silly video a few days ago about cleaning your camera for Covid-19. It really was silly – I washed a camera in a sink full of soapy water. It went down well, but there’s a serious message behind it.

We’ve been given the advice to wash our hands for twenty seconds with warm, soapy water, and to not touch our face. What we need to remember as photographers, is that we bring our camera to our face all the time. It’s imperative that we keep our camera clean to prevent the transmission of this disease.
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This is how to capture a rocket photo like Erik ‘the rocketman’ Kuna

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Erik Kuna is a Floridian photographer shooting for SuperCluster, a creative agency sharing the story of space to everyone, and instructor at KelbyOne. Kuna has taken revolutionary steps in rocket photography, employing techniques never used before to create amazing cinemagraphs and images. Those are more than merely documentary, they’re art. We’ve asked Erik to share the story behind one of his pictures with us, and it’s seriously cool.

Erik had the idea to incorporate his daughter into a shot, and what a shot it is. Taken in some dunes not far from Cape Canaveral, it depicts his daughter as an astronaut. Behind her, the $1.5 billion project soars across the night sky. The trajectory of this rocket, headed to the Sun, is a perfect arc. It all came from precision planning, and Erik has some hot tips to share with anyone planning to shoot rocket launches.

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Galaxy S20 Ultra suffers from “serious focusing” issues; Samsung pledges a fix, but no timeline

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Three weeks ago, we told you about the Samsung Galaxy S20 launch. Not all is bright in S20land though. Over those three weeks, quite a few users have been reporting on issues with the S20’s camera. The issues seem to mostly affect the high-end model, the Galaxy S20 Ultra.

The S20 Ultra boasts a 108-Megapixel sensor on the main camera, and a 48-Megapixels sensor on the 100x zoom camera. This phone, and the tech inside it, reecived some great hype. On paper, they are indeed extremely impressive, but twitter seems to be disappointed with the real-life results.

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The Wavo is Joby’s first microphone and it’s ultra lightweight for vlogging

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One of the major obstacles with vlogging is sound. Isolating the sound and having it record at high quality is a big deal. I strongly feel that we are far more inclined to stop watching something with bad audio than we are if the visuals are bad. We can put up with flickering pictures or low quality, low-resolution images for a lot longer than we can put up with bad audio. It seems Joby has done something to address this.

Superior quality on-camera vlogging microphone. That’s the tagline from the Joby website, and at just 80 grams, that’s quite a punchy statement. As of yesterday, February 29th, the Joby Wavo is available for £69.95 or $/€79.95. It’s designed specifically with vloggers in mind. Wavo is compact, portable and is constructed of some fairly decent materials.

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DJI tells all US drone pilots that FAA’s rules could cost them money, and pushes for action

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DJI just updated their DJI go 4 app to flash a warning about new rules once you start the app. One way of looking at it is as a clever way to let all drone owners about upcoming regulation changes. Another perspective suggests that DJI is trying to fight the new regulations by inciting fear of monetary losses. Indeed when you go deeper into the message you’ll find that DJI suggests that you comment on a remote ID proposal that has vast implications for DJI as a drone manufacturer.

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“I framed and hung Photoshop 2.5 – It’s only four floppies”

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We all, by now, know that Adobe Photoshop turned 30 last week. Here on DIY Photography, we shared a close look at version 1.0, but other people are taking their own steps to memorialize Photoshop.

Richard Johnson of Spectacle Photo has done something extra-special. He’s taken a regular, photographic convention and applied it to Photoshop. The Floridian photographer mounted, framed and hung his Photoshop floppy disks in his office.

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Peanut Butter maker weighs in on the GIF vs JIF debate

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#JifvsGif is a debate long-held in the photographic community, but did you ever think a Peanut Butter company would get involved? J. M. Smucker Company, the maker of Jif Peanut Butter, has teamed up with Giphy, the GIF hosting company. The same company we all use to place our ‘Oh no she didn’t!’ GIF’s on Facebook, in an attempt to gather the world’s opinions on the matter.

But what is the actual issue here? Well, it’s the pronunciation. Should it be pronounced with a hard G, as in Gate? Or is it a soft G, as in Gem? Perhaps the issue comes with language – take the word ‘Garage,’ for instance, where both apply!

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Here is the science behind what makes sunset photos so beautiful

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Golden Hour and Blue Hour are the optimum times for us photographers. It’s been drilled into us since day one. We have apps that tell us when the sun will rise and set, and tell us in which direction. The thing is, it’s only worth knowing that information if the sunset or sunrise is going to add to our shot.

There’s a science behind beautiful sunrises and sunsets. This article aims to arm you with the key factors which make for a beautiful sky.

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This photographer uses Disney theme parks for magical inspiration

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There are many people who have dreams but sit on them their whole life. Doug Young is not one of those people. If there’s one example out there of packing up to follow your dream, this is it. Doug is known on Instagram as @dougdoesdisney and this account was a dream he pushed to reality.

Hailing from Massachusetts, Doug packed his whole life up to move to Florida. The aim was to be close to the house of mouse, and the results are, honestly, phenomenal. Nothing but Disney has inspired Doug to hone his passion for photography. The aim of this post is to share some inspiration with you, too.

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Watch this long exposure of the Atlas V launch kicking off ESA’s Solar Orbiter (SolO)

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Norman Peay has always been fascinated by aviation. In this photo, he captured the launch of the Altas V rocket on February 10th, 2020. The launch was set to 11:30 PM from Kars Park, Merritt Island, Florida. Merritt Island offered a gorgeous, unobstructed south view of LaunchPad 41, approximately 10 miles in the distance. This launch should get the ESA’s Solar Orbiter (SolO) started, with an objective to perform close-up, high-resolution studies of the Sun and its inner heliosphere.

Norman gave us an insight into this shot and his passion for rocket photography.

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