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You Must Have A Really Nice Camera. -You Betcha!

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You’ve probably heard it before, you take really nice pictures, you must have a really nice camera.

As photographers we get quite angered by statements like this, and often compare it with other insults like “you make really tasty cakes, you must have a great stove” or “you build really great furniture, you must have a great screwdriver”.

Neil van Niekerk offers a different approach, suggesting that the other party is not insulting you, and that they are actually giving you a compliment and that this is their way to initiate a discussion or break the ice:[Read More…]

Quick Tip: Free-lensing SLR Lenses With Micro 4/3 Bodies

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Here is a great free-lensing tip courtesy of DIYP reader Timothy Blair. In a nutshell, free-lensing is creating a tilt/shift lens by separating a lens from the camera body and holding it by hand. You can read a few tutorials on the method here and here.

The problem is that free-lensing with a full sized DSLR lens on a micro 4/3 body leave quite a bit of a gap for dust to sneak in on your sensor.

Timothy built a sweet and quick free-lensing adapter that stops both the light and the dust from creeping into the sensor. The adapter is built from a hollowed out rear lens cap and a bicycle inner tube. The two flaps keeps the light and dust out while hand holding that lens.[Read More…]

Keeping Your Eyes Open

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Remember when I wrote about Quintessential Moments? It focused on benchmark or definitive moments in our growth as photographers. Maybe it was a photograph where a new concept fell perfectly into place. Maybe it was an image that had a profound impact on you– or someone else. One thing that I mentioned in passing at the end of the article was that you can’t force these moments. You can’t stack the deck and artificially create a defining moment.

I should have taken my own advice this past weekend.

Dragon*Con once again came to town, and with it came its annual parade. I have a pretty healthy comic book and sci-fi nerd streak in me, so it’s always a good time wandering around with my camera, getting fun shots of people with perhaps…well, let’s just say they take their love for these characters way more seriously I do. Way, WAY more seriously. And come on– who doesn’t love a parade?

[Read More…]

Want To Get Your Subjects Comfortable In A Shoot? Get Them In A Shower

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Photographer Manjari Sharma just wrapped up one of the more interesting photography projects that I’ve seen, where she used her own shower as the location to shoot models for a year.

As this is quite an unorthodox way of shooting, we asked Manjari for some information about the series.

When we wondered about the motivation for such a location, Manjari shares that [Read More…]

Beautiful Time Lapse Of Rio De Janeiro

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If you were sent to one of the most beautiful cities in the world to shoot a time lapse what will you choose to shoot?

Joe Capra of Scientifantastic was sent to Rio De Janeiro to shoot 4K and 10K time lapses and chose every little piece of beauty of the city. He used the “usual” Canon 5Dmk2 and mk3 but in addition he also used a Phase One IQ180 back. As usual, sit back, go to full screen and push the volume to the max.[Read More…]

Challenge: Tilt-Shift – SOOC Or Shopped?

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Here is a challenge for the sharp of eyes among you. Below you will find two tilt-shift photographs courtesy of Maciej Pietuszynski. Those are called tilt/shift or miniature effect photographs.

One of those photos is SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera). Maybe a little curves and minor crop, but it is basically as is. Maciej used his own Shower Head Tilt Shift lens to take it.

The other photo is Shopped (as in Photoshopped), with a method similar to the one in this tutorial.

So, which one is real and which one is fake? if the 512px across are not good enough for your peaking eyes, click the photos for a larger version. [Read More…]

Bringing The Phun To Photobooth (or Slo Mo Booth With Red Epic)

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We’ve seen our share of photo booths. While they come in all shapes, colors and sizes, they usually operate in the same manner and produce similar pictures.

Super Frog Saves Tokyo have another take on the usual photo-booth. It involves a RED Epic, and probably the funnest slo-mo video a wedding has ever produced.

The booth was installed for Quang and Ellie wedding reception and after the editing is done (featuring Robin Thicke’s appropriately popping “Blurred Lines” ) the result is something their grand-kids won’t be bored watching.[Read More…]

Crop vs. Full Frame: Excuse Me While I Rant

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Consider this– Every significant photo in the history of the medium was taken with a camera less technologically advanced than the one sitting in your camera bag right now. Every culturally iconic image. Sports. Fashion. War. Politics. The list goes on. Regardless of whether they were shot digitally or on film, the cameras with which they were taken are all yesterday’s news, especially when compared side-by-side with the current selection of DSLRs

Why do I bring this up?

Our story begins with an email a while back that went like this: “Dear Jeff: It was a pleasure speaking with you on the phone today about our current job opening for a photographer. We’ve reviewed your website and portfolio, and we love what we see. We are very excited about the prospect of working together. I do have one question, though. You mentioned on the phone that you shoot with the Nikon D300. Is that a full frame camera? I’m asking because having a full frame camera is a requirement for this job….”

[Read More…]

The Story and Science Behind Color Film

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Have you ever wondered how color film came to be? Interestingly the story involves math, chemistry, and a group if innovative, curious people, as well as smart businessmen.

The film below by our pals at filmmakeriq, have a great movie going over the history of color film starting with the “discovery of color” as a function of light by Isaac Newton.

The story goes on with Kinemacolor system a duo color capturing mechanism and travels all the way to modern days Technicolor and Eastmancolor.[Read More…]

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