Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
We may argue whether or not we should work for free, or when we should do it. But if a company worth billions wants to hire us, I guess we can expect to be paid. Or not?
The producers of Netflix’s show Love is Blind reached out to photographer Megan Saul to offer her a gig. It would be an opportunity of a lifetime… if only it weren’t paid in exposure instead of real money.
The whole manual vs auto thing for me isn’t really much of a debate. And whether you prefer to use auto or manual, you’re still going to need to understand the underlying principles of photography and how your camera “sees” a scene in order to get the most out of it and the best possible images you can that achieve your vision.
Coming to you from Paul at Photo Genius, this video compares the differences when shooting multiple scenes using both manual and auto exposure controls. It’s a good illustration of why automatic isn’t perfect for everything (or potentially even most stuff, depending on what you like to shoot) and how understanding manual can get you that control you need.
What is a stop of light? Essentially, it’s a relative quantity of light. Either half or double of a pre-existing amount. But what does that really mean? And why does it take Rob Hall 8 whole minutes to explain it? Well, that simple concept comes with a lot of implications in photography, and it applies to everything from our ISO, aperture and shutter speed to flash power, flash distance, neutral density filters and more.
Understanding what a stop of light is and what it implies are vital for creating good and consistent exposures in photography, and it’s one of its most basic principles. If you don’t understand it, it can be difficult to figure out what problems might be occurring when you shoot an image and it isn’t what you expected.
We’ve all been there at some point or another. We’ve misjudged our exposure, knocked a dial, the sun’s disappeared behind a cloud, or maybe our flash just hasn’t recycled yet. Whatever the reason, we’ve all had underexposed shots that we would actually quite like if we could better see what’s going on in them.
Well, in this video, commercial food photographer Scott Choucino shows us how he recovers those occasional underexposed shots using Lightroom. These same techniques will also work when using Adobe Camera Raw into Photoshop, too.
For those who’ve never seen TheCrafsMan SteadyCraftin on YouTube, you’re in for a treat – even if you already understand everything contained within this 25-minute video. For those who have, you know exactly what to expect. I’ve been following this rather unconventional channel for a while now. It covers a lot of handy DIY and crafting topics as well as the occasional random tangent.
Today’s random tangent is the topic of exposure as it relates to photography. Although our host is a sock puppet, the principles are explained very well, in a manner that most people will be able to grasp quite easily – and probably find quite entertaining, too. So, if you’ve struggled to make that switch to “M”, this video may just help you out.
Everybody knows the exposure triangle by now, right? ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Once you know your scene’s exposure value, you can just balance out the three to get a good exposure. And as you adjust one up or down, you need to adjust another in the opposite direction to compensate. Well, what if one of them isn’t really anything to do with exposure?
That’s the argument put forth by Chris Lee of the YouTube channel pal2tech, and it’s a compelling one. Back in the days of film, it was a little different, and your ISO really did reflect the sensitivity of the film stock to light. These days, though, with digital cameras, not so much.
I’m sure that many of us have been asked to work for free in all sorts of annoying ways. One cheeky couple recently sent an email to a photographer asking for a coverage of their 10-hour wedding. In return, they offered exposure to the incredible number of 300 guests, 117 of them unmarried. What a tempting offer, right?
Street photography is one of the more chaotic yet fun genres of photography that many people choose to pursue. Even if it’s not something that people do regularly, it’s something that many of us do anyway when we go on vacation as just a regular part of documenting our trip. But how do we optimise our camera for this sort of shooting if we’re used to doing something more controlled, like portraits or product photography?
In this video, street photographer Frederik Trovatten talks about how he sets up his camera for shooting street photography. While he’s using the Fuji X-T3, the principles he mentions are common to many DSLR and mirrorless cameras. He also touches on shooting street photography with negative film, too.
It is now exactly 2 years since I started uploading stock photos to Unsplash -the slightly controversial stock photo platform where everything is FREE for everyone.
And I thought this is a good occasion to review what I gained from my presence on Unsplash.
In this article I want to answer the question if giving away one’s photographs for free on Unsplash has benefits for photographers.
Of course, these are just my own experiences. Your mileage may vary…
Let me give you the short conclusion first. For me as a professional photographer publishing photos on Unsplash was (almost) completely useless and had no tangible benefits.
Yet I am not negative towards Unsplash and I am going to tell you why.
Shooting in manual isn’t some magic bullet that will make all your shots perfect, no matter what some photographers might want you to believe. But there are things you need to understand in order to be able to use it effectively. Those three things are ISO, aperture and shutter speed.
In this video, photographer JoshinCincinnati walks us through the three basics of manual mode exposure, what they mean, and the implications of changing each.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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