Moving from the APS-C to the full-frame world can be a very intimidating thing to do. After all, you’re going to spend a significant amount of money; money you have most likely been saving up for quite some time. There are so many options out there, and we know you want to pick a camera that will give the most Continue Reading
The post Canon EOS 6D Mark II Review: Full-Frame King? appeared first on Photodoto.
Since the first consumer camera was introduced more than 130 years ago, photography folders have provided a solid means for organizing and protecting developed and printed images. Somewhere down the line, ambitious photographers began to use them to market their services and separate themselves from the pack by branding their work. Presentation folders for photographers should be taken seriously because Continue Reading
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The post How to Get Started With Your Photography Promotions appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
When it comes to the world of commercial photography, print is not dead. Although the Internet and your website are great tools to promote your photography, to really get noticed by agencies and other buyers of photography, you need to make printed promotional pieces, known in the industry as “promos.”
You can get really creative with promos, like sending them out with branded gifts, but this article will focus on printed promos.
Here are some tips on creating your photography promotions and sending them out into the world.
Before you can send out promos, you need to know whom you’re sending them to.
This necessitates doing your research and coming up a list of targeted clients that you wish to work with.
If you haven’t already done this, know that this should be an ongoing process in your efforts to attract work. You must narrow down whom you want to work with and pursue those clients to get them to notice you. Printed promos are one way of doing this.
Find out the names and contact information for the people you want to send a promo to. Keep track of them in a spreadsheet or a client management tool aimed at creatives, like Nutshell or Dubsado.
This will help you stay organized and remind you of when you last contacted them and what the outcome was.
Decide on how many promos you want to send out. Fifty is a good number to start with. You may choose more or less, depending on your niche and target market and the realities of your budget.
Before you can design your promo, you’ll need to decide what form your promo will take. Will it be a magazine? A newspaper? A poster or postcard?
I generally don’t recommend postcard promotions because they often get thrown away. However, they can be used to augment your promotions, or you can send them to smaller clients that you would be open to working with.
Printing a promo can be a costly undertaking, so you don’t want to send them to leads that are not likely to pay off.
For example, as a food photographer, I might send a promo to high-end restaurants or restaurant chains that have a marketing person or PR agency because this signals that they have the budget to hire a good photographer. I can reserve the postcards to send to smaller restaurants, such as family-run businesses who might want to hire a photographer and are more likely to keep a postcard than an art director at an advertising agency.
Browse a few websites that print promos for photographers to see what the options are and how they might best represent your photography.
You can choose someone local in the city you live. Alternatively, search nationally or even internationally, depending on what you’re looking and the value provided.
For example, as a Canadian, I have some good choices in the city where I live. However, I also regularly seek out US Sites that can give me good results for a similar price, despite postage and exchange rates. Some good options are Paperchase Press, Next Day Flyers, and Newspaper Club.
A promo is a visual calling card. It should include a bio or artist’s statement, your logo and contact information.
Depending on the niche, some photographers give their images titles or captions. If you’re an assignment photographer who is submitting collected images from a trip or assignment, you might want to preface the promo with a bit of a backstory.
A food photographer may include a short recipe with one of the images.
If you choose to include text, keep it brief. The point of the promo is to focus on your photography.
Don’t make the mistake of taking the time and effort to design a great promo and then hire the wrong printer in order to save money. Your efforts will be wasted.
A promo is meant to showcase your work in the best possible light. A poorly printed piece degrades the quality of your photography.
If you’re in the commercial photography world, then promos should be an important part of your marketing strategy and require investment. There is no getting around investing in marketing to grow your business and appear as a professional.
Successful and established photographers with a regular client list still send out promos.
Research printers and their offerings as you would a potential client. You may want to seek out recommendations in forums or from other photographers you know and trust before you make your decision.
Promos pay off, but sometimes it can take a bit of time. We live in a world saturated with information, so it can take a few attempts on your part to get the right people to notice you.
Be sure to send out a new promo 3-4 times a year to your contacts, and don’t overlook your current clientele. They should also know what you’ve been up to. Regular promos will keep you looking fresh and relevant and busy with other clients, which always reflects well on you and your photography business.
To see samples of a variety of promos, check out @photoeditor on Instagram by Rob Haggert, a former Director of Photography for Men’s Journal whose feed is dedicated to showcasing the various promos sent to him from photographers around the world.
Do you do promotions? Share any ideas with us in the comments below.
The post How to Get Started With Your Photography Promotions appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.
The post Tips for Using Negative Space in Photography to Create Stunning Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sandra Roussy.
“I’m filling in all the negative spaces with positively everything.”
– Edie Brickell
Negative space may tend to suggest something that is not good. But negative space in photography is also often referred to as white space or minimalism photography. There’s nothing bad about it. It’s truly a unique technique to try out in your photography practice.
We sometimes tend to fill our compositions with lots of objects and color. When we talk about negative space, it’s the opposite that rules. The final image is mostly composed of blank or neutral space, and a small portion of the composition has an actual object in it.
This type of composition emphasizes the subject in the photo and also adds a unique value to it. This type of composition is powerful and, when done correctly, can take your photography from ordinary to truly impressive.
It can be a little daunting at first when you begin to do negative space photography. Not all attempts will be successful. There are opportunities to create negative space photography practically everywhere around you. You have to know how to observe and apply a few techniques to achieve amazing negative space masterpieces.
This is the area in the photo that attracts the viewer’s eye. It’s the main subject that commands attention in the composition. This is usually where the eye goes first.
This is the space in the composition that is typically the background. It usually doesn’t attract very much attention and is, in most cases, the intention of the photographer. It is used to define or contour the positive space.
In negative space photography, the photographer uses the space that is usually not the primary focus and uses it to fill in most of the composition. The negative space commands more attention than the positive space and creates a unique perspective. It also adds definition and can create strong emotions.
Negative space photography can evoke a sense of wonder, mysteriousness, and peacefulness. The viewer will have a greater connection to the object if the photo has no clutter, visual distractions, and a multitude of colors.
You may be presented with opportunities to create negative space photography more times than you think. It’s all in how you visualize or train your eye to look at things.
For example, a few years ago, I stood at a popular lookout overlooking an iconic rock sitting in the Atlantic Ocean in Eastern Canada. It was early morning, and some fog had rolled in, covering most of the impressive structure. The woman standing next to me at the lookout observing the same landscape turned to me and said, “It’s so sad, we’re driving by today, and I wanted to get a photo of the Percé Rock, but it seems like it won’t be possible.”
She left disappointed that she didn’t get her shot.
I stood there for a long time afterward examining the fog and the way it draped the rock like a heavy blanket. I thought that this was one of the most amazing things to happen that day. I felt so lucky to be there at that exact moment to capture the wonder unfolding.
Sometimes a small shift in perspective can make a huge difference.
Negative space is absolutely not blank space. If you think of it this way, you will have difficulty seeing the opportunities that you will be presented with. You want the negative space to be the main focus of your photograph, and it will hopefully evoke strong feelings.
We are trained to follow some basic composition rules, like the rule of thirds, for example. However, with negative space photography, these rules mostly don’t apply. Your imagination is what rules the composition in negative space photography.
© José Velasco
However, there are a few things to remember and consider if you want to achieve this type of photography.
Fill your composition with the negative space. Try to put minimal distracting objects in your composition. Texture or solid colors are great elements to use in negative space photography. Use the texture or color to fill in most of the composition.
The object should be secondary and placed somewhere that is usually not primarily capturing the eye of the viewer. Placing the subject somewhere in the corner of your frame will frequently provide you with a good result. Try to balance the negative space with the white space so that it flows.
A good rule of thumb is to put twice as much negative space than positive space in the composition.
Try to avoid shallow depth of field when doing negative space photography. This is so that neither the object nor the negative space in the photograph is blurry.
When you look at things differently and step outside of the traditional rules, you will find many great opportunities to create some unique shots. Look at a scene and try to create your own story.
© José Velasco
Negative space photography is an excellent way to expand your skills and your photographic eye. So remember, less is sometimes more.
Have any negative space photographs that you are proud of? Don’t hesitate to show us in the comments section below.
The post Tips for Using Negative Space in Photography to Create Stunning Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sandra Roussy.
Hope Kahn is a Maryland-based journalist who is doing all of the sorts of things I was doing at her age: honing her writing and reporting skills, putting out a student newspaper, and always scrambling to find a good local story.
Over the last couple of years she's been punching above her weight class, having been published in national outlets such as Ms. and The New York Times. Suffice to say those are not exactly things I had accomplished before graduating high school.
Her work in the #SinceParkland project is a fantastic example of a product of Generation Lockdown working to effect real change.
Recently we did some head shots that will hopefully allow her to start visually branding herself as the serious, thoughtful journalist she is fast becoming. The setup we used was classic Lighting 101 head-shot-in-a-corner fare, with an L102 and L103 twist. Read more »
Strobist
The post Review of the Nikon D500 for Wildlife and Bird Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Shreyas Yadav.
Roller with Nikon D500 and Nikon 200-500 f/5.6
Fast action is at the heart of Wildlife photography. Wildlife action is fast and unpredictable. Most of the wildlife, including predators, are active during early dawn and late dusk. During the edge of the day, light conditions are low. Having a range of focal lengths is essential to photograph distant wildlife shots. The weather conditions are harsh in the wild. Moreover, wildlife photographers try to find a camera which is capable of capturing stunning images in every possible situation in the wild.
Nikon crafted a flagship DX-format DSLR camera – the Nikon D500, with excellent high ISO performance, a faster frame rate, and a fast and accurate focus – even in low light.
Nikon D500 with the Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 lens mounted on Gitzo Tripod
The Nikon D500 camera body weighs around 870g (30 oz) including battery and XD card. It is a crop sensor (DX format) DSLR with a 20.9 MP CMOS sensor. The ISO range is from ISO 100 to ISO 51200. This ISO range is useful in getting better image quality even in low light. In addition to high ISO performance, frame rate and autofocus performance of the Nikon D500 is excellent. Frames per second for Nikon D500 is whooping 10 FPS. The autofocus is fast and accurate in low light as well. Nikon D500 is fully capable of focussing up to f/8 with center focusing points. These key features make the Nikon D500 excellent for Wildlife and Bird photography.
This article is a field-review of Nikon D500 from the perspective of Wildlife Photographer. This review will help you in understanding how the Nikon D500 performs in the field.
Note: All the wildlife and bird images are photographed in the natural forest with uncontrolled light conditions and within their natural habitat.
Images are captured with the Nikon D500 and the Nikon 200-500 f/5.6 lens with a bean bag. Images are captured either from a safari jeep or from a safari boat.
AF-ON is useful in back button autofocussing. The focus area selection button is next to the AF-ON button. The Nikon D500 has a touch screen, and it can tilt up to a certain angle.
Buttons for selection of White Balance, Exposure Mode, Metering and Image Quality.
Shutter release mode dial.
Buttons for Exposure compensation, ISO selection, and movie recording.
Focus mode selection button.
Controls on the camera feel perfect for wildlife photography.
Here is why:
Osprey in flight. Focus performance of the Nikon D500 for Birds in flight is excellent. Exif : 1/800s , f/8 and ISO 450
Bird action happens fast and can be erratic. Wildlife movement is also fast as it occurs at dawn or dusk. The ability of the camera to focus fast and accurate is a must. With the Multi-Cam 20K Autofocus Sensor module, Nikon D500’s autofocus capabilities are excellent. The Nikon D500 focuses accurately (provided you choose the appropriate focus mode and focus area mode).
I use back button autofocus for focusing. There is a dedicated button for back button autofocus, which is AF-ON.
Hare in the clutter. The Nikon D500 precisely acquires focus on the main object even through the forest clutter.
The Nikon D500 focusses extremely well in following conditions:
In terms of autofocus performance, the Nikon D500 is an absolute winner.
Deer crossing the safari track. The camera’s focus performance for distant objects is excellent. This deer was crossing the Safari road. The distance between the deer and our vehicle was around 100 meters
Colors of the peacock. Color rendition and image quality of the Nikon D500 is great. Exif: 1/100s, f/5.6 and ISO 720
Colors, tonal range, and dynamic range of the Nikon D500 images is excellent. Metering of the Nikon D500 is fantastic. It evaluates and produces correct image exposure.
Stare of an eagle. The Nikon D500 captures the details perfectly. Exif: 1/400s, f/5.6 an ISO 500
For most of my wildlife images, I use Matrix metering. For some tricky light situations, such as harsh lights or shadows, and if the animal is dark or bright, I switch to Spot metering mode. Matrix metering will give you excellent light exposure.
Jungle fowl calling. Feather details are excellent. Exif: 1/250s, f/5.6 and ISO 450
The elephant in its kingdom. Colors and details of the elephant are accurate. Exif: 1/1000s, f/5.6 and ISO 2200
The dynamic range of the Nikon D500 is improved as compared to earlier versions of the DX format Nikon cameras. If the light is sufficient, I set the exposure compensation to +0.3 or +0.7. Exposure compensation shifts the histogram towards the right. It helps in bringing out the details and enhancing the colors in an image.
The Dynamic Range of the Nikon D500 is wide. The camera was able to capture the eyes and feathers in the shadow. Equally, the Nikon D500 captured the highlighted crest on the head perfectly.
Image quality and ISO performance in low light are much improved in the Nikon D500. The camera ISO has a range from ISO 100 to ISO 51200. In controlled light conditions or lab test, the Nikon D500 Images may look less noisy. However, when you are shooting with the Nikon D500 in the real jungle and natural light conditions, you have to be realistic when you select your ISO.
Peacock at ISO 1600
I use a maximum ISO up to 6400 in most cases, and for some rare wildlife moments, I go up to ISO 12800. In the forest, especially during the early morning or late evening, an ISO of up to 6400 helps. With ISO 6400, I can get a sharp image with excellent dynamic range. The colors are also good. These images are perfectly usable for big prints and web-sized images.
Bond of Nature. Family portrait at ISO 4000
Whereas, if you go ridiculously high on ISO such as ISO 51200, you will still get an image, but you will have to apply Noise reduction in post-processing. Also, the image loses the fine details. If you are going to print the image, select the reasonable high ISO at the available light conditions.
The Nikon D500 has improved high ISO and low light performance. Up to maximum ISO 6400, images are great. The sharpness and colors are fantastic and noise levels are low and manageable in post-processing.
Sambar deer at ISO 6400. It was almost dark in the forest. Luminance noise is visible in the image.
Mongoose at ISO 6400. It was almost dark in the forest.
Fish eagle on the perch. Auto White balance for the Nikon D500 produces color temperatures and tint accurately.
The auto white balance of the Nikon D500 is accurate. The camera produces white balance without any shift in color or tint. All the color temperatures look right.
Other than Auto White balance, there are different white balances available such as Daylight and Shade. All produce good results.
For wildlife and bird photography, I recommend you choose Auto White Balance. It will help to reproduce the correct white balance for your images. If you want to add creative effects, you can always tune the raw image in post-processing.
The DX sensor, superior autofocus performance, high ISO performance, best in class frames per second (10 FPS), and travel-friendly size makes the Nikon D500 perfect for wildlife and bird photography.
You will love using Nikon D500 in the wild.
What do you think about the Nikon D500 camera? Please do let us know in the comments below!
The post Review of the Nikon D500 for Wildlife and Bird Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Shreyas Yadav.
The post 3 Photo Editing Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.
If you are a photographer who shoots in RAW, then you know that editing is a must!
Editing is a lot of fun. Personally, I enjoy seeing a blah photo turn into a good one by manipulating the details in the image. It’s almost like magic. However, editing doesn’t come without caveats.
In this article, we’ll look at three basic editing mistakes to avoid. They are easy to do, especially when you are new to editing and are overly enthusiastic about transforming your photo into something magical!
When I was a novice, my photos were over-edited (cringe). I looked at other photographers’ work with awe, and I wanted my photos to look like theirs. I got lured into using actions and using them too heavily for that color-pop, scroll-stopping, jaw-dropping impact a photo can have.
It was awful; as I later discovered. It was when I learned how to distinguish between a good photo edited correctly and a photo decimated by actions or over-editing that my images dramatically improved and my confidence as a photographer grew.
Let’s dive in and look at the three basic editing mistakes to avoid. The photos I used in this article are ordinary snaps, taken without the use of any lighting and on a normal bright morning. You don’t have to set up amazing sessions and shots for an excuse to edit your photos. Even the most ordinary of photos could do with a bit of magic.
The first mistake in editing is not shooting in RAW format. Editing and RAW are best friends. Editing a RAW file is the best combination you can use because RAW is a lossless format. That means it retains all the information in the image for you to play around with during the editing process.
RAW is untouched, unprocessed, and unedited. The raw information in pixels is all collated without any interference from the camera. On the other hand, JPEGS (whether that be fine or basic), is a format which allows the camera to process the raw information and compress it by discarding pixels. It does away with some of this raw information before saving the image to your memory card. As a result, you get a smaller image that has already been edited by your camera.
This means the colors and contrasts are already different from the original information. When you edit a JPEG image, you are further fiddling with the remaining information and processing an already processed image. This is not an ideal starting place, as it’s often difficult not to overedit from this point.
For more detailed articles on RAW vs JPEG, read here.
This may sound basic to some of you, but many of you might not have heard of the term white balance. When I first had a DSLR, I shot on portrait mode. I didn’t know how to shoot in Manual and didn’t feel I needed to learn it. I relied on the camera modes until I realized I could not achieve the style and type of images I wanted. Until then, I did not know – let alone understand – what White Balance meant.
To put it simply, white balance is making sure white objects appear white. Many lighting factors can affect the whites in your image. These are called color cast. Color casts happen when whites look like different colors depending on the ambient light. A very common color cast occurrence is from incandescent light which, if the white balance is left unadjusted, will render white objects a yellow color, for example.
There is a thing called color temperature measured in Kelvins which offers a range of numerical values to which you adjust your white balance to get your white balance correct. When shooting outdoors in natural sunlight, for example, the color temperature is usually in the 5500K range. You want your camera’s white balance to match that so your white looks white. Conversely, indoors usually has a warmer color temperature. When there are tungsten lights involved, the Kelvins are around 3500K. You need to match this too to ensure your white looks white.
Sure the camera can do this by itself using Auto White Balance, and it does it really well too. The trouble I find is that it still varies quite a lot even though the variations might be minimal. For me, this proves a problem when editing thousands of images, especially when batch editing. My preference to counteract this is to shoot in Kelvin which gives me a pretty constant white balance, though not an absolute science, that I can tweak when editing.
Read more about demystifying white balance here.
There are a hundred and one ways you can over-edit your images. I will touch on a few favorites, especially because they are the ones that affect the image the most.
I love vignettes. I apply vignetting to most of my images and love the way it draws the attention to the middle of the image by way of overall contrast: darker around the edges and lighter in the middle. However, it is so easy to be heavy-handed with it so that your image looks like “a moth to a flame” effect: black spherical shape on the outside and a very bright central area. The key word is subtle.
A good trick of knowing how much vignette to add is to slide the bar across both extremes and then you can see the effect of each stage and decide what looks right.
Have you heard of the term “pop” in photography?
Photographers love using it! Add a color pop to make the image pop etc. Often, saturation is not the way to achieve this “pop”! I would advise against fiddling with the saturation slider. Only use it if the photo is so undersaturated that a saturation boost is necessary to make the colors get closer to a natural look.
The danger of using the saturation slider is making the colors look ‘neonesque’! A classic ubiquitous example of this is green grass. NO grass looks neon green yet often we see them in photos. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the saturation slider is the culprit when I come across those images.
It is better to use the vibrance slider if you want to add some life to your color. Here is an article that explains the difference between vibrance and saturation.
Undersaturation is just as bad. This is when you strip the image of color so everything looks deathly pale or rather steely and cold. I have made this mistake before when I was starting out. Avoid it! Better yet, do not even attempt to do it.
Contrast is simply the difference between the whites and blacks in the image or, if you like, the light areas and dark areas. Three sliders affect contrast: whites, shadows, and blacks. Move those sliders to see what effect they do to the image.
The best advice I can give is to choose a natural contrast where the blacks are just right, and the whites are not blown or overexposed. Keeping an eye on the histogram helps to ensure you are not clipping blacks and whites and are staying within the proper range of values when it comes to contrast.
So there we are – three easily made editing mistakes. I hope you have learned something from this little article.
Any more valuable tips? Do share in the comments below.
The post 3 Photo Editing Mistakes to Avoid appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.
The post Is Photography Becoming too Easy? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.
The autofocus on the Sony A9 is amazing! Set it to eye AF, point in direction of the subject and let it do the rest. It’s almost too easy.
Everyone is a Photographer these days. It has never been easier or cheaper to create good quality photographs. People sincerely believe that the camera is what takes these amazing images. I am sure you have heard this as many times as I have; “You take beautiful photos, you must have a great camera.”
With the technology we see now though, I sometimes wonder, do they have a point?
We now have cameras in mobile phones, that not long ago professional photographers, paying thousands for their cameras would have dreamed of being able to use. Look at the ‘shot on iPhone’ campaign, and look at Instagram daily. People can take amazing photographs, with a couple of clicks and minimal effort.
Has modern technology democratized photography, or does it mean photography has become easy?
Technology has always pushed to make things simpler. Be that the TV remote control or the digital camera. The digital camera was simply the technology industry’s answer to the market forces. Consumers wanted a camera that could take endless photographs. Businesses, noting this need, used the emerging technology to answer their customer cries. Thus, creating digital cameras and changing the face of photography forever.
Let’s get this out of the way early. There was no comparison between shooting digital and shooting film. After the first generations with their inevitable teething problems and huge price tag, photography became incredibly easy with digital. Instant feedback told you whether you had the shot or not. You were not limited by 24 or 36 exposures (or less if you shot medium format). Lastly, after the initial outlay, photography became much cheaper as there were simply no processing bills.
Depending on whom you ask, the digital evolution is either the moment someone got into photography or the beginning of the decline. However, let’s think back a little. If you had shot wet plates, imagine how easy those punks using 35mm film had it.
Imagine when autofocus cameras meant you no longer needed the skill of manual focus? Well, that is just ridiculous! Imagine a flash that didn’t need the incredibly dangerous use of flash powder for goodness sakes. The ability to refocus after the photo is in its infancy, but I can see it being a mainstay of every camera in less than ten years.
Technology helps make life better for humans. The most common way to make things better is often making things easier. In the modern world, we adapt quickly and then quickly rely on the new tech we use. It becomes part of our lives and frees up vital brain space. Every photography innovation, from the first camera onwards, has been about making it easier to preserve a moment in time.
Remember when we only had 18 megapixels, or 12, or six! How did we manage with only nine autofocus points rather than focus points over the entire sensor? Focus points that you don’t really need to use because the camera finds the eyes of humans (or animals), locks on, and all you need to do is decide which eye you want in focus.
I mean imagine how photojournalists in the ’80s would react to a modern digital camera? Moving even further back, imagine telling painters in the 1500s that one day there would be a box that captured the image of the person in minute detail and all you needed to do was to allow light into a box?
I remember the first 0.5MP digital camera I ever used. It was like magic. You could see the photograph instantly, and you never needed to pay for the processing. I was hooked instantly. Even though I had a crappy job, I saved hard for a digital point and shoot and began capturing photos again. I occasionally shot on an SLR camera, but could rarely afford to buy film and process it. I even took a night school class to get access to a darkroom and shot everything in black and white.
The Pentax 3-Megapixel camera I had been saving for months to own, changed my world. The quality wasn’t as good. I had no control over the shutter speed or aperture, but I could take photos. Hundreds of them. All the time. It was life-changing. I had moved more into film making, but this digital camera brought me back. I got hooked again. If it were not for that 0.5 Megapixel camera I got to use in my job, I would probably not even be writing this.
The right place, the right time, but only a phone and no DSLR. Yet I still get an image like this.
We are photographers, and we love to lust over gear. The newest this, the better that. Camera companies spend millions trying to persuade us that we need new gear. Will the latest Sony with the mind-blowing eye autofocus really make your photos better? No. Will it make them easier? Undoubtedly, yes.
But, thanks to another wonderful technological invention – the internet – many of us spend more time talking about megapixels than actually using them.
We are as guilty as the influencers who “don’t even use a real camera” because we are the opposite. Instead, we sit pixel peeping the corner sharpness at four million percent and then badmouth how a manufacturer could release such a piece of crap.
A phone camera can take the most breathtaking image, worthy of an art gallery. Conversely, a multi-megapixel medium format camera with the best lens can take a snapshot.
50 years ago this photo was shot on a modified film camera. Gear does not matter as much as you think. Image courtesy of NASA.
Estimates suggest that over one trillion photographs were taken in 2018 (if you want to see the zeros, one trillion is 1,000,000,000,000). Ninety-five million photos get uploaded to Instagram every day. Add to that the three hundred hours of footage uploaded to YouTube every minute and the number of photographs and videos we are producing is simply staggering. Now whilst you cannot deny that digital made this possible, digital has also made it much harder to stand out.
Camera manufacturers are great at making people believe that they are artists – that everyone has an amazing movie. In the same way that everyone has a great novel, song, or painting inside of them begging to get out. In reality, that isn’t the truth. Photography (to me at least) is art. And art is, for better or worst, elitist.
Some people are not great artists and some are not great songwriters. And many people are not great photographers.
The problem is, with so much poor and average stuff out there, how do you get to see the good stuff? In some cases, you don’t. There are photographers out there, who are taking photographs that are simply some of the best ever taken. However, we will never see them. There are filmmakers out there creating short films that should see them breaking down the doors of Hollywood, but they don’t. Instead, our feeds are filled up with yet more cat memes and average photos we have seen thousands of times before.
We are drowning in content.
It is to the point where photography seems to be a popularity contest, rather than about artistry.
Look at how Canon treated Yvette Roman because she didn’t have 50,000 followers or more on YouTube. Let that sink in. A photographer whose style they loved for a job, who they agreed to hire, was replaced simply due to her lack of numbers. That shows you how companies want to hire photographers who can use their social channels to add to the marketing campaign.
We live in the influencer age, where amazing photographers are turned down for jobs due to not having followers. On the flip side of that, someone who only uses their phone for photography can be given thousands for merely showing that they use a particular piece of gear. They travel the world for free simply because they are popular on Instagram.
This system makes perfect sense when looked at from a marketing perspective. However, these platforms are where most of us spend our time and where we discover new content. Therefore, algorithms now control the amount of photography we get exposed to.
An algorithm doesn’t care about quality; it cares about metrics. The aim is to find popular content and put it out there for more people to find. Does this mean that photography is being reduced to likes? In many ways, yes, but it also shows the power of a story.
My 6-year-old took this photo. Sharp, well exposed and decent color. Not even a DSLR, just a compact.
We live in an age where you can throw your work out for all the world to see. The level of photography has never been higher. I can give my six-year-old a camera, and he can take sharp, well-exposed photos, telling the stories of his lego figures. But a camera, in fact, no technology, can yet create an image that tells a story.
A great photograph always tells a story. It makes us want to know more about the moment. It allows us to create our own story based on what we see in the image and our world view. The story I see in a photograph will be different from yours. In fact, you may hate a photograph I love and vice versa.
This is simply not possible with even the greatest camera. There is no Ai that will pick the perfect moment for you to click the shutter button. Yes, cameras may do 20 frames per second or more, but even then, you cannot continually record every second of the day. You need to find the angle, frame your subject in the way that tells your story and then press the shutter. Really, the technical aspect (no matter how much the camera companies persuade us otherwise) is not where the photograph is made. It is not in the corner sharpness – many great photos are not sharp. It is the story you tell.
The story is what you need to learn. Telling a story is hard. It has always been hard, and technology is nowhere near being able to do it for us.
You make the decisions before you press the shutter. You use the light, the subject, and find the angle. Then you open a box and let in some light for a little bit. It has always been the same. It’s just that technology over the years has made it easier to let the light in the box and get the image sharp if that is important to you.
No matter what the camera, knowing the moment to press the shutter is still a skill that is not computer controlled, yet.
I am sure you all saw it? It finally happened – a couple hired a robot to shoot their wedding! Yes, I know it is just a photo-booth style alternative for now, but it does hint to the future. Are we going to be used to weddings where drones automatically take photographs that are better than a human can capture? Photographs that can then be instantly customized by the bride and groom at the touch of a button (or voice command)? Will this mean that people will become obsolete in many photography fields? Will they only need a device; a robot?
Will my future as a photography business owner involve owning several robots? The ten-year-old version of me prays that this is true. Alternatively, will people not need to hire anyone? Perhaps photography will be built into their daily devices? Will we become so vain that a device follows us around capturing our daily lives and then picks the best moments via an algorithm to share on social media for us? (Let’s hope not! – Editor)
What do you think? Share your comments with us below.
The post Is Photography Becoming too Easy? appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.
The post Prime Lens Comparison – 24mm vs 35mm vs 50mm vs 85mm vs 135mm appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.
In this video, Julia Trotti does a prime lens comparison with portrait photography.
You’ll learn about focal lengths, background-to-foreground separation and compression, and distortion.
Take a look.
In this video, Julia compares the following lenses using her Canon 5D MkIII:
Julia first tests the lenses shooting full body photos with her model, Maralyn, from the same standing position to show how much background compression each lens shows, as well as the bokeh.
Then she does shots where her model fills more of the frame. To do so, she moves closer and further away to get the model in roughly the same position in the frame but showing what happens to the background in each shot.
The Sigma 24mm has the least background to foreground compression (shows more of the background) when doing full body shots.
The 85mm and the 135mm have great compression, and large background to foreground separation, with no distortion. The 135mm has the most background to foreground separation and compression of all these lenses.
Be sure to watch the video to see the photo examples that detail how the background compression is effected by each lens.
How to use Focal Length and Background Compression to Enhance Your Photos
5 Important Focal Lengths to Know and the Benefits of Each
Get Your Creative Juices Flowing with Different Focal Lengths
8 Focal Lengths Illustrated
The post Prime Lens Comparison – 24mm vs 35mm vs 50mm vs 85mm vs 135mm appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.
The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Sport appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.
This week’s photography challenge topic is SPORT!
Travis Yewell
Go out and capture sporty photos. It can be the kids playing sport, adult sports, animals playing sports, cycling, motorsports and action shots, or even sports related items. They can be color, black and white, moody or bright. You get the picture! Have fun, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Kolleen Gladden
Thomas Schweighofer
Check out some of the articles below that give you tips on this week’s challenge.
Top 5 Tips for Extreme Sports Photography
Tips for Doing Better Indoor Sports Photography
How to Photograph Agility Events and Other Dog Sports
Tips from the Sports Photography Pros to Help You Get the Money Shots
3 Tips for Taking Better Motorsport Photos
Tips and Tricks to Help You Take Better Youth Sports Photos
Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge.
You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.
If you tag your photos on Flickr, Instagram, Twitter or other sites – tag them as #DPSsport to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others know what you’re doing so that they can share in the fun.
The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Sport appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Caz Nowaczyk.
