Let It Rain - How To Get Creative With Mother Nature

May 15, 2013 1 Comment

When shooting outdoors, weather can play a huge part in how a shoot comes out. A lot of photographers will tell you they prefer an overcast sky to avoid any harsh shadows, while others prefer a bright sun when shooting, often using the sun to their advantage, back-lighting their subjects. The thing is, none of us have control over the weather and no matter what type of weather we prefer to shoot in, it can change at any moment and a good photographer knows how to prepare for anything mother nature throws at them. Preparation is key, and you never want to be in a situation where you think the weather is going to do one thing, and not be prepared for another. Even if mother nature decides to throw a little rain your way, learn to be creative with it, rather then pack it up and call it a day.

A Visual Compendium of Cameras

May 14, 2013 Comment

If your into your gear as much as I am, you should love this! I just ordered one for my office. Check it out!

Learning To Leave The Matrix – A Tip On Metering

May 1, 2013 Comment

In photography…light is everything. Understanding how your camera reads light and determines correct exposure is hands down the most important thing your camera does, yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. Your camera has different ways that is reads light by using an internal light meter, and depending on which metering mode you have your camera set on, it determines the correct exposure. For the most part, the metering mode is untouched buried in the camera settings, because for the most part, when you’re in the Matrix…life is good. Matrix is the default metering mode for all modern Nikon DSLR camera bodies, also known as Evaluative Metering for Canon, and is often never changed, actually it’s recommended by many that you not change it because it works so well, but that’s not always the case. I’m going to explain a little bit about leaving the Matrix default mode and why you would want to such a crazy thing, but first I’m going to do a quick explanation about what metering is exactly.

Ronaldo Stewart - From BMX To Lambos - Inspirational Automotive Photography

April 25, 2013 Comment

Ronaldo Stewart is a freelance photographer based out of New Jersey. He started getting into photography around high school but it wasn't intentional. He would borrow his dad's Minolta point-and-shoot film camera to take pictures of his him and his friends riding BMX. Eventually he got addicted to shooting photos and started doing research on how to improve; learning about shutter speed, aperture, and metering for correct exposure. After working to save up enough money, he bought his own SLR camera. It was a Minolta Maxxum 5D and he learned all of the basics on that camera, he would even use slide film and learned the concept of off-camera lighting with it.

REVOLUTIONARY - The Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM

April 19, 2013 Comment

It's Real...Sigma did what no other lens manufacturer has been able to do, make a zoom lens that has a fixed aperture of F1.8 all the way through it's zoom range. The 18-35mm F1.8 DC HSM is an APS-C sensor lens that is the 35mm equivalent of 27mm-52.5mm. It will be available for Nikon, Canon, and Sigma mounts, and is the latest addition to their new Art line of lenses. This is a lens that has never been seen before, and for those shooting APS-C sensor camera bodies, this lens has the capability of replacing multiple lenses in your bags, and if it tests as good as the Sigma 35mm F1.4, this lens will quickly become the most popular lens on the market...and rightfully so. I'm still surprised that it took a third party lens manufacturer to release a lens like this, and I hope this is a sign of things to come soon from Nikon and Canon now that the bar has been raised. I'm also curious to see if Sigma has anything in store for us shooting fullframe sensor camera bodies in the near future. This could be a good kick in the ass to Nikon and Canon, at least I hope it is. Here is the description from the Sigma website and some specs. Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Lightroom 5 Beta - Available Now!

April 15, 2013 Comment

Click on the LR image to get to the download and the Adobe blog that gives all the juicy new features of the Lightroom 5 upgrade. I was going to download it tonight but just won't have time to play around with it, so I'll probably download it sometime this week and post up my thoughts. One of the biggest features I can see so far is the advanced healing brush, which you is demonstrated in this screen shot provided by Adobe.

Lightroom 5 Coming Soon???

April 15, 2013 Comment

Photo Rumors just posted the article you can see by clicking on the image above, reporting a leak on a possible Lightroom 5 beta coming soon. I know there are a lot of photographers still using LR3 since LR4 hasn't been out all that long, but the changes from 4 to 5 don't seem to be as drastic as the previous upgrade. There were some pretty nice changes to the Basic adjustment panel with LR4, as well as a number of other improvements, but LR5 seems to be a little less impressive from the rumor. I have always been impressed with each and every upgrade released by Adobe, so I'm excited to see the official announcement.

FREELENSING - The Poor Man's Tilt-Shift

April 10, 2013 2 Comments

Freelensing is an relatively inexpensive way of getting a similarly unique affect of an expensive tilt-shift lens, where the focus plane is thrown out of whack with the added bonus of natural light leaks. No, this isnt anything new, and the look that an expensive tilt-shift lens gives has been around for a while, but I wanted to share with you my experience with it and how I did it. Yes, I did purchase a brand new Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D lens from B&H only to break it and take it apart the minute I took it out of the box...but that was the reason I purchased it. I had tossed around the idea of spending the money on a tilt-shift lens that would easily cost me over $1000, but after reading about the freelensing technique from Sam Hurd, I figured I would give it a try. At the end of the day, it's the unique look that I'm going for, so if I could get that by breaking a $150 lens, lets do it.

Creating a B&W Photo

April 9, 2013 Comment

It’s one of the simplest things you can do to a digital photo you have taken in color - just convert it to black-and-white. The problem with just a simple B&W conversion is that sometimes the photo just doesn’t look that good

Back To The Basics - Which Lens to buy first?

April 4, 2013 Comment

Zoom zoom...is the mentality of every first time DSLR owner when thinking about lenses, which zoom lens should I buy? WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! I've witnessed it too many times, when just after a couple months of purchasing their first DSLR, disappointment sets in. Disappointment that the images don't really look any different than the images taken on their little point and shoots. There are two reasons for this...the first one being AUTO Mode, I can't emphasize enough that there is no reason to purchase a DSLR if you are only going to use it in AUTO Mode. The second reason...the LENS! Just as much as I like to stress getting out of AUTO Mode, I stress the word PRIME! As in prime lenses...lenses that do not zoom (WHAT?!?...thats crazy talk). I realize this is difficult for some to wrap their heads around, but unless you have $1500 or more to spend, a zoom lens is not going to give you the images you want. I'm going to explain to you why you don't want to purchase another zoom lens to go along with the one that came with your camera...and why the 50mm f/1.8 should be the first lens you purchase.

Nikon Firmware Upgrades

April 2, 2013 Comment

Click for links to each upgrade

FInal blended photo.

Take Control of Your HDR

March 30, 2013 1 Comment

HDR - High Dynamic Range photos, just the mention of this post processing technique can surely stir up a wide range of opinions. In the following video tutorial I’m going to show you how I use HDR processing manually in Photoshop with layers masks to create a photo with a very wide range of tonality while maintaining a natural look.

Headshots - The Power of Makeup & Good Editing

March 26, 2013 Comment

I thought I would share some shots from a recent blog I did for Cass Imaging, where each model allowed me to take their headshot before makeup and show it pretty much straight out of the camera with no editing done. I used a very simple lighting setup, consisting of one SB910 used to light the model and one SB700 lighting the backdrop, both triggered by Nikon CLS. The camera used was the Nikon D800 and the lens was an 85mm F1.4, which I absolutely love for headshots. With the extreme detail and resolution of the 36MP D800, it takes a little practice with editing, knowing where to keep the detail and where to dull it down. You can see in the before photos taken just how unpleasing detail can be when no edited correctly. I've always wanted to show off just how important good makeup and good editing is with portrait work, and I finally was able to talk three models into allowing me to post their all natural photos.

The Sigma 35mm F1.4 "Trounces" The Competition In DxOMark Score

March 18, 2013 Comment

As per DxOMark:

"When compared with two real optical heavy-weights, the 11-element, manual focus Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 35mm f/1.4 (1,4/35 in Zeiss speak) ZF.2 and the 10-element Nikon AF AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.4G, the Sigma trounces both. That’s quite something given the Zeiss and Nikon are both around $1,850. With each lens paired with the D800, the DxOMark score of 39 points clearly puts the Sigma in the lead."

Back To The Basics - Recommended DSLR Cameras!

March 17, 2013 Comment

Since the beginning of the year, I have received a ton of emails and phone calls regarding which camera I recommend. The problem is...this isn't an easy question to answer. There are a few things to take into consideration, so my response is usually a list of questions rather than the name of a camera. Cameras are made with different consumers in mind, and just like with all electronics, new models seem to be popping up every week, so there is a pretty big selection from which to choose. You really need to know how you plan on using it to make the best decision, and how much of an investment your looking to make.

Lightroom for the Lazy

March 12, 2013 4 Comments

If you are anything like me you are always looking for quicker and easier ways to work with your images. As a wedding photographer I always have thousands of images that need to be culled through to pick out the good photos. I personally use Lightroom for this so after years of pressing keyboard shortcuts to tag, scroll and zoom through thousands of thousands of images I decided to look for an alternative method...

First Impressions - PocketWizard Plus X

March 9, 2013 2 Comments

The new PocketWizard Plus X is a manual-only wireless radio trigger capable of synchronising your flashes with your camera. It can also be used as a handheld remote shutter release. The Plus X is being dubbed as “the simplest PocketWizard ever”, and with one look at it, you would expect it to be...there's not much to it. One nice feature that current owners of PocketWizard remote triggers is that these little guys are compatible with all other PocketWizard devices.

The Lightshop's Spring Photo Contest

March 8, 2013 Comment

Take a photo with the theme of "Spring / New Life"
Join The Lightshop Flickr group
Add your photo to the Flickr group and make sure to tag it with "LightshopContest"
Follow @MyLightshop on Twitter
The photo needs to have been taken in 2013
Deadline for photo submissions is Friday April 5, 2013
The winning photo will be chosen by a panel of four photographers and announced on Friday May 12, 2013.

The panel will choose the top three photos which will be announced on the Lightshop website on April 12th. The first place winner will have their choice between a full version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 valued at $149 for either Windows or Mac (your choice), or a $150 gift certificate to Borrowlenses.com. The winning photo will also be featured on The Lightshop website, along with an explanation by the photographer on how they captured it. All three winners will have the opportunity to have their work featured on the Lightshop website along with a short bio. We look forward to seeing all the awesome photos submitted over the next 4 weeks. Good luck and happy shooting!

The Lightshop's Back To The BASICS

March 4, 2013 Comment

I’ve been surprised by the amount of emails I’ve received from readers explaining how much they like the site but are also either just getting into photography or just starting to learn the basics of DSLR photography. Two of the most popular questions I’ve received have been “which DSLR should I buy?” and “where do I begin if I want to learn how to start using my DSLR manually?”

PocketWizard PlusX

March 2, 2013 Comment

PocketWizard just released it's simplest and cheapest PocketWizard system yet, and I just ordered two of them. I couldn't resist. Once I get them I'll post a hands-on review. Here are some more details from PocketWizard...

As per DxOMark:​

As per DxOMark: