Jim wanted to give a shout out to Gavin Gatchalian. 8 year-old who listens to the show and has had a photo published in the newspaper.

Pre-Roll: Lightroom Steal Last Chance Sale!

Questions of the Week:

Jeff Kazules – Polarizer on bald dudes

Nick McDonald – I shot some photos for a magazine that are supposed to look summery – they were taken in bright overcast light – I’ve been playing with saturation, colour temp, graduated filters etc, but I’m having trouble – any tips?

Carol Pagliotti – I need help. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. All of my photos seem slanted or crooked. No matter what I do I cannot get my horizons straight in my Philadelphia photos.

Jesse Smith – I don’t have my monitor calibrated, but when I set my brightness on my Samsung to 0, it seems to look the same, or close enough to the print. Do I really need to edit with my brightness on my monitor at 0?

Jeff: I have seen this be the case with some monitors. The brightness in the menu of the monitor doesn’t seem to do anything.  I found that going to contrast seemed to have the effect I needed.  I assumed it was some kind of mistake where the two were swapped.

Connor: I will often edit with computer displays in mind first, editing all my shots at a medium/high monitor brightness, and then go back and dim my monitor to adjust for printing. Keep in mind not everyone viewing your images will have calibrated monitors.

Connor’s Segment: Tips for keeping gear clean and safe while shooting at the Sand dunes.

Plan focal Lengths beforehand, and be prepared to stick with the lens on your camera

I am going to be bringing two bodies, my 6D with a 24-70 and my 60D with a 70-300 (112-480 effective range). Once they are on they stay on.

Plan on not setting down a bag on the ground. Be careful because sand will get EVERYWHERE!

I am thinking I should probably get a tripod before I go out to do something like this again. Not only because it helps to get beautiful landscape shots (admittedly something I don’t often do) but also because it will be less than enjoyable to be walking around with 2 heavy bodies hanging off of me all afternoon and evening. (I know Jim, if I went mirrorless it wouldn’t be a problem. ;p

As an indoor cat, I am a little worried there is something I haven’t considered for a shoot like this. Do you guys have any other advice for shooting in environments with lots of dust/dirt/particles?

Midroll: The Great Courses & Video Blocks

Jim’s Segment: Testing long exposures

I did a 3 min exposure with lens cap on and tested noise.  Then I did a 5 and 8 min exposure and then went back to test the 3 min again.  The first 3 min exposure when the camera was cool had about 40% less noise than the 3 min exposure after shooting for several minutes when the camera was hot.

I didn’t realize there would be that big of a difference.

From now on when I’m doing long exposures, I’m gonna give the camera 2 mins to cool down between shots.

Jeff: The biggest thing that “astronomy” specific DLSRs do is cool the sensor.  The Canon 60Da for example.  A company called “Baader” will mod a number of Canon models to do this for much less: http://www.baader-planetarium.de/sektion/s45/canon_astroupgrade-english.htm

Jeff’s Segment: Best mouse for photo editing

Article coming soon to improvephotography.com.  I know I have said it is coming for a while, but it really is now that my boys soccer season has finally ended.

High DPI mice.  Gamers really seem to think it is super important.  Does it matter for photography?  In my testing it did not.  

Supposed to increase the ability to target something specific on the ...