Photography.ca

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #127 goes into why point and shoot cameras suck for learning photography. I actually rag on point and shoot cameras quite a bit in this podcast but it’s because photography should be fun and learning photography on a point and shoot camera is rarely fun and almost never user-friendly. At the beginning stages of learning photography you need your camera to be user-friendly and it’s nice when your camera can handle any shooting situation. Point and shoots are inferior to any new DSLRs when it comes to photographing things that move. Given that precious memories (that involve movement) like your child walking/running are missed with a point and shoot, it’s an inferior tool.

That lovely intro aside, I do recommend a few user friendly Point and shoots for photographers that are comfortable with a Point and shoot’s limitations. They definitely are portable and can be handy in capable hands.

Click the player at the end of this post to listen to (or download) the 13ish minute podcast.

Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast.

This point and shoot camera is not a good camera for learning photography

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

Podcast # 76 - Point and shoot cameras — Review of Canon G11

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You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #126 discusses the importance of the four edges of your photographs. They are seriously important and paying attention to them will improve your photography. The podcast offers up 6 (actually a few more than 6) practical tips on how to improve the edges of your photographs.

Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast.

A sneak peek to one of the 6 tips which is useful to photographers of all levels is to check out the work of master painters. They knew about the edges, about the overall composition, and the rules of composition. Those rules directly apply to photography. This famous painting below done by Rembrandt shows dark edges all around which is of course no accident. He did it all the time. Notice where your eye ends up in the painting; on the wave at left and this too is no accident. When we can apply some of these principles to photography, our images almost always improve.

1633 — Rembrandt (1606–1669) Christ in the Storm on the Lake of Galilee.

Talk about how edges can add interest! This image by Selena Rhodes Scofield from our forum is framed in an extremely creative way and the unusual perspective just adds to the visual interest. In addition, both the seagull’s neck and its wing are creating interesting positive and negative shapes as they intersect with the edges and the rest of the image. Being on the lookout for these shapes is another way to spicify your photography.

seagull 3 by Selena Rhodes Scofield

Of course when you want to break guidelines, you break them whenever you want to. Just be aware that you are doing so. In this image below, Canadian Master photographer and teacher Freeman Patterson does just that.

From his book Photography and the Art of Seeing he wrote: “I saw this elderly lady as passing away from me and my world, so I photographed her through a window clouded by reflections and curtains. The shallow depth of field, which throws the reflections and curtains out of focus, creates a sense of the surreal and the unknown. The hand of the woman’s friend appears in the lower right corner. By all traditional standards of composition, the hand should not be there because it looks amputated. Yet it seems strangely appropriate, representing support that may be needed in the present, while at the same time adding to the impression of the world dissolving”

Photograph by Freeman Patterson from The Art of Seeing.

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

Photography and the Art of Seeing by Freeman Patterson. If you can only afford one photography book this year, buy this one.

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Thanks as well to Don Crasco and Daniel Cybulskie who posted comments directly on the blog.  Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #125 features an interview with photographers Darwin Wiggett and Sam Chrysanthou (apologies to Sam for mucking up her name) of oopoomoo.com where we talk about post processing in photography and how much post-processing is too much.

Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast.

In this podcast we get into talking about the differences between photographers and digital artists in this changing age where anything seems to go photography-wise. This discussion podcast is inspired by a blog post by Darwin where he asked How Far is too Far?  The post refers to Darwin’s photograph of an owl and a swallow shot at the same time, but shot as two separate files that were blended together in Photoshop after capture.

What do you think, did Darwin go too far?

Great Grey Owl and Tree Swallow on Fence — Composite image by Darwin Wiggett

Butterfly and Flower — Composite image by Darwin Wiggett

In-camera capture by Sam Chrysanthou using a long exposure and a flashlight. The results look surreal but the effect is in-camera, not post production

It goes without saying that both Darwin and Sam DO post-process their images but they spend minimal time doing so. They just released an e-book outlining the shortcuts they use to process their images and they rely mostly on Adobe Bridge and Photoshop to do their editing. The book is called 7 Quick & Dirty Processing Shortcuts for Lazy Photographers.

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

How Far is too Far?

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Thanks as well to Terry Babij who posted comments directly on the blog.  Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting! Happy New Year everyone!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #124 features an interview with Arizona fine art photographer Tony Kuyper. After years of experimentation Tony has developed an intermediate post processing technique NOT based on the pixels that make up the image but rather the brightness levels or tones that make up the image. One of the game changing reasons to work in this way is the tonal control and level of precision you can achieve with your selections and the fact that these selections are naturally perfectly feathered.  This is accomplished by creating a luminosity mask (in Gimp, Photoshop Elements or Photoshop) and Tony describes how and why to do this in the podcast.

Although this is an intermediate level podcast, newer photographers might want to listen to get ideas for future study and post-processing play. Tony explains the concepts clearly!

Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast.

Here are some of Tony’s images processed with and without luminosity masks. You can see that the images processed with the masks ‘sing’ louder.

Brine Stones by Tony Kuyper — processed without luminosity masks

Brine Stones by Tony Kuyper — processed with luminosity masks

Elephant’s Feet by Tony Kuyper processed without luminosity masks

Elephant’s Feet by Tony Kuyper processed with luminosity masks

Navajo Bridge by Tony Kuyper processed without luminosity masks

Navajo Bridge by Tony Kuyper processed with luminosity masks

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

Luminosity masks — Tutorial on Tony’s site

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Thanks as well to Mike Bons, Lucy 72, Jimmy Brown, and Darnell B who posted comments directly on the blog.  Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #123 compares 2 entry level triggering devices for your camera. A ‘trigger’ is simply a device that allows your camera to fire nearly any portable flash, monolight or studio flash while it is OFF-camera. The ability to fire a flash or other light source while OFF-camera allows you to modify the direction and the quality of the light(s) to produce much more creative and professional looking photography versus direct on-camera flash. The 2 units tested are the PocketWizard Plus X and the Cactus V5 Duo.

The PocketWizard Plus X transceiver (sold as a single unit for $99.00) and the Cactus V5 Duo (2 transceivers for $99.00 or sold individiually at $59.00)

Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast and for loaning me the test equipment for this week’s podcast!

Both these units do the identical job with identical (100%) reliability in both my indoor and outdoor tests. The top photo shows how the Cactus transceiver attaches to both the camera and to an off-camera flash. The bottom photo shows how the PocketWizard Plus X transceiver attaches to both the camera and to an off-camera flash. The main difference is that the PocketWizard is missing the extra hot shoe so it attaches to the off camera flash with (an included) sync-wire.

The build quality of the PocketWizard is slightly more robust than the Cactus V5 and its legendary reliability (PocketWizards have been around for decades) and the fact that they work with every other PocketWizard ever made are its main advantages.

Where the Cactus V5 duo really shines is with the addition of the extra hot shoe on the unit. Here the flash will act as an on axis-fill flash to fill in shadows created by another light, and it fits snugly into the hot shoe on top of the Cactus V5. At left is the PocketWizard attempting the same task but because it has no extra hot shoe it must be attached to the camera’s flash via an included sync-wire

Both these units will do the identical job, but the Cactus’s design (at right) is more elegant, easier to attach and the Cactus V5 Duo is half the price of the PocketWizard Plus X. Unfortunately the Cactus V5 will NOT work with PocketWizards or even different Cactus models.

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

The PocketWizard Plus X at The Camera Store

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Thanks as well to Enrique Waizel, Bernard Dallaire, Jason, Darnell B and Royce Howland who posted comments directly on the blog.  Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #122 features an interview with Royce Howland where we discuss how large we can print our photos. These days cameras of all kinds are everywhere and if we want to make big enlargements from those cameras we need to know how big we can print the image before it starts to look bad. Royce offers up tips on how to make ‘the best enlargement’, ‘a better enlargement’ or ‘a good enlargement’ based on the camera, the printing material, the subject matter and some other factors.

Thanks to The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast!

To recap the math in this podcast the best images get 300 pixels per inch. 200 pixels per inch gets you better enlargements and 100 pixels per inch yields good results. To get an idea of the possible enlargement range, we divide the image pixels of our camera by the PPI to get inches of print size.

Our theoretical 6 megapixel camera produced images of 3000 x 2000 pixels. So a good enlargement could be 30 x 20 inches, better could be 15 x 10 inches, and best 6.7 x 10 inches.

If we look at a 12 megapixel image (from a Canon 5D for example) the pixels are 4000 x 2666.  So a good enlargement could be 40 x 26.7 inches, better could be 20 x 13.3 inches, and best 13.3 x 8.9 inches.

If we look at a 24 megapixel camera the pixels are 6000 x 4000 so we could have a good enlargement of 60 x 40 inches, better one of 30 x 20 inches and best one of 20 x 13.3 inches.

7.5 megapixel camera phone shot by Royce Howland. This image could easily be printed 20 inches high.

37 megapixel medium format camera image by Royce Howland. This image could easily be printed 45 inches high.

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

The Digital Negative by Jeff Schewe

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Thanks as well to everyone that sent comments by email about our last podcast. Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board. Most of the links to actual the products are affiliate links that help support this site. Thanks in advance if you purchase through those links.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #121 offers up 6 tips on how to make better self portraits in photography. Making a self portrait, sometimes known as an autoportrait has a long history in photography and many past and modern photography Masters (Man Ray, Robert Mapplethorpe and the extremely prolific self portraitist Cindy Sherman for example) have produced fabulous self portraits. Please know in advance that we are not referring to ‘selfies’…which I rant on about for a little bit in this podcast. We are referring to self-portraits which require deliberate framing and thinking about the light, environment etc.

Thanks to  The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  for sponsoring the Photography.ca podcast!

Angst — Self portrait by Marko Kulik — 2000

Self Portrait as a Parisian by Marko and Carmy — 2009

Self Portrait as a Dock Worker by Marko and Carmy — 2013

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

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Thanks to Royce Howland, Ken Wolter and Alvin who posted a blog comment about our last podcast. Thanks as well to everyone that sent comments by email about our last podcast. Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board. Most of the links to actual the products are affiliate links that help support this site. Thanks in advance if you purchase through those links.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #120 provides tips on how to create, craft and tell more interesting stories through photography.  Some of the aspects we talk about include being active with framing, hunting down the gestures and watching the edges.

I’m super-pleased to welcome  The Camera Store (The largest camera store in Calgary, Alberta, Canada)  as a sponsor of The Photography.ca podcast! I’ve been buying my own gear there and recommending them for a few years now, and I’m a fussy bugger when it comes to both gear and recommendations. Their customer service is simply awesome and I often find that they have the best prices in Canada. They ship all over Canada.

Both these images were taken within the same minute. The bottom image however, tells a stronger story due to the dramatic gesture of the axe in the air, the smoke coming from the side of the roof and the fireman on the right of the roof that’s facing the camera. The top image isn’t bad, but it easily loses in a poker match when it goes head to head with the bottom image.

Winter’s Meeting — I waited in a window and actively composed this scene last winter. There is a strong suggestion of story here because the person in the background appears to be waiting for the foreground woman. I clicked the shutter only when I felt the timing was right compositionally.

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

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Thanks to Ben W who posted a blog comment about our last podcast. Thanks as well to everyone that sent comments by email about our last podcast. Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board. Most of the links to actual the products are affiliate links that help support this site. Thanks in advance if you purchase through those links.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Photography podcast #119 is the second of two episodes dedicated to manipulation in photojournalism. In this episode we feature a 70 minute casual conversation with Moe Doiron, a photojournalist with The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest National Newspaper.

In the interview we revisit the 2012 winning world press photo by Paul Hansen, discuss the Chicago Sun-Times firing of their Photojournalism staff and chat about Moe’s multi-decade career as a photojournalist. and photo editor.

Past World Press Photo winners from the archives  - Click to enlarge the full set from 1955–2009

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

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Thanks to Jason, Juliet O’Neill and Yisehaq who posted a blog comment about our last podcast. Thanks as well to everyone that sent comments by email about our last podcast. Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board. Most of the links to actual the products are affiliate links that help support this site. Thanks in advance if you purchase through those links.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

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Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!

Photography podcast #118 is the first of two episodes dedicated to manipulation in photojournalism. This first episode features an interview with Carl Neustaedter who is the deputy editor of the Ottawa Citizen, the largest daily newspaper in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Carl is one of the people who decides on a daily basis what images make it into the newspaper.

In this interview we discuss how much manipulation is too much manipulation when it comes to news photography.

In particular, we talk about this year’s winning world press photo by Paul Hansen. We also talk about using Instagram and Hipstmatic style filters in news photography. We discuss some famously ‘over’ manipulated news images like the O.J. Simpson Cover on Time Magazine back in 1994.  We also discuss more subtle modern ways in which digital news images are manipulated. Finally, we discuss the firing of the photojournalism staff at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Scroll to the BOTTOM of this post to find the player to immediately listen to the audio podcast.

In 1994 Time and Newsweek used the same image of O.J. Simpson on their cover. Our eyes can see that Time over-processed the image. Image from Wikipedia.

A Grunt’s Life by Damon Winter — An award winning photo essay documenting a soldier’s life taken using the Hipstamatic App on an iphone. The essay was originally published in The New York Times.

Alex Rodriguez — Instagram photo by Nick Laham published in The New York Times.

World Press Photo of the year 2012 — City Burial by Paul Hansen

Links /resources mentioned in this podcast:

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Thanks to Stephen, Darnell B, Dwayne and Royce Howland who posted a blog comment about our last podcast. Thanks as well to everyone that sent comments by email about our last podcast. Although ALL comments are appreciated, commenting directly in this blog is preferred. Thanks as well to all the new members of the bulletin board. Most of the links to actual the products are affiliate links that help support this site. Thanks in advance if you purchase through those links.

If you are looking at this material on any other site except Photography.ca — Please hop on over to the Photography.ca blog and podcast and get this and other photography info directly from the source. |Subscribe with iTunes|Subscribe via RSS feed |Subscribe with Google Reader|Subscribe for free to the Photography podcast — Photography.ca and get all the posts/podcasts by Email

You can download this photography podcast directly by clicking the preceding link or listen to it almost immediately with the embedded player below.

Thanks for listening and keep on shooting!