Category Archives: Photography

Photography

Seven tips to improve your portraiture lighting

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If you pay attention to available light especially the time of the day in certain locations, all you need is one Speedlight to create great settings for portraiture. Naturally having a gorgeous model like Lindsey Martin makes it easier. 1/250sec @f2.8 ISO 100 outdoors. Backlit by sunlight and fill flash with Speedlite 580EX in home made beauty dish.

1.Set your Speedlite to fire on manual power

There is nothing scary about firing your flash on manual.

In the film days, you needed another piece of equipment–a flash meter.

With the near instant feedback and histograms in today’s cameras, figuring out exposure on manual is easy.

Dividing the Guide Number by the flash-to-subject distance will give you a good ballpark number for the aperture setting.

(Guide Numbers are always given in ISO 100, so you can easily find it’s equivalent for any ISO)

I usually set the flash to 1/8th power and sometimes even 1/16th power.

This reduces the flash-to-subject distance and allows my Speedlites to recycle fast so that if you’re after quick changes in expression, they keep up.

Continue reading Seven tips to improve your portraiture lighting →

Photography

Time to move up to Lightroom 4

If you haven’t heard of Adobe Lightroom but you’re getting serious with your photography, it’s time you get it.

No, you don’t need to be a professional photographer to use it.

The biggest and best reason to get it?

Management of your photos.

The latest version 4.0 also allows you to manage video clips you shoot on your DSLR.

Though it allows you to do minor editing, I use Lightroom primarily for its organizing ability.

Newegg is offering a deal on the academic version (for students and teachers) Lightroom 4 for $45. Use the code “EMCNBNA99”

Peter Phun Photography

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Internet & Technology, Photography

Does anonymity affect how you behave online?

Absolutely.

I know this first hand.

Just read the comments on this satirical post on “21 Signs You’re a Real Photographer.”

Best example I can think of is when camera owners who fancy themselves as photographers criticize a working photographer’s pictures.

Some background: Joe Klamar, a freelance photographer for AFP (Agence France-Presse) flubbed on an assignment where he had to photograph US Olympians.

His pictures and the accompanying stories went viral understandably due to the current sense of patriotism sweeping the country during this summer’s London Olympics.

Afterwards, a gallery offered to showcase his photos in an exhibit.

If you look over the comments in the Peta Pixel website, you can see many of the commenters don’t include much information of themselves.

Whenever I want to respond to a comment, I usually try and find a back link to research a little about that person.

I feel it’s important to get a sense of whether that person has the credentials or just the know how to be taken seriously.

I can sympathize with Joe Klamar.

I’ve been there and I’ve done that. Continue reading Does anonymity affect how you behave online? →

Photography

It’s not Apple’s fault

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The splash screen for the newest cat Mountain Lion. Apple’s running out of cats. Is Ocelot taken?

I whine and complain as well as the next person.

No need to confirm with my friends and family.

In the grand scheme of how we use technology, once we own a computer, we are forever tied to and at the mercy of the folks who make them.

My 2006 MacPro desktop is being left behind by Apple even though it is fully functional.

I understand they have to make the cut somewhere whenever they create a new operating system but my beef is the way I had to find out. Continue reading It’s not Apple’s fault →