to my personal journal through my viewfinder. A place where I leave the world behind and try to find the spirit of what I am seeing.
Feel free to look around at all the posts and pages. If you'd like to borrow a photo for your blog or website, be my guest. Please, be sure to link back here with a prominent photo credit. Thank you and I'm thrilled you dropped in!
Perspective is defined as ” to look through”. For photographers, it means to look at something differently. To find new perspectives. At Walt Disney World, where people take millions of photographs each year, finding new perspectives can seem a daunting task. I look at it as finding “my” perspective and sometimes a little help can open up whole new ways of looking at things.
The photo below of Minnie Mouse’s statuette was pointed out to me by another photographer. I have seen similar photos on flickr, too. But, I had never seen it at dusk with an orange castle softly focused in the background which turned out to be “my” perspective on this subject.
I enjoyed a photo workshop on Landscape photography last weekend which I’ll share more about in the coming weeks. One of the techniques the presenter went over was how to create a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image from a series of photographs. The series consists of photos where the exposures are altered to cover a difficult lighting situation. While I got acceptable single shot exposures the night I took these, I think the final result shows the potential of this technique.
I used the Photomatix Plug-in for Aperture 2 to create the HDR image from the above three images which were all taken at ISO 200, f/22, EV +0.3 with photo 1 at 5 seconds shutter speed, photo 2 at 8 seconds and photo 3 at 15 seconds. Oh, I did clean up the left corner a little, too.
HDR image of the Oswego Power Plant on Lake Ontario.
If you own any kind of photo management software, you are aware of the star rating system where you rate your photos from 1 to 5 stars. This system is as individual as us photographers. I only use 1 thru 4 stars and save 5 stars for my computer’s screen saver. They might not even be the best of my work. They are photos I am proud of or I just like a lot.
Above is Sam the Eagle from The Raptor Project taken at last year’s New York State Fair. Sam is always perched fittingly in front of an American flag. One of my 5 Star Photos.
I’d like to extend a hearty thanks to the YourPhotoTips blog for including me in their 20 Amazing Photographers Around the Internet post yesterday. Damien’s blog is a great source for finding the best photography and photographers around the blogosphere.
The other photographers featured in the article definitely are artists you want to check out. I feel honored to be featured next to them.
If you are wondering about the photo they used for my blog, it is View 30: Foggy Bottom Metro Station and has an interesting story behind it.
With April showers comes not just May flowers but the perfect time to photograph waterfalls. I recently came upon this excellent article with tips on how to photograph waterfalls called 7 Effective Waterfall Photography Tips by Australian Photographer, Ilya Genkin. Sure wish I had known about Ilya’s tips before photographing Shelving Rock Falls last year.
If you live in Central or Western New York, visit my friends at Foot Print Press for their waterfall book with detailed directions to 200 waterfalls. Foot Print Press has other books on biking, hiking, paddling, walking and other outdoor activities around New York state.
Taken with a Nikon D70 and Tokina 12-24mm lens at 1/250s, f/16 and ISO 200.
The title is a bit of showmanship. The “secret” won’t be surprising to you. The way to go about it might hold some surprises. Whether you use a digital SLR or a simple camera phone, the steps I talk about below will help in getting sharper images.
The way to get sharp photos is a three step process.
Hold the Camera Steady
Focus, Focus, Focus
Proper Exposure
1. Hold the Camera Steady. This is the reason for most blurry photos since the dawn of photography. I’ve always had a steady hand and have been successful at getting sharp photos hand-held down to 1/15th of a second. Last year, I learned a new technique which has allowed me to get some as slow as 1/4th of a second. Below, is a 7 1/2 minute video by National Geographic photographer, Joe McNally, about the technique he calls, “Da Grip”.
If you need rock still, a tripod and remote shutter release is a must. I don’t use a tripod often unless I know I will be needing multi-second shutter times like for fireworks, waterfalls or night photography. I do find the image stabilized lenses made today have greatly helped me in getting sharp hand-held photos. Along with using tehniques like Joe McNally’s Da Grip.
2. Focus, Focus, Focus. Focus is extremely important whether you want to selectively focus on one element in the frame shooting with wide open apertures or put everything in focus from front to back using apertures like f/16 or f/22. Understand how your camera focuses. Some cameras have up to 51 focus points while others have only 5 or less. If you have not reviewed it in awhile, this is a good time to pull out your camera’s manual (you do know where it is, right?) and read up on your camera’s focusing capabilities.
3. Proper Exposure. Getting the proper aperture (f-stop), shutter speed and ISO is critical and keeps post processing to a minimum. The less you have to tweak a digital image, the clearer it will look. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend getting the book, “Understanding Exposure” by Bryan Peterson. I read this book every year to remind me it’s not about what the camera can do but what the photographer does to make great pictures.
