Every now and then, I find walking through Home Depot with a cup of coffee, early on Saturday mornings very relaxing. Not sure why, but it just seems to clear my mind. While walking down the toolbox aisle, I spotted the Stanley Mobile Storage Tool Chest and thought, hummmm this could come in handy. (more…)
Before switching to digital capture, the majority of long-time photo enthusiasts used analog SLR cameras with a 24x36mm film frame. This format was the most common in conventional photography but it was virtually abandoned when affordable digital SLRs were being developed. While a few of the early pro cameras employed a 24x36mm sensor, they were prohibitively expensive. In order to keep their consumer-oriented DSLRs more affordable, all of the manufacturers decided to use smaller — and hence, much less expensive — sensors.
(Part one of this “introduction” can be found here.)
Heading North from Redwood National Park, Highway 101 passes through the town of Klamath and continues towards Del Norte Redwoods State Park. Del Norte primarily serves campers, but the challenging Damnation Creek Trail provides a beautiful 2.5 hike to a small beach cove.
Continuing north past Del Norte Redwoods you descend towards Crescent City, California, at the south end of town (and you’ll want a map or directions) you can head east and connect with Howland Hill Road which will take you to Jedediah Smith State Park. Because Jed Smith isn’t right on Highway 101, and because Howland Hill is unpaved, this area receives less traffic than the Redwood NP/Prairie Creek Redwoods SP area to the South, making for a more relaxing and meditative photographic experience, particularly in spring or fall. (more…)
We'd like to take a moment to give a thank you and a shout out to several people and sites who have helped us in various ways over the last…
What makes photography so interesting is the constant learning process: new equipment, new techniques, new software. It can become overwhelming at some point. Well thankfully there are plenty of resources available to feed the mind and expand your knowledge. My latest read has quickly become my favorite, my new pocket guide so-to-speak. Joe McNally’s The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes (Voices That Matter) is not only fun to read, as is Joe’s style, but it’s also a fantastic source to learn how to master the use of small lights. (more…)
One of the new features to Photoshop CS4 is Content Aware Scaling. This new feature allows a user to take an image and resize it without losing the key…
I’m going to reveal a little trick that I use… a super-secret weapon in the constant battle to get people to pay attention to me when shooting formals at a wedding.
Wedding photographers know what I’m talking about but for the rest of you I’ll explain. After the wedding ceremony, when the photographer is shooting the formal portraits, it’s very common for a lot of people to be loitering around. You’re shooting a lot of groups plus there’s just general mayhem. This can make it tricky because you’ll be trying to take a picture and the subjects are constantly being distracted. It’s important that you take the pictures as quickly as possible and frustrating when every shot is ruined by someone looking away from the camera.
Enter “The Magic Egg.” (more…)
The coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) of California’s north coast include the tallest trees on Earth, with several examples of individual trees over 370 feet tall and provide amazing photographic and sometimes challenging photographic opportunities. This weekend I’ll be travelling to the California’s north coast (roughly betwen the towns of Trinidad, California and Crescent City, California) to visit the constellation of four parks (Redwood National Park, Prarie Creek Redwoods State Park, Del Norte State Park, and Jedediah Smith State Park) that to my mind represent some of the finest redwoods photography opportunities available. In this article, I hope to give you a taste of those incredible areas and add a few words about the opportunities and challenges they present.
Starting from the south, Redwood National Park is the most natural place to begin our virtual tour, the National Park Service maintains a visitor center there (actually just south of Orick, CA) and in Crescent City which can provide excellent information and maps of both this park and the three state parks as well. A trip along the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway (which runs through Redwood NP and Prairie Creek SP) makes an excellent first introduction to the redwood environment, as the road wanders through enormous columns of tree creating a vast virtual room, carpeted with fern and trillium. The strangely-named Cal-Barrel Road (a quick turn off the parkway) offers an excellent introductory location to start your explorations. (more…)
During my initial review of the NexStar Hard Drive Dock I said (and it’s true) that I tested the dock using Windows XP (32-bit) and Vista (64-bit). That’s absolutely the case, but as I’ve used the device I discovered a problem on the Vista system I hadn’t seen in previous testing, (more…)
Anyone who’s ever tried to do some serious photography in public places has had to deal with curious, and on occasion, concerned people interested in what you’re doing. At times some of those interested parties have badges, whether official government badges, or private security badges. Sometimes those badges come with demands that you stop shooting, explain yourself, move on, hand over images, get on the ground, etc. (more…)