I get many a kick from seeing friends succeed doing something they love to do. It’s inspirational, and helps put my own lofty goals into perspective, making them seem more reachable, less silly sounding while echoing around the empty space in my brain bucket. Today I get to share one of these success stories, and how we turned an informal Sunday morning shoot into something that both of us came out feeling stoked about.
Drawing has happened (see the winners HERE)! Thanks to everyone, and if you’re interested in purchasing a wrist strap, go HERE.
I wanted to thank you all for the continued support and conversation. While I will not be retiring off of my blog anytime soon, I have loved building it and watching it grow over the years. I try to keep any and all commercialization to a bare minimum here as I know how often we’re all bombarded with offers and urges to purchase certain things. I have chosen to keep this blog as a personal passion project and have slowly and hopefully inoffensively added affiliate links where applicable.
That said, I have been working on a new project (which many of you have probably already figured out) and before I release it to the world to try and make enough money to keep justifying the time spent on the blog, I want to reward three of you with a freebie. I will be announcing my new hand built camera wrist straps soon and before that, I wanted to give away a wrist strap to three of my readers.
So, here’s the part where you can sign up for the drawing. You get your name entered in once for each sign up as follows:
don’t worry, there were no kids harmed during the photoshopping of this image.
Hello everyone! You may have noticed that I’m quietly adding content to the site. This is being done to try and make a more complete resource for those visiting the site to reference specific tutorial articles or find gear reviews, etc. The biggest changes are the new “Tutorial” “Review” and “MyGear” pages up at the top of the page. I will be trying to catalog the more popular tutorials and reviews for easy reference, and the new gear page has allowed me to link certain cameras, lenses and miscellaneous gear that I use to my affiliate links at B&H. Yup, you read that right. I’ve finally succumbed to the monetary necessity of trying to make a little coin to keep the site going. Read on for my reasoning and ever cheesy gratitude…
Like many other camera geeks and micro 4/3 system fans out there lately, I’ve been reading up on anything that I can find on Oly’s new flagship micro 4/3 camera. It touts some pretty impressive specs, but how does it come across in function? I pulled the trigger, and while happy that I did, I do find that there are some things about the camera that seem to have been overlooked or neglected. There are many articles outlining the spec sheet and testing the features, this is my own personal feel coming from someone who uses this camera as a daily tool and has been doing so for the last couple weeks.
The hyperfocal distance at a given aperture on any lens will enable the photographer to “know” what will be in focus in the scene without having to re-focus between shots. Hyperfocal distance is commonly defined as “the closest distance from which a lens can focus that will be acceptably sharp from half that distance through infinity.” It is a technique which is particularly useful with smaller apertures (as in gaining a deeper depth of field) when shooting anything from street scenes to landscapes where the photographer requires an established area of focus from a fixed distance through infinity so that you don’t need to refocus between shots. Follow me in and we’ll go over a simple way to determine your hyperfocal distance.
Why do we take pictures? For the majority of us, I’d guess it falls somewhere into the realm of, enjoyment and/or documentation. Regardless of the medium, whether it be digital or film, we like to preserve moments and may enjoy trying to do so with some level of artistry. Isn’t it nice when someone says, “wow, that is cool!” or “how did you get your picture to look like that?” Simply put, many of us enjoy taking pictures because we like to and it’s nice when that is noticed or appreciated. Add in a few cool tools and enjoyment can turn into excitement from behind the lens.
Looking down the barrel…
Recycle, reuse, reshoot. As long as you don’t mind manually focusing and establishing your exposure, why pay a ton of money when there are so many used, high quality lenses available? Sure there are many optical and automated benefits to modern lenses, but sometimes, for the money saved, I can deal with the shortcomings of older, out of date lenses. Using older, “legacy” glass on multiple cameras, either via a proprietary mount or adapter, can provide a fun, reasonably affordable and beneficial experience… Continue reading
How does sensor size actually affect focal length?
Focal length? Effective focal length? Actual focal length? Crop factor? Do you get more reach with a crop sensor? Is it equal to a longer focal length? There are some misconceptions surrounding what happens when a lens is used on cameras with different sensor sizes. Let’s have a look at the differences between a full frame, APS-C and micro 4/3 sensor.
so much for compact…
Who cares that Olympus and Panasonic have released relatively few lenses, mainly slow zooms, for the micro 4/3’s cameras? Adding m4/3 mount adapters to your bag opens up a bevy of hundreds of lenses. What you gain in variety though, you may loose in automated functionality. Continue reading
different tools for different applications
I like to spend time on flickr. It is an amazingly diverse community of photographers ranging from absolute novices to consummate professionals. One of the questions that come up in the gear groups there and in conversation with other photographers quite often is, “which lens should I purchase?” With interchangeable lens system cameras coming down in price by the day it seems, it is becoming much more accessible to acquire high quality photographic tools. One of the main benefits to an interchangeable lens camera, is just that, lenses! Which to choose and why? C’mon in and we shall discuss. Before the end of this article, you too will know which lenses will provide you with the best bang for you buck, depending on which buck you choose to bang… Continue reading
Tyson Robichaud Photo-blography 