Photography: mixing shapes and colours
I recently watched this video, and it’s amazing. I am a fan of Chase Jarvis. I recommend it to everyone that are suffering from “photographers block” or anyone who likes to boost his creativity. I really like it and changed my perspective about a lot of things.
Enjoy.
Chase Jarvis CURRENT: The Consequences of Creativity from Chase Jarvis on Vimeo.
We are constantly bumping on this “Aperture” notion, especially when we are trying to buy a new lens. Well the main function of a camera lens it’s to collect light. But often we need to control the amount of light coming in: some times we need more and other times we need less. Well this is the job of the aperture (which in fact is an iris), to control the amount of light getting in ( the larger the diameter of the iris, the more light gets to the image sensor). Another fact that aperture controls is the Depth Of Field.
So the aperture is measured in F-stop : f/1.8, f/2.8, f/10, etc. The smaller the f number (value), the larger is the diameter of the iris, and the 
bigger the f number (value) the smaller is the diameter of the iris. You might ask “Why it’s so twisted?”. Well because the F Number is represented by the formula F/D (F= focal length, D= diameter of the iris). So as you can see the diameter of the lens varies at different focal lengths.This is because a 300mm lens needs an larger “hole” to collect the same amount of light as a 50mm lens with with the same aperture. In fact that’s the reason why those 300mm, 400mm, 600mm, are so huge, because they need a hole large enough to catch enough light. Also that’s why there aren’t super telephoto lens like 600mm with small f/number, for example f/1.8 (first of all will have a microscopic depth of field, and second of all will be an enormous).
As I promised a few posts back i would like to start talking about some basic aspects of the camera. Like Shutter Speed, Aperture, ISO, Camera Settings, etc.
Today I will talk about Shutter Speed. Here is a list o things you should know about this:
As the name says, it’s the speed of the shutter is opening and closing. In fact it is measured in the time the shutter stays open (from 1/8000 of a second to 30 seconds and more in the bulb mode). So if you take your photo with 1/250th of a second the shutter stays open for 0,004 (1/250) seconds, or if you take it with 1/25 of a second the shutter stays open for quarter of a second. Read more…
Since a few days I’ve talked about ways of backing up your photos, I think it appropriate to talk about organizing your photographs, since keeping your photos organized helps to find your well organized photos.
First of all it’s very useful to use a software that helps keeping you organized and even helps you finding your images much faster. Since there are dozens of software packages for this kind of job it all comes down to personal preference and a few very important features that would help you a lot, like:
I have compiled a list of software packages for your organizational need.
For professional users (has a lot of professional features) :
For regular users (has all the feature you need for our every day family photos) :
Although you have whatever software you need you still have to know some other things. To be more specific here is my work flow when I come from a shoot:
As you can see I am a little paranoid, having three different copies of the photos.
Bottom line is experiment, and use what is better for you and not time consuming. Happy organizing. 
Photo by chadh
The worst nightmare of a photographer worst than get his equipment stolen, it’s to lose his photographs. Being in digitized era the risks of losing you photographs and even documents, it’s higher than in the film era. There are a bunch of risks, from accidental deletion to hardware failure, file corruption and the list goes on.
Losing a photograph it’s worst than loosing something you created, which can be recreated the only thing you’re going to lose it’s time. But a photograph, you cannot go back in time and nail the exact same shot (I also consider that a photograph is unique, there aren’t two photos that loo the same even if there where shot at the same time).
So I will try to give you some advices on how to protect your precious photographs.
Every time you copy you photograph from your camera to your hard drive the first this you have to remember to do is to back up onto a DVD or CD. There are so cheap compared to how much trouble can get you out from.
Taking sharp photographs is the dream of every photographer. However taking crisp, clean images can be quite challenging. I would like to share with you guys some tips on how to get razor sharp photographs, but before that let’s see what are the common causes for lack of sharpness:
Wrong focusing. The most common cause for blurry photos is not focusing right. Often happens to focus on the wrong part of the image, or using a very narrow depth of field, or taking the photo quick without checking if it is in focus, and all of this helps in throwing your subject out of focus and obtaining blurry photographs.
Low value of the shutter speed. This causes 2 sets pf problems: Camera shake and Subject movement. This two makes blurry photos because your shutter speed is too low to freeze the action.
Noise. Sometimes using high ISO values might get you results with lack of sharpness. Although since cameras evolve so quickly these days, higher ISO values might still get you very sharp images.
Here are 9 ways of improving your photographs sharpness:
Many people asked me how come I have so sharp images. Well, beside the fact that I do my best to keep my shutter high and keep my camera steady, I retouch the photos in photoshop. You all might think “Ohh, the unsharp mask”, but i have to tell you that you are wrong. The alternative method I use for sharpening is the High Pass Filter method. This method provides good sharpening while minimizing image degradation.
If you own a DSLR you have probably spent a lot of money on the camera, lenses and other accessories. That is why protecting your gear must be a mission for you. Here are some tips on how to do that.
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