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My first smoke shots were only "okay," so today I set out to improve upon them.
First, I stopped down to f/16, giving me about five or six inches depth of field rather than the two inches I had before. I also backed the shutter speed off to 1/125 (from 1/250), though given the actual speed [...]

Thanks to the folks who responded to my previous question about incense I was able to make some interesting photographs tonight. Unfortunately, at f/5.6, my depth of field was only about 0.18 feet, or just over two inches. So, many of my photographs are a bit… out of focus. I set my shutter speed to [...]

Lightroom is receiving a comment whoopin' at O'ReillyNet. The commenters dislike Lightroom's modules, praising Aperture for its "uni-module" design which naturally leads to a more cohesive user interface.
Aperture, for me - despite having a dual 3 GHz Mac Pro with 5 GB RAM and 200+ GB free space on the boot drive - is a [...]

I read on one of the many photography forums out there that someone right-clicked on an image and saw the EXIF data. On the Mac, the only two lightweight applications (1 and 2) are written for Intel Macs, and PhotoToolCM hasn't been updated since about the time Steve Jobs returned to Apple. Several other apps [...]

From the WhiBal guy, Michael Tapes, come about two hours of Lightroom tutorial videos. Though he's on a PC, adjusting the keyboard shortcuts he mentions is relatively painless as most shortcuts are done without the use of the ctrl key on Windows.
I'm considering picking up a WhiBal, but I'll wait to see if I can't [...]

Just wanted to get this up. I de-saturated the image because it's mostly a black-and-white image anyway. Just the red rings and the green table tennis top add some color.

Ars Technica reviews Lightroom and compares it with Aperture. Though I tend to prefer Apple applications, I'm familiar with Photoshop and Lightroom appears to have made incredible strides since the last beta. I wonder if Aperture 2.0 is around the corner and if many of the features found in Lightroom will make their way into [...]

After installing a new garage door opener, I received a call from Ron asking if I'd like to go to Presque Isle to take pictures. Sure, I said! And we ventured forth. I shot most of the day in aperture priority at f/5.6. I didn't notice that my ISO was set to 400 (I'd have [...]

To shoot fireworks, a generalized setup is:

Use a tripod or something else stationary.
ISO 100-200 is fine. You want longer exposures and a dark(er) sky.
Use "bulb mode" on your camera.
Focus on infinity at whatever focal length frames the fireworks.
Experiment until you get the timing down, but starting at about 30 seconds is good.

Only six more months [...]

I'd like to find someone or some company capable of making thin metal discs with shapes cut from the middle. Both the circumference and the shape - which must be centered - would need to be sized within reasonable limits (one to two millimeters). These discs could be made of something like aluminum and really [...]

For Mac users only: what's your display's gamma? 1.8 2.2 Other I dunno View Results

A friend sent me a link to an article titled "This is your Mac on drugs." My initial response to him was that Safari was using ICC profiles, which was a good thing, and simply specifying gamma - brighter or darker - really doesn't matter. In [...]

This site lets you compare Canon lenses at various focal lengths, apertures, etc. Nifty.

I've made my call: I shoot with Canon digital SLRs. Still, many people often ask me which way they should go. I give them the stock answer I was given when I had the same question: Canon has better glass and, currently, offers the only full-frame dSLRs.
Still, the question remains: for an entry-level dSLR (with [...]

Despite the harsh lighting conditions (at times), I'm relatively pleased with how some of the shots I took turned out. Ben and Brandon were reasonable subjects, though it's obvious Ben is much more still (a good quality in playing pool) than Brandon, who had a lot more blur to most of his images.
Compositionally, I'm sure [...]

Adobe's $199 introductory pricing ($99 for students - I'll have to see if my teacher wife qualifies!) is almost low enough to tempt me into buying it. Even if I only use it occasionally, $199 (or $99) ain't bad.
The problem is that much of Lightroom's functionality can be found elsewhere: Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw [...]