As a follow-up to my post from yesterday, let me back up a little and set the stage for a multi-faceted question, in the hope that perhaps someone will know some of (or ideally all of) the answers.a radio signal an infra-red signal and when mounted on your camera, pressing the shutter, trips the sensor in the ST-E2 which in turn fires the flash.
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Thursday Thoughts
Well, I am still not back to 100% but am heading to bead early tonight. Just a short thought on rechargeable batteries. I bought some Energizer 2500 NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) AA’s for my 550 EX last fall when I bought the flash. Having recently acquired an ST-E2, I was excited to put it to use. It worked for a while, and then died rather quickly. Thinking it was the batteries, I recharged them last night and tried again this evening with very little success (one flash then kaput.) Continue reading “Thursday Thoughts”
Wednesday Woes
Okay all, a tutorial just isn’t gonna happen this week…feeling really exhausted today…I think I am coming down with something. I’ve got a few things going on tomorrow, Friday is booked up as is Saturday, so it’s really unlikely I’ll get that tutorial out I’ve been promising. So, for the interim, I’ve bumped up the schedule on some articles I’ve been throwing together.
Today, it’s a short essay on a trend I saw for a while in lost of photo communities and forums debating the validity of high res LCD screens on SLR’s.
What happened in the photo world today? Couldn’t tell you…anyone have any fun/interesting/noteworthy news they want to share…add it to the comments and help a guy out who’s apparently got some sort of bug he can’t shake. Although I suspect it’s related to successive days of only 3-4 hours sleep and running non-stop. After working from 5am-3pm, I was off to a Dr. appt, then dinner with the wife, then off to a photo club meeting and it’s now 11:45pm. I have to be back at work at 5am – maybe I can get 4.5 hours sleep tonight…*grin*
Happy shooting though and keep those apertures tight! 😉
Tuesday Troubles
Sorry all, the trip out west must have done a number on me because I was out as soon as I got home from work today. In trying to muster up the energy to record, produce, and output a tutorial today, I just could not find it in me. So, rather than deliver less than meaningful content, I’ll call this a no blog Tuesday and hopefully come out firing on all cylinders tomorrow. Happy shooting and keep them apertures in check!
Monday Evening Musings
The routine and time change caught me ff guard this morning so I didn’t get a chance to poke my head online and make a post for the day. So, a little late, here’s an article I had put together on the basics of shutter speeds and apertures a short time ago. Hopefully a fresh spin on the basics of how they work. More tomorrow. Keep on clicking those shutters, and watch the apertures (how appropos!)!
Westward Ho!
On this last full day of our travels through Colorado and Arizona, I must say there is something about the South and Southwest. In Denver the mountains were as breath-taking as I remembered. The sunshine, the skyline, and everything about it was just amazing. The same could also be said of Arizona with its clean fresh air, the beauty of the landscape, and the sheer vastness of the scenery. It revealed to me that the West has been and always will be in my blood. As we endeavor to find career paths that take us to our goal of Colorado, we’ll have to enjoy it from the pictures I have taken while on vacation. I’ll share a few of these at the end of this post. Continue reading “Westward Ho!”
Wednesday news and info – lots about light
Back into the cockpit today for the typical Wednesday news and information…
In the interests of full disclosure, and sharing news across the photography spectrum, there is a full review out for the Nikon D60, which is the Nikon equivalent of the Canon Rebel XTi – the entry level SLR for each vendor. They seem pretty happy with it overall. Check the review out here, and thanks to the Digital Photography Show for pointing me there.
Strobist offers some sage advise today on it’s most recent post, where David reminds us to not think of lighting as the be-all, end-all, but to use it as a tool for accomplishing a goal or to solve a problem. Always a good read, but particularly useful for me since I have a model shoot coming up soon, where I hope to take this advice to heart. Stop over and read the latest when you have some time.
Another useful lighting scenario played out over at Scott Kelby’s blog the past few days. Scott had a shot set up and a couple of us asked to see the setup, and he shared that today. Pretty useful info and further solidifies the idea that moving lighting of camera and diffusing it is the ideal route in any shoot setup. I guess that means I need to get a diffuser too. The gear quest never ends…*sigh*
In a little self-pimping, I’ve got a new poll up – how many cameras do you own. Forget about SLR versus P&S versus medium format, wide format, film, working, non-working, or any other caveats. Grand total, all-in, how many cameras do you currently own? I’ll reserve guesses on results this time as in the past I’ve been famously wrong. Also, stop over and view some of the photos I’ve put up for sale on Redbubble!
Here’s a short slideshow of some of what’s available:
Until tomorrow, happy shooting and watch those apertures.
March Mystery…nothing happened yesterday!
Okay, well, that’s not true, but as predicted, I was not able to put a tutorial together for Tuesday, and it’s unlikely I will have one out this week simply due to time constraints and the fact that I have been spending most of my time recreating and spending some quality time with my wife, We’ve been enjoying our vacation immensely, and I shall return tomorrow with hopefully a little more info to share. I would expect that next week will see two tutorials to make up for the downtime this week. So, with that in mind, enjoy the rest of the day. Happy shooting, watch those apertures, and we’ll see you here tomorrow! 🙂
For now I’ll leave with a teaser of my day at Invesco…
Monday Morning Travel Recap
Well, the weekend was a cornucopa of Denver tourism. We left SC at the not-so-bright hour of 5am and arrived in Denver by 10. That gave us time to make the last tour of Invesco Field. As a dyed-in-the-wool Bronco fan since pretty much as long as I can remember, this was the epitome of the entire 7 day trip. Needless to say, my camera pretty much clicked non-stop for the entire visit. I’ll share some shots later this week when I can get some time to work a few up.
Yesterday we visited the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. After Invesco I owed my wife that, but I have to say it turned out to be much more interesting than I would have thought. No cameras allowed in there, and just as well – the powder from the herbs and roots and spices in the air sometimes made my eyes water. If you’re ever near the Boulder area, I would highly recommend a tour – it was free and well worth the time.
Back to the real world of photography Continue reading “Monday Morning Travel Recap”
Finally Friday Frenzy
Lots to share today – I saw over at Tips from the Top Floor that the US dates, and more importantly, locations are now set. Check them out for a location near you (hint: if you are near San Francisco, Nashville, Ft. Collins or Portland Maine, you are in luck!)
Scott Sherman and Michael Stein from The Digital Photography show have their latest podcast out – looks like the photo walk talk missed the cut for this weeks episode. Oh well…still lots of fun things to get caught up on, including their newest contest.
In other Friday folly-minded news, I know B&H has LOTS of customers – so if you’re gonna buy something, hook a fellow photog up – costs you nothing, but the few pennies I get from purchases done via click-thrus really does help to pay the overhead here, and video hosting ain’t cheap! Visit B&H via the sidebar or footer links – but if you spend too much, don’t blame me…I’ll just be salivating behind you and the new gear that I probably want!
The latest news for me is that I will be out of town all next week. As such, since I was not able to get two tutorials recorded, next week will mostly be reports from the various locations my wife and I are visiting (if she lets me surf and blog during the travels…). I always like to start each month off with a bang, but that looks like it won’t happen for March, so keep on shooting, and as always, watch those apertures!
As for the meaningful content for Friday, here’s some Landscape Photo Tips I read about in one of my assortment of photo mags that I was trying to save for the flight (I couldn’t wait…) *grin* :
- Use a tripod
- Change your perspective
- Look for leading lines
- Use ND and split ND filters to capture a full range of color
- Keep your depth of field deep (I shoot at f11 to f/16, but you can go as high as f/22 before actually dropping back off)
- Watch for edge distractions
- Use a wide angle lens – the wider, the better, but fisheyes can be tricky so be wary of those…
- Avoid polarizing filters when shooting very wide angles – if you want the deeper blue, recompose tighter to avoid sky banding
- Check your speeds – if shooting in a breeze, that meadow of flowers, or forest of trees, or ocean waves may be blurred – lose a stop or two if you can to minimize DOF loss and improve or avoid blurred movement.
- Watch our for lens flare – when shooting wide, light can creep in at funny angles all the time.
I’ll leave you with a little What The Duck, in what is becoming a regular component of my Friday posts:
