Seven Things I Wish I’d Have Known When I First Became A Photographer

MARCH 19, 2012

tags: Scott Bourne, Seven Things I Wish I'd Have Known When I First Became A Photographer

by scottbourne

Photo by Scott Bourne - Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons

They say you master something once you’ve made 10,000 mistakes doing it. If that’s true, then I must be a Grand Master at photography because I seem to have found a way to make 20,000 mistakes. As I talk with young people about photography some of the same misconceptions and questions come up over and over and I realized – I wish someone had taken the time to sit me down and share a few things with me when I first started out that would have saved me at least 5,000 of those mistakes. So here goes nothing. I’m going to let you know what I would have liked that advice to be.

1. Do not spend any time making serious photographs if you are not seriously passionate about it. Every bad photo I ever made started going bad because I wasn’t really into it. I was just going through the motions. It’s like kissing your sister so to speak. You have to care about what you are photographing, how it comes out and what story the image tells or you’re going to be disappointed.

2. Understanding how your camera REALLY works, as in every button, every switch, every menu and sub menu and sub, sub menu, will save your bacon over and over and over. The camera needs to be an extension of your eye – not something that gets between you and your subject. Learn how to use your camera and stop changing systems so often in the great hope that the NEXT big thing will make you better. It won’t. Learning how to get 100% out of what you have right now WILL!

3. Speaking of gear, focus as little as you can on gear and as much as you can on your subject, their story and how you’re going to share it. The “hey you take good pictures – you must have a good camera” line gets old. I guarantee you that it’s not the camera that makes the shot – it’s the photographer. It took me a VERY long time to figure this out. As a geek and a tech head I kept jumping into the science side of photography and the gear and the gadgets thinking THAT would save me. It didn’t. It sent me backwards. I now realize the gear is nothing more than the hammer looking for a naill.

4. Find the light first, the background second and the subject third. This statement will be controversial to many of you – some of you will yell at me because I said it. That’s because you haven’t made the 10,000 mistakes I had to make to understand it so go ahead and yell, but once you stop yelling pay attention and you’ll save yourself some pain. EVERYTHING starts with light. I can have the prettiest subject in ugly light and get no shot. And if the background is distracting, nobody notices the subject. So start with great light. Seek it out. Know it. Search for and yearn for it. Love it. Bathe in it. Dream about it. Then go find it in front of a nice clean background and THEN put your subject right there. You’ll win every time you do that.

5. If you photograph people or make pictures professionally understand that being nice is better than being good. When I listen to the people who primarily buy photographs (women are responsible for most portrait session purchases) they constantly refer to their photographer as nice. I rarely hear them say that he/she is good. My point is not that you don’t have to be good – you do. But concentrate on being nice. It took me far too long to realize how important this is and I am STILL working on it – as many of you can attest.

6. The best photographs in the world happen when the photographer or the subject or the viewer or some combination of the three are in a place where there is solid, real emotion and/or love. I know this sounds corny but if you can learn to love the subjects you photograph, you’ll take more care and make fewer mistakes. If you find real emotion in your work, you’ll cause others to feel those emotions. Thinking this doesn’t matter is the biggest photo-related mistake you can make. It took me 10 years of photography to understand this. Hopefully (and likely) you are smarter than me and you’ll get this right sooner than I did.

7. I have to stop this list somewhere so I’ll stop here with this. Understand that serious photography is about protecting memories, telling stories, keeping moments in time that have passed alive for the future and sharing all of the above. If you can think about that every time you press the shutter, you’ll make fewer mistakes and become a great photographer.

If I could have had this conversation with myself 30 years ago, I’d have become a good photographer MUCH sooner. I hope I at least helped you do that because it’s too late to do it for myself. I had to bungle through this crap on my own. No wonder I”m considered “cantankerous!”

Best wishes!

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud Offers Access To Every CS6 App For $50 Per Month, Including Photoshop

Would you subscribe to your editing software instead of buying it?

• BY STAN HORACZEK ON APRIL 23, 2012

ENLARGE

Have you been playing with the Photoshop CS6 beta that was released a couple weeks ago? We have. But today, Adobe announced official release and pricing info. Perhaps more interesting though, are the final details about their new all-you-can-app subscription service, Creative Cloud.

Creative Cloud gives you full access to any app that fits under the CS6 Master Collection, including the big boys like Photoshop Extended, Premiere Pro (video editing), AfterEffects (video and motion graphics), Lightroom (which will come at a later date) and several more. In addition to that, you also get a few new utilities like Typekit for safely using fonts on the web, Edge, which allows you to make animated HTML 5 files, and Muse, which allows you to design websites graphically and then generates the appropriate code for you.

The Creative Cloud also integrates tightly with the Photoshop Touch apps, so you can pull files from the Cloud to view or work on using your tablet as well as your computer. It's a nice conduit between the two platforms, which will only get more interesting as always-on internet becomes more prevalent, especially if we can get 4G speeds.

If you want the $50 monthly rate mentioned above, you have to be willing to sign up for the whole year. The month-to-month option raises the fee to $75. The price includes access to all the apps, software updates, and 20 GB of online storage for your projects. The storage piece is actually fairly interesting in that it lets users share projects with collaborators or clients using a fair bit of control. 

Students and educators who qualify for educational pricing will be able to get access to the Creative Cloud for a discounted $30 monthly fee, which will also be extended as an introductory rate for users who are currently on CS3 or higher.

Of course, some users won't buy into the subscription-style pricing, and those users can expect to pay very familiar prices for the new software. Photoshop CS6 costs $699, while Photoshop CS6 Extended is $999. The full Master Collection is still $2,599, while the smaller industry-specific bundles check in at $1,299 or $1,899.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this pricing plan is received. This isn't the first time Adobe has implemented a subscription plan, but it is the first time they've offered an all-inclusive plan like this. With the additional publishing tools, it seems like an excellent deal for the working pro, but does this lower the barrier of entry enough for enthusiasts? Time will tell.

We'll bring you more information about Creative Cloud as well as Photoshop CS6 soon. They will both be available within the next 30 days. Here are the official press releases if you're into reading that kind of thing.

Canon 5D MK III vs Nikon D800 with Nathan Elson ( via TheCameraStoreTV )

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The Canon 5D MkIII and the Nikon D800 are two of the hottest cameras on the market so we put them to the test in our first of three videos. Local commercial photographer Nathan Elson (www.nathanelson.com) joins up with The Camera Store's Chris Niccolls to see how these two cameras stack up in the image quality department. 

Special thanks to Mallory McGowan (www.MalloryMcGowan.com), our stylist for this shoot. Kevin Murray and Mark Langridge for their gracious assistance.

Gina Baccari and Alina Cox for being our models, happily working throughout difficult conditions. Special thanks also to Nathan Elson for helping with his photographic expertise and able co-hosting.

Shot and Edited by Jordan Drake
Filmed on the Nikon D4

Silver and light

Canon launches EOS 60Da DSLR for astrophotography

Apr 3, 2012 at 07:04:58 GMT

CAMERA NEWS ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY CANON

Canon has launched the EOS 60Da, a variant of its 60D DSLR tuned for astrophotography. The camera features a re-worked infra-red filter leaving the camera more sensitive to a specific emission frequency (656nm) of hydrogen, key to capturing images of features such as nebulae (gas clouds) in space. The 18MP camera continues where 2005's 8MP EOS 20Da left off. It will be available from a limited number of authorized dealers at a price of around $1499.00.

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Press Release:

NEW CANON EOS 60Da DSLR CAMERA FOR ASTRONOMY ENTHUSIASTS CAPTURES THE TRUE COLORS OF THE COSMOS

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., April 3, 2012 – Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, today introduced the EOS 60Da Digital SLR Camera, a long-awaited successor to the EOS 20Da that is optimized for astrophotography. This DSLR caters to astronomers and hobbyists who enjoy capturing the beauty of the night sky by offering a modified infrared filter and a low-noise sensor with heightened hydrogen-alpha sensitivity. These modifications allow the camera to capture magnificent photographs of “red hydrogen emission” nebulae and other cosmic phenomena.

“The EOS 60Da is a testament to the constant desire to meet the needs of every customer, including those in specialized fields,” said Yuichi Ishizuka, executive vice president and general manager, Imaging Technologies & Communications Group, Canon U.S.A., “This new camera enables an accurate depiction of a part of our solar system which is hard to achieve with conventional cameras but should be enjoyed and celebrated.”

The Canon EOS 60Da camera packs a powerful 18-megapixel CMOS sensor (APS-C) that produces sharp and high-contrast images of astronomical objects, a major enhancement over the EOS 20Da model’s 8.2-megapixel sensor. The improved infrared-blocking filter is a modification suited specifically toward astronomy enthusiasts to achieve a hydrogen-alpha light sensitivity that is approximately three times higher than that of a normal Canon DSLR camera. This produces a 20-percent higher transmittance of Hydrogen Alpha line, or Hα wavelength, allowing astronomers to capture crisp, clear images of reddish, diffuse nebulae.

Enhanced Features

Crisp images of the stars and planets can be viewed on the EOS 60Da’s improved 3.0-inch Clear View LCD screen with 1,040,000 dots for detailed focusing. The flip-out Vari-angle screen allows photographers to adjust the screen for easy viewing without straining even while the camera is mounted to a telescope via a third-party T-ring adapter. Optimized for stargazing with friends or in an educational setting, astronomy enthusiasts can connect the camera to a TV with the provided AVC-DC400ST Stereo AV Video Cable and display the night sky on a TV monitor using the camera’s Live View mode. Moreover, the EOS 60Da’s Live View mode is equipped with a Silent Shooting feature that eliminates shutter-induced vibration for maximum camera stability when the camera is mounted to a telescope or super-telephoto EF lens.

Enhanced noise reduction on the EOS 60Da sensor offers photographers the ability to experiment with the wide array of ISO settings and increased ISO speeds up to 6400 expandable to 12800. Other features include an intelligent nine-point autofocus system, full manual controls, and RAW, JPEG, and RAW+JPEG image recording capabilities.

Accessories

The EOS 60Da helps capture the wonders of the night sky with its use of Canon’s award-winning EF and EF-S lenses along with other EOS accessories. Additionally, the EOS 60Da is packaged with Canon’s RA-E3 Remote Controller Adapter, providing the ability to connect a Canon Timer Remote Control such as the TC-80N3 (optional accessory). The TC-80N3 is ideal for controlling time exposures longer than 30 seconds as well as capturing a series of consecutive time exposures that can be composited during post-processing for improved image quality. This is especially useful when the camera body is connected to a telescope[i] or an EF super telephoto lens. 

Canon has also included an AC adapter kit with the EOS 60Da, allowing the camera to be powered through an AC wall outlet or a battery-powered inverter, ideal for long exposure image or video capture at home or in the field. 

Availability

As a specialized product, the EOS 60Da is only available to order from select authorized dealers. The estimated retail price is $1,499.00 and it is expected to be available this month.

You don’t need a freakin light meter! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to photography lighting forums and found questions about “which type of light meter should I buy”  Here’s the answer, once and for all!  Save your money, and don’t buy any of them.  You don’t need one!  They’re obsolete!
Why photographers use to need a light meter... Back in the not-so good old days, when the snow was deeper and the hills were steeper, there used to be this thing they called “film”.  You’ve probably heard of it.  It’s the stuff photographers used to put in their cameras to make pictures.  Any way…  That stuff used to be really expensive and to make things worse, you used to have to process the stuff, which made things even more expensive!  And on top of all that, it used to take hours, if not days to even see what the photographer shot! n those days, it made sense to own an light meter.  It could same you time and more importantly money.  Most photographers used to take light meter readings so that they could determine what the exposure would be.  It saved on shooting pictures that were either over or underexposed.
Ya see, back then, it was sort of like betting.  Making an exposure was sort of like placing a bet at the track, using real money.  If your exposure was off and the picture didn’t “turn out” you lost your bet (film and processing and any expenses involved in the shoot) and a meter came in really handy for getting you at least close to a good exposure and getting you a good return at the track / shoot.  Another great tool to the pre-digital photographer was Polaroid film.  Most commercial professionals (like me) used Polaroid test shots to make sure that the shot was looking like they wanted it to before the “real” film was exposed. Using a light meter helped with getting a good initial exposure before the polaroid test prints took over. After that initial light reading, the process of refining the shot was usually made exclusively by interpreting polaroids. At that point, , the light meter was usually abandon until the next setup was begun. So many polaroids were taken that on many shoots, the cost of test polaroids often surpassed the expense of the final fill and processing bill.  Were talking hundreds of dollars.  Even then, the light meter was loosing its importance. That brings us to today, the good new days.  With today’s digital technology, you simply click the shutter and there ya go…  Instant, cost free, test polaroids (without the Polaroid)  So what if the exposure is wrong?  Shoot another picture, stupid!  :+)  If it’s too dark, adjust.  Too light? Adjust!  What’s the big freakin deal?  Use the histogram as your meter.  If that puppy is over too far to the right, stop down.  If it’s over too far to the left, open up.  Shoot, view, adjust.  Repeat as needed. Some people might argue, what about light ratios?  How do I know what the light ratios are without a light meter?  WHO CARES!?  If the shadows are too dark, add some fill light!  Too Flat, take some fill away.  You don’t need a light meter, trust me. I own a couple and I can honestly say, I don’t even know where the things are.  If I did, I’d get my butt on ebay and sell them to some sucker that didn’t read this article.  I don’t know a professional that uses a hand-held light meter anymore.  I do use a color meter, however.  One thing a three inch camera display is not good at is showing you good color.  I’m not so concerned about the overall color of the shot, because that can be tweaked later, especially if you’re using raw, but the trouble comes when you’re mixing light sources.  That’s some valuable info.  But that’s another article.

Earth from Space ISS