If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!It’s easy to get confused over some of the terms applied to macrophotography. Even the name itself is sometimes misunderstood. Macrophotography is not microphotography, which involves microfilm and other miniature images; nor is it photomicrography, which is taking pictures through [...]
You’re ready to start shooting close-ups. I’m ready to give you some helpful tips. Try these on for size as you shoot your first macros.
Focus carefully. Some cameras allow switching autofocus to a center-oriented mode or spot mode or let you choose which focus sensor to use. Use those features if your subject matter is [...]
Point-and-shoot digital cameras are ballyhooed as great close-up gear because the LCD display makes it easy to frame your photo accurately without fear of accidentally clipping off part of the image due to the parallax error difference between what the optical viewfinder sees and what the sensor actually captures. Yet, can you really view an [...]
Many of the most enjoyable types of digital photography are, unhappily, seasonal. If you love to shoot baseball or football sports action, you’ll have to wait until baseball or football season kicks off. Should your passion be shooting autumn colors as the leaves change after summer’s end, you’ll have to wait until September and October [...]
Those who own single lens reflex cameras suffer from a singular disease: Lens Lust. I didn’t make that term up. You’ll find references to Lens Lust all over the Internet, in user groups, and any gathering that includes two or more photographers. Lens Lust isn’t limited to digital SLRs;it infects anyone who owns a camera [...]
Should you clean your sensor? That depends on what kind of cleaning you plan to do, and whose advice you listen to. Some vendors countenance only dust-off cleaning, through the use of reasonably gentle blasts of air, while condemning more serious scrubbing with swabs and cleaning fluids. These same manufacturers sometimes offer the cleaning kits [...]
The easiest way to protect your sensor from dust is to prevent it from entering your camera in the first place. Here are some steps you can take:
■ Keep your camera clean. Avoid working in dusty areas if you can do so. Make sure you store your camera in a clean environment.
■ When swapping lenses, [...]
Compared with point-and-shoot digital cameras, all dSLRs are a bit on the chunky side. However, some are more compact than others, and a few, particularly pro models with large battery packs and vertical grips, border on the huge. Before you lay down a large hunk of change for a digital camera, play with it to [...]
Although every camera uses different buttons and menus to control key features, each includes some variation on the basic array of controls. This chapter provides an overview of the exposure and focus controls a digital photographer must master, and includes descriptions of how these controls differ between digital cameras and film cameras.
You’ll learn about automated [...]
The next most important component of a digital SLR is the lens—or, more properly, lenses—because, unlike other types of digital cameras, the lens of a dSLR is interchangeable. I’m not going to waste a lot of time discussing the science of optics, primarily because it’s an ancient technology. Indeed, in the Western world, Romans invented [...]