If there’s one thing I like about macro and close-up photography, it’s that no matter where you are right this moment, there is a fascinating subject waiting to be shot. Not many other kinds of photography can make that claim. Photographers who enjoy shooting portraits are dependent on a model to shoot. Landscape photographers exist […]
Perhaps one of the more confusing subjects in the world of digital cameras is lens length. We hear terms like “telephoto,” “wide angle,” “field of view,” “5X,” and a host of others to describe our lenses. Then once we get all of that business sorted out we crank in other arcane phrases like “crop factor” […]
Remote TTL flash systems are nice and slick but they are expensive. Each flash can cost hundreds of dollars plus there is the cost of stands, umbrellas or soft boxes and more. But, what if we could achieve something similar without a huge outlay of cash? We can build such a system and it could […]
As photographers we spend a lot of time playing with light. Light is our medium, we talk about its color, its quality, its size and its softness. And a lot of our talk is about how to change it. One of the first things that a novice photographer tires of and wants to change is the boring, flat light that their camera flash produces. While there are any number of devices that can filter or shape light one of the biggest groups of light changers are the remote flash triggers. At the most basic level one of the fastest ways to change flash light from flat and boring is to move its position. Once the flash is moved off of the top of our camera it loses the vital connections required to make it fire.
So just what is a Lensbaby? Lensbaby is actually an entire line of image modifying products based around three distinct lenses. The concept is that the three core lenses are able to bend, rotate or flex with the outcome that only selected portions of the scene will be in focus. The photographer has control over the point in the scene that is in focus and how large that area is. The three core lenses, or more accurately lens bodies, are The Muse, The Composer and The Control Freak. All three lenses mount to a camera just like the standard kit lens does. There are major differences in camera handling once a Lensbaby is on the camera. First, say goodbye to autofocus, there isn’t any.
For the most part a photographer only needs a few software programs in order to have a fully functioning digital darkroom. While there are dozens of possibilities I have three software packages that I strongly recommend: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop Elements and Tiffen’s Df/x. I suggest starting with Photoshop Lightroom ($299). Lightroom is both an image manipulation program and one of the best image file archive managers on the planet. In every instance Lightroom is where I begin the moment I have images that I need to move from a memory card onto my computer.
