So, I collected a few excellent guides or tutorials which provide good summaries (I think) of the possibilities of these cameras when it comes to autofocus or AF.

• How to use autofocus with moving subjects (all brands)
• Action photography: AF modes (for Nikon cameras)
• Canon 5D Mark III: Autofocus (AI Servo) for Birds in Flight
• Understanding Canon EOS 1DX Autofocus
• Sony A6000 and A5100 Autofocus Guide
• Sony: Autofocus (AF) modes

Good reading!

Is a UV filter harmful?

First, I would like to demonstrate once again the critical importance of having a very good quality filter rather than the usual plastic junk. Too often, we forget that the filter is degrading the image quality and that the better the lens, the worst the impact. To clearly show this impact, LensRentals tried to stack up to 50 filters on the same lens. the result is so immediately obvious that you don’t need to go pixel-peeping at 100% scale:

But even one filter will decrease image quality.

Of course, if you want to compare the impact of the impact difference between a pro filter and a cheap run-of-the-mill filter, you can stack just 5 pro UV filters and 5 cheap UV filters. Here again, you’ve got food for thought before you buy your next photo filter:

I insist! this last test does not use 50 filters, but only 5 UV filters and the result is immediately perceptible to the naked eye of the non-expert, even if you’re not looking for it. With only one filter, you can do the test by your own and decide that using filters is a matter of thoughtful choice.

How Polarizing Filters Work?

This is one of the best and simplest explanations and demonstrations of the operation of these basic filters: A Polarizing Filter on the left and the Neutral Grey Filter on the right.

Source: PetaPixel.

photo © 2009 Amaury | more info (via: Wylio)

1. Know the place: You may use maps or scout the location, but be prepared and since there will be a lot of people and moving around is less of an option when the show starts, be sure to know exactly where you want to be (and be there beforehand).
2. No flash: It won’t help for the fireworks, it could only light up some foreground elements in front of the show (and light balance will be difficult to obtain). It’s better/easier to use the shadow of these foreground objects, if it is easily recognizable.
3. Use a tripod: It’s night time, there is light, but not enough. Apertures will be wide and speed will be low. Get a heavy, sturdy one (Avoid being bumped into by people and limit exposure to the wind: All these make blurry photos).
4. No autofocus: You need to focus at the infinity and then go back to manual.
5. Use long shutter speeds: The longer speeds will allow filling the pictures with more light (But don’t over do it; Several light flowers are good, a bunch of colored streaks is probably not right).
6. Experiment with apertures: If there is more than the fireworks to be placed in the picture (a good idea), try experimenting with the aperture to choose the best depth-of-field.
7. Have a flashlight: At night, it will be difficult to find your way around.
8. Have replacement parts ready: Batteries or Flash cards must be in an easily accessible location (without light, it’s easy to reach for your pockets, right?)
9. Don’t check the pictures on the LCD: There is no time for this, shoot, you’ll look later. (Option: Check only 1 or 2 images at the beginning, nothing after that).
10. Frame: Think and try different compositions and frames (panoramic, vertical, etc.)

Happy shooting, now!

photo credit: andyspictures

• 60+ Best GIMP Tutorials of 2010
• 30 great tutorials for GIMP
• GIMP tricks to isolate parts of images and more GIMP tricks for doctoring images
• How to make a globe/planet photo manipulation in GIMP. See a nice little example of a planet-photo here on the right.
• Gimp 2.7 released for testing and we are Impressed with the outcome!!, by Ubuntu Manual
• How to make Photographs Vintage in GIMP
• Making a Watercolour-Paint Photograph in GIMP
• Wedding Photo Enhancement using The GIMP
• Gimp Paint Studio expands GIMP with new brushes, presets

This is an excellent complément to the User Manuals. You will find there training turorials for entry-level DSLR cameras:

• EOS Rebel T2i (550D)
• EOS Rebel T1i (500D)
• EOS Rebel Xsi (450D)
• EOS Rebel XS (1000D)

But also for pro and semi-pro DSLR cameras like:

• EOS 1Ds Mk III
• EOS 1D Mk IV
• EOS 1D MkIII
• EOS 5D Mk II
• EOS 7D
• EOS 60D
• EOS 50D

photo credit: 005 MARCO

• 1 audience: Be sure that the subject is right for your public (your kids will get all the attention of your parents and in-laws, but not from your office colleagues or friends).
• 1 subject: Don’t cover everything you can and stay concentrated onto only one theme per slide show.
• Be short: It’s always easier said than done, but you must absolutely limit yourself; You will be forced to choose only your BEST pictures, that’s a good thing; I already heard people say that a good slide show should not go over 15 or 20 photos, NEVER do more than 100 images.
• 1 story: To maintain attention, nothing is better than a story to tell or a scenario to follow; Leaving the straight path may be worth another slide show… another time.
• 1 music score: Do not select more than 1 musical style (If you want more, it is probably because you are tempted by more than 1 theme; Don’t go there).

Small advice for vertical pictures: Since the display screen will nearly always e horizontal, you can put two vertical/portrait pictures side-by-side to use all the surface.

• 1 format: All the pictures must be of the same format (JPEG, 8-bit, sRGB) and of the same size (No more than 1920 pixels width and 1080 pixels height) to better adapt to the projection tool.
• 1 copy: The pictures that you will show may be lost or deleted; Always show a copy on a small mobile device like a USB thumb-drive (don’t use the original files, from the original disk drive used for their archiving).
• Test it: Before starting, you’d better fully test the slide show with a simple viewer like Windows Picture Viewer or Mac Preview; This is rough, but it does the job and you don’t want to discover that nothing working front of your fan club.

With this, I can’t guarantee success, but I can tell that your slide show will go smoothly and your pictures will be showing their best colors.

This month, it’s time for a new round of GIMP links. Of course, the Linux-based photographers are the primary target of this list. But, remember that GIMP is also available as a valuable option for the money-sensitive user of Windows, too.

• Use GIMP to Process Time Lapse Photography (from LifeHacker)


• GIMP 2.8: A preview of the new features!


• GIMP vs. The World: The State of GIMP


• GIMP 3-D, 3 Ways: Drop-Shadows and Bump Maps and Lighting Effects


• Video: Preview of The GIMP 2.7.1 and New features


• Fixing Your Holiday Photos With GIMP: Redeye, Low Light, Exposure Settings, Healing Blemishes


• Making Skies dramatic in GIMP


• And, for the most adventurous ones (with some code programming ability): Add your own GIMP features (Dive into the code base of the GNU Image Manipulation Program)

The PhotoArgus web site will tell you all about it: Lightning, a photography primer.

• Wild Places
• Mammal Portraits
• Plant Portraits
• From Dusk to Dawn
• Underwater Photography
• Invertebrate Portraits
• Birds in Flight
• Animals in their Environment
• Bird Portraits
• Reptiles and Amphibians
• Creative Visions of Nature
• Wet Weather Wildlife
• Cold Weather Wildlife
• Black and White Photography
• Urban and Garden Wildlife
• Zoo Photography
• Bird Behaviour
• Mammal Behaviour
• Extreme Close-Up
• Innovative Wildlife Photography
• The World in our Hands

Those are complete courses that have been published previously on paper in 2006 and on. If you did not get them at the time, you can now grab the PDF files. You will appreciate the progression from mostly animal portraits to more sophisticated or more subtle kinds of pictures. All of them are great.

Wired has an article about this technique. And Flickr allows to search for images resulting from this perillous exercise.

• Examples of camera tossing on Flickr
• Snap a Camera Toss picture

But, apart from the rare occasions when you really need it, it’s too expensive for you and me. Why not build it yourself? Instructables does the demonstration with a Nikon D90, but it could be done with any other camera.

When you are in a plane of a light plane flying near a mountain range, it is quite tempting to shoot a few landscape photos; But the conditions will stay very difficult for the photographer. There are many traps and the results may loose a lot of quality compared to what you expected.

For example, problems could be:

1. The presence of visible obstacles
2. The atmospheric turbulence
3. The atmospheric veil
4. The vibrations of the plane
5. The optical limitations of the cabin window

First, you must be seated near a window (and on the right side) and you must avoid the presence of the wing and/or an engine which could reduce the view. Choose your seat wisely at check-in time or politely negotiate with the passenger better seated.

The engines of the plane produce a lot of air turbulence that is very perceptible just behind them. Seat sufficiently in front (unfortunately, the more expensive seat are often in the front of the plane).

Air moisture and dust are less problematic at high altitude than at ground level, but you will probably shoot your landscapes from very far. Only when the sky is very clear can you try a flight. Then you would limit the atmospheric veil to its minimum. It’s even better to fly early in the morning (the light is nicer and the air moisture is still mostly on the ground). Chance must fly with you (or you will have to compensate with perseverance).

Then, a plane shakes a lot. Even more when it’s a small plane. Not as much as a helicopter, but it is definitely not stable! So, choose a fast shutter speed. Worse: Those vibration frequencies are not well compensated by the image stabilizer of your camera or lens; They are targeting the smoother moves of the photographer. For an 80mm lens, I would advise faster than 1/200 s; For a 35mm, faster than 1/100 s. You may have to crank your ISO up a little for that.

But the biggest interference will probably be the window itself. Nothing much you can do: It is not a neutral photo filter. It will darken irregularly the image. It is not really compatible with polarizing filters (color shift and forced shading in the sky part of the image). It usually has a lot of scratches and stains (those inside may be cleaned, but going outside is tougher…)

In the end, shoot! Don’t hesitate to shoot twice, think about building panoramas (shoot according to the advice for good panoramic photos at Roumazeilles.net, and assemble them with PhotoMerge in Photoshop or with AutoPano Pro).

The photos illustrating this article are Copyright (c) 2009 – Yves Roumazeilles (all rights reserved)
Click on the thumbnails to see the larger photo.

• Location, Location, Location!
• The Decisive Moment
• Required Equipment
• Depth of Field — Isolating the subject
• Focus
• Composition
• Know your Sport, Know your Players
• Freezing Action Shots
• Giving the illusion of movement
• Lighting and Film
• Emotion
• Where to Start

Seven pages of excellent information, tips and advice. For people willing to improve their aptitude to shoot sports images (or even beginners).

photo credit: nsaplayer

Who did not dream of making such a great photo as the milk or water drop stopped in mid-air?

But this seems quite difficult. It may be, but there are a few techniques that can simplify things a little. Gavin Hoey, in the following video, shows a few of them, explaining lighting issue and telling us that even without motion-detection equipment it is possible to catch the droplet: Just shoot a zillion photos with your flash and hope for a little luck to bring a good image out of sheer luck. This is not as silly as it looks and digital photography made this actually practical (you will not mind erasing dozens of failed attempts on the path to a great image).

If you want to try your hand at it, remember that the flash is used to light not the droplet itself (it’s transparent), but the background which may be white or colored.

But if you still want to use a little more expensive equipment, you can check a specialist: Hiviz.

photo credit: irrezolut

A few years ago, the only destination we could think of for our photos was the paper used for most family snapshots. A few photographers were also making large format printouts, but nothing more.

With the advent of digital photography, it is now common not to print at all and to look at the pictures on the LCD screen, on the computer or on the mobile phone used to grab the image.

Print a lot

But, thanks to Internet, we also added the possibility to use printing services to nearly any kind of substrate. Think about it: In most cases, the printing services include at least the options to have your best images printed on:

• Posters
• Cards
• T-shirts, shorts and other cloth
• Mugs
• Caps
• etc.

Print on everything

But is this all? No! I found a series of surprising ways you can use your photos. The imagination seems to be the only limit. Let’s find the list of things I liked (after the jump…).

Shower curtains

Yes! You can have your personalized shower curtain. You can add your own photos to improve the shower. The imagination is definitely the limit.

For $150-200, PhotoShowerCurtain.com will put your pictures on a plastified shower curtain using dye sublimation.

Photo books

Many a print company offers the possibility to print a book (or a booklet) of your photos. I will not recommend one, but I would suggest that you follow the advice from Neil and Naomi Creek in Show your photos like a Pro with a Photo eBook (even if this is targeted at eBooks, a good part of the advice is applicable in print too).

I would also suggest that you take time to check great photo books by photographers like Scott Kelby. I love his work on “The colors of… Tuscany“. Take free inspiration. Try and reproduce the best of his presentation; Your book will be great.

Puzzle blocks

PhotoJojo also suggest that you may be printing your photo on puzzle blocks. A kind of high-quality kids game that is involving your own photography work.

I admit that this could become a nice Christmas present for your kids (or the kid inside your friends). And it is something that you can do by yourself: Make your own puzzle block.

Hand-painted portraits

At the extreme, you can send the photo portrait of your loved ones to Send Me Your Head and receive a 3″ x 3″ painting from artist Karen Schmidt.

This artistic project may sound weird, but I think it’s kind of cool, too.

Copyright (c) Karen Schmidt

Last idea

If you think that this was not enough, you can have a moment of fun and think about what it could be to print your photo directly on a plane.

13 Lessons to Teach Your Child About Digital Photography

1. Experiment
2. Check your Backgrounds
3. Hold the Camera Straight
4. How to Hold a Camera
5. Get in Close
6. Take Lots of Photos
7. Getting the Balance Right Between Photographing People, ‘Things’ and Places
8. Find a Point of Interest
9. Rule of Thirds
10. Review Your Children’s Images with Them
11. Focal Lock
12. Different Modes for Different Situations
13. Exposure Settings

All these are pointing to some more articles in DPS web site. But merely checking the photo examples on the page is already interesting.

Here is the application with a rather dull image taken from the back of La Défense in Paris.

1st solution: Photoshop

Let’s start preparing the picture with Image > Adjustment > Shadow/highlight.... We’ll start with quite heavy settings! Shadows: amount:50%, tonal width:45%, radius:44px ; Highlights: amount:67%, tonal width:65%, radius:46px ; Adjustments: color correction:+20, midtone contrast:0, black clip:0,01%, white clip:0,01%.

You have one heavily modified “base” layer. Duplicate it and select an interaction of color dodge. Highlights are burnt and totally white. But the colours have been hightened.

Do the duplicate dance again, but with an interaction of linear burn. Now, there is too much black. Set black as foreground color, then Select > color range... and apply a fuzziness of 100. Now add a new layer mask using the little icon with a circle in a rectangle at the bottom of the layers box.

Now, duplicate it again, but with an interaction of Overlay. Press Ctrl-I. You can start playing with the opacity of the last two layers, preferably 40% for “overlay” and 60% for “linear burn”.

Set white as foreground color, then Select > color range... and apply a fuzziness of 100. Select the “base” layer, duplicate it, and move it up the list of layers. Again, use the icon to add a layer mask. You may want to apply a Gaussian blur with Filter > Attenuation > gaussian blur... with a radius of 2. This step is giving the kind of halo that is most visible in most HDR images, so choose the adequate radius value for your image.

last step could be to correct the always-possible color shift (or to create one) by adding an adjustment layer (using the black-and-white circle icon), option color balance.... But it is not often needed:

Source: a now-closed web site at www.hdrphotos.net.

2nd solution: The Gimp

Using The Gimp, you may use directly the plugin from Gimpology.com. It’s propably a little less extreme than my prefered solution.

3rd solution: Photoshop tutorial

I found another Photoshop tutorial on the web at Various Photography Thoughts.

Final Note

CreateHDR which is supposed to do all this for free and online does not seem to work anymore, except -sometimes- for very small pictures. Did they have too much success?

→

Source: Photoshop Inspiration: Police CD Label.