Photography

“Vision is Better 2” by David duChemin – photography ebook, discount code inside!

New eBook Available! VISION IS BETTER II is a collection of 44 of the most recent essays about the photographic life and craft from David duChemin’s wildly popular PixelatedImage Blog. His insights on the how and why of photography, visual story telling, and life-lessons learned along the way make for a compelling and inspiring eBook … Read more →

11 Ways to Improve Your Photography – a FREE ebook by Craft & Vision

Craft & Vision recently launched this FREE ebook titled 11 Ways to Improve your Photography. The ebook consists of several authors within the Craft & Vision community, including world-renowned David duChemin, explaining in detail about some of the things they wish they had learned earlier in their career, which would have improved their photography. Well, … Read more →

“Making Light 2: Advanced Use of Off-Camera Flash” by Piet van den Eynde

New eBook Available MAKING LIGHT II takes an in-depth look at how to get the most from your off-camera flashes. Piet takes you beyond sync speed and softboxes and gets into the details on working with multiple flashes, modifiers, and triggering systems for both Canon and Nikon. This massive eBook also includes 10 case-studies and … Read more →

The Best Printer Ink & Paper to Use for Photography

Printing professional-looking photographs using a desktop printer can seem a bit daunting, but many printers these days are designed to print very high-quality images, if you make sure a few things are correct. The megapixel count has to be appropriate for the size of the print, and most sizes of pictures will work well with … Read more →

New photo eBook: “The Inspired Eye 3” by David duChemin

Calibrate your Creativity. The Inspired Eye, Volume 3, is about the creative process behind our photography. Technical proficiency is highly over-rated; if you can make a good exposure, and focus the camera, the rest is about your choices, your own creative decisions in making a photograph. Improving your photography happens when you improve the way … Read more →

Nikon: Why in-lens stabilization (VR) is better than in-camera [video]

Nikon published in a recent article four reasons why in-lens stabilization (Vibration Reduction) is better than in-camera stabilization: Corrected finder image makes photo composition easy. Each lens is optimally tuned to achieve reliable correction. Image information captured by the AF and metering sensors is corrected with in-lens VR. Patterns of image blur are not the … Read more →

Fuji X100: Write speeds on SD cards

I love my new Fuji X100 and my I’m quite sure my Nikon D7000 is jealous (though it probably wouldn’t admit it…). If you haven’t already, you should read my Fuji Finepix X100 first impressions. But this article is not about praising the X100, it’s about how fast/slow the X100 writes to SD cards. Currently, … Read more →

Battle At F-Stop Ridge (video)

When a company makes a fun and interesting commercial, I don’t mind sharing it. This is such a video. Especially if you’re into photography, you’re going to love this. The Camera Store was asked on YouTube how many photos were made during this video, their reply: “None, no cards or film in the cameras.”

(micro)STOCK: From Passion to Paycheck by Nicole S. Young

New eBook Available: (micro)STOCK: From Passion to Paycheck by Nicole S. Young is a jam-packed guide to producing, managing, and marketing your photographs for digital distribution on the micro-stock market. There is a lot more to stock photography than uploading a bunch of pictures and hoping for the best. Nicole shares her industry experience and … Read more →

Nikkor 24-120mm f4 (vs Nikkor 18-200mm VR in quick lens sharpness comparison test)

I’ve been a happy user of Nikon’s 1st generation Nikkor 18-200mm VR f3.5-5.6 DX lens since I got it for my Nikon D5000 shortly after I purchased the D5000. However, I quickly learned that a fast prime was a must so I also purchased the Nikkor 35mm f1.8 AF-S, which is an amazing (and cheap) lens, I highly recommend it.

As for the 18-200mm VR lens, it ended up spending more and more time collecting dust on the shelf after I upgraded my D5000 to the new Nikon D7000. An upgrade which was well worth-it in my case, I might add (also read: 5 reasons to replace your Nikon D5000 with D7000 and 5 reasons not to replace your Nikon D5000 with D7000). The only downside is, the D7000 demands quality glass. You’re not going to get worse pictures with D7000 and the same lenses as used on D5000 or similar, but D7000 more easily shows minor faults in your not-so-expensive lenses. For me, this meant my trusty old 18-200mm lens really started to show those compromises that everybody is talking about in terms of super zooms.

Read more →