Category Archives: Photographer Tips

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Photography tips from beginner to advanced.

Photography Tip Tuesday - Week #9: Golden Light

May 6, 2008 – 8:23 pm

colorado springs engagement portrait

This week’s tip is simple and easy because I have a date with a movie rental tonight.

Evening and morning light creates beautiful images.  The soft light and long shadows are dramatic and flattering.

Of course, if you live here in Colorado Springs, you’re at a disadvantage because we don’t have much of a sunset–the sun drops behind the mountains before it really sets.  But if you are determined, you can catch our amazing morning light (thanks to those endless plains stretching toward Kansas).

So if you’re going to pull the family outside for a quick family portrait, don’t do it at noon.  Wait until after dinner for some nice evening light.

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Photography Tips Week #8: Filters

April 29, 2008 – 10:02 pm

colorado springs photographer silly picture

As I mentioned in my last post, my 135mm lens took a tumble this weekend at Andrea and Jason’s engagement shoot.  It was a pretty major tumble–it popped out of my lens bag as I was bending over taking portraits and bounced down a flight of cement steps.  Nothing quite like seeing your favorite lens rolling into the street!

It was a hard fall, but the lens itself is fine (I put it through many tests and it’s resting comfortably now).  I had a lens filter and lens hood on it that took the damage like a champ.  Nic had to cut the filter to get it off (he was ready to call in the jaws of life).  Instead of being out hundreds of dollars to repair the lens, I’m out a mere $65 to replace the filter.

And that is exactly what UV filters are for.

Filter pros: Saves you money when your lens tries to commit suicide by jumping out of your bag.  Ensures that any scratches are limited to an easily replaced filter instead of your actual lens.

Filter cons: Any time you add a filter onto your lens you run the risk of decreasing the quality of your pictures.  However, investing in high quality UV filters is a great work-around to this problem (though it will run you $50-$100).

Bottom line: All of this being said, I used our pricey lenses for three years personally without UV filters and for eight months professionally without filters and never once had a scratch.  As long as you’re careful, I think you’re fine.  I always had the lens cap ready to pop back onto the camera the minute my finger was off the shutter.  But with weddings I felt that our lenses were more at risk.  Close quarters with guests, less time to deal with constant lens cap use, and more chaos.  It is nice to have the peace of mind of the filter, but if you will only use your lenses in nice controlled situations (or your lenses are of the $200 variety), it’s an easy purchase to skip.

(PS–not really sure how the pic up top plays into all this, it’s just one Nic snapped as we were packing up on Sunday and it makes me laugh.  It’s the sort of dorkiness that people who drop lenses exhibit.)

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incredible wedding photographer

April 28, 2008 – 11:28 am

I am very lucky in that many of my brides are as addicted to wedding photography as I am. In fact, Bernadette and I swap email links often enough to keep ourselves fully immersed in wedding photography for every hour of the day. Today I have one that’s too good to share only with Bernadette–gotta share it with the class.

I ran across Cliff Mautner’s work today. He was recently named by American Photo Magazine as one of the top ten wedding photographers in the world and very much deserves it! His work is too beautiful not to pass on. That’s how I want my images to look when I grow up. ;)

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Photographer’s Tips: Week #7 - Prime vs Zoom Lenses

April 15, 2008 – 8:03 pm

Most of the photographers I know have an obsession with prime lenses.

When you’re first starting out, prime lenses seem like a terrible idea. Why have a lens that just covers one focal length when you can get a zoom lens that covers many?

Convenience is the name of the game with zoom lenses.

You can’t beat the convenience of a lens that goes from wide angle to telephoto without having to make a lens change. But I am a lover of prime lenses. And here’s why:

Prime lenses only do one thing, so they do that one thing very well.

My 50mm lens only has to look at the world at a 50mm focal length, so it can do that job incredibly well. It doesn’t have to worry about 35mm or 24mm or 70mm–it only has to worry about doing the best little job that it can at 50mm.

My 24-70mm lens has a lot more to worry about. It’s got to cover 24mm, 70mm, and everything in between.

Many non-L series prime lenses are sharper than L-series zoom lenses. And when you get an L-series prime lens? Oh my, baby. The image is so sharp it could cut through streak.

Prime lenses only do one thing, so they can be cheaper.

To get excellent sharpness from a zoom lens, and a reasonably fast aperture, you have to pick up an L series zoom for over $1000k. But you can pick up a great prime lens that is very sharp and very fast (even faster than that L-series zoom lens) for $300.

Prime lenses are faster

Dollar-for-dollar, you’ll get a much wider aperture in prime lenses than zoom lenses. Wide apertures not only allow you to blur away backgrounds into prettiness, but they allow you to shoot in much darker situations (like indoor nighttime family snapshots).

Prime lenses are lighter/smaller.

This isn’t that big of a deal, but for going-to-the-park-with-Will lens, I like something that doesn’t make me look like I might also be peeking into people’s bedroom windows.

Prime lenses make me a better photographer.

I can’t really put it into words (so excuse me while I blubber like an idiot for a paragraph or two), but shooting with prime lenses requires more thought. Instead of standing where you’re standing and then zooming in and out until your composition is the way you want it to be, first you must decide on your focal length. Do you want a wide angle look? A normal look? Or a telephoto melting-of-the-background-and-compressing-the-image effect? Once you know that, you fix that focal length in and use your feet to compose the shot how you want it.

I like the way I move and think and compose shots when I shoot with prime lenses. They fit my style well. In fact, I shot 99% of my recent engagement portrait session with Julie and Marc using the 50mm and 135mm. That’s how much I love primes!

And now for the exact opposite

I use primes as my first choice, but here’s a review where the photographer’s first choice are zoom lenses. This is another case where what someone loves might not be your favorite. Give both a try and see what feels best to you!

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Photography Tips - Week #6 (lenses, part 3 - my recommendations)

April 10, 2008 – 10:37 pm

Continuing in our lens extravaganza…today I’ll go over my lens recommendations for different budgets/situations (another post most useful for Canon photographers–sorry)!

Recommendation #1: Don’t buy the kit lens by default.

The kit lens that Canon bundles with their dSLRs has increased in quality in the last couple of years, but if the lens isn’t a useful focal length for you or fast enough, it is still a waste of money. If it was me buying my first dSLR, I would buy the camera body only and pick the lenses I want to use and just buy those (which is what we did).

Recommendation #2: www.the-digital-picture.com is your best friend.

This is my all time favorite review site. Great in-depth reviews about Canon photography gear. This lens comparison feature is the coolest thing ever. Plug in two different lenses in the top two boxes, then select a focal length and aperture, and you get to compare the sharpness of the two lenses by moving your curser over the image and then back off to the side (don’t feel badly if you didn’t figure that part out straight away–I wasn’t so quick on figuring that out, either). It becomes very clear exactly what a difference a good lens makes!

Recommendation #3: Pay attention to how you like to take pictures

Will your camera mainly be brought out for vacation, or outdoor pictures, or macro shots, or inside pictures? The way you like to take pictures will make or break a lens for you. No matter how much my photographer heros love the 85mm f/1.8, it didn’t change the fact that it didn’t work for how *I* like to take pictures. So these recommendations may work for you, but they may not. Do plenty of research on the pros and cons of any lens you’re considering and then think about whether those pros and cons are important to your style.

Recommendations for your first lens, your everyday lens

Unless you’re a Rockefeller, you are probably wanting to buy just one lens to start out. This is a great way to go. You can become a lens collector and slowly add to your camera bag in a way that doesn’t make your checking account cry.

Or better yet, get your spouse equally addicted and you can start buying each other camera equipment for every holiday, anniversary, and birthday. Just remember that even if you bought a particular piece of equipment for your husband for his birthday, it’s still yours. And whatever he buys you for Christmas is also yours. It’s just all yours.

If your budget is tight - camera body + 50mm f/1.4

If you are looking to take pictures of your family and plan on being indoors for a goodly percentage of those pictures (the every day stuff), you cannot go wrong with this combo. I could be very happy taking our family pictures with just my 20d and 50mm f/1.4.

Do not attempt to save $100 and buy the 50mm f/1.8. The f/1.8 does not have pretty bokeh, and apparently it manages to fall apart all over the place. Invest a teeny tiny bit more and get a truly fantastic lens.

If your budget has a little more wiggle room - camera body + 24-70mm f/2.8 L

This was my first lens and first love. The image quality is fantastic, and the extra range of the 24-70 focal length is great. The 24-105mm IS also gets wonderful reviews, but I would miss the extra background blur you can get from having f/2.8 as an option. When I’m taking indoor pictures, background blur is my friend. I don’t need all of my relatives seeing exactly how many piles of laundry are in the background. Much better for them to be just blobs of color.

Next up– telephoto time

Your first lens needs to be an all-around lens with an easy focal length for everyday shots. But you’ll probably find that you are wanting to add a telephoto lens to the mix to be able to reach the animals at the zoo a little better, or sneak shots of your kids in the living room while you’re standing in the kitchen.

I could make out with my 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens, but it’s the sort of lens that you have to sell your firstborn child for. The 70-200 f/4 IS lens is $700 cheaper, lighter, and even a bit sharper. You’re probably not going to be using this lens indoors anyway (too much zoom), so unless you’re planning on shooting weddings in a church, the f/4 IS should cover you.

And then — going wide

Everyone needs to find their own priority list for lenses, but in my list, wide angles go toward the bottom. I think they are the hardest lenses to use well, the least flattering, and therefore the ones I pull from my bag the least often.

The tough thing about 1.6 FOVCF camera bodies is that it makes “normal” lenses out of wide angle lenses. In order to get a truly wide angle from a 40d or Rebel, you’ll want the 10-22mm EF-S lens.

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I hope that was helpful! Let me know if you have any specific questions. I’ll be answering a few next week!

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