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| Monday, January 5th, 2009 |
Canon Shooting Modes - What are the differences?
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Many canon DSLR owners never use more than one or two fo the shooting modes on their cameras. Maximize your shooting experience, learn what the other modes do and start getting the shots you've really been wanting to get.
click here to see advanced shooting modes
Basic (Auto) Modes
Basic modes available on all but the 1D series
are designed to allow quick shooting of generic pictures without the need for in-depth understanding of how the camera exposes the shots. Settings like Auto Focus, Drive Mode, Metering Mode and ISO are configured by the camera in order to be "optimal" for the situation. Before I talk about each, let it be know that Auto Modes do not shoot in RAW . A large tradeoff in my opion and one of the reasons I almost never shoot in these modes.
 Portrait
For shooting people, f-stop is set as low as possible for a small depth of field (DOF). The drive mode is set to low speed continuous and auto focus mode (AF) is set to one shot.
basic portrait shot, the flash did fire
Continue reading Canon Shooting Modes - What are the differences? → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 2:04 PM [No Comments] |
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| Thursday, January 1st, 2009 |
Planning an Ultimate Photography Trip - Step 1
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My two largest passions are photography and travel. I'm always excited when I get to combine the two. Last winter I took a trip to Italy and took a ton of pictures. I created a blurb book about the experience and have been waiting to do it again.
Well, next fall I will be traveling to South America and, as before, I plan on photography being the main focus of my trip. This time I want to document all of my photography related activities as I do them. From start to finish, from picking up UV filters to printed a photo book, I will record every photography activity I take so that others can learn and embark on their own successful and amazing photography trip.
Before I move on to the rest, let me say that the entire process will be collected under the blog category of:
The Ultimate Photo Trip Category
Continue reading Planning an Ultimate Photography Trip - Step 1 → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 10:33 AM [No Comments] |
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| Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 |
Got to see a piece on the client's wall.
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Always nice to see when a print is placed on the wall. I had made a frame and print last year and while I was in Virginia, I got to see it up on the wall. I think it turned out well. I got to see another print in Boston, but forgot to grab a shot.
This was an old ISO-1600 film scan that I printed on 24"x36" canvas and stretched. I think the grain and vingetting added the right amount of character to this print. And, what is most important, the owner likes it.
Continue reading Got to see a piece on the client's wall. → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 6:03 PM [No Comments] |
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| Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 |
Thanks Digg.com for the little traffic boost
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So the other day, December 18th to be exact, there was an article posted on digg.com entitled 34 Basic Tutorials To Get Started With Digital Photography. While the posts were good, although basic, I was more interested in contributing to the general knowledge with some of my posts.
Cross posting a link to a new blog post is nothing new for me, but this was the first time I could contribute to a top digg post. The digg article was for a post on PXLshots.com and I also cross posted my links on that post page in addition to the actual digg entry.
The traffic spike from those two sets of links resulted in a nice increase over my normal fledgling traffic.
Traffic spike on the day that the digg article was a top post.
Above you can see the spike with 142 absolute unique visitors. The next day there were still 50 uniques coming to the site.
From the 15th through the 25th, almost half the traffic has come from digg or pxlshots
It is my rule to only post a link to a blog that contributes to the overall information of the post. As this extreme example shows, it does gain some awareness for my blog, and, at the same time, I learn a lot from the articles I read.
Here's to a lot more photography posts making it to the home page of digg!
Continue reading Thanks Digg.com for the little traffic boost → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 8:41 PM [No Comments] |
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| Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 |
Metering Modes - How, When and Why to use them
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If you own a DSLR, or even some point and shoots, you have one powerful feature at your fingertips, light metering modes. What are light metering modes? Let me explain.
Every time you camera takes a picture, it has to determine if there is enough light for the shot to be properly exposed, neither too light or too dark. If you are shooting in any of the semi-manual modes (P, Tv, Av, A-DEP) then your camera will make all the adjustments possible to expose the shots. Metering is automatic for auto modes and for manual mode (M) it tells your camera what the Exposure Value (EV) of the shot will be so that you can make manual adjustments.
But how does your camera determine that the shot is correctly exposed? Well, there are several methods and those methods are called your metering modes. For the following examples of the various metering modes, I will shoot in aperture priority mode. That means that my camera will adjust the shutter speed to obtain the correct exposure. I will shoot at f/4.5 for each shot.
Evaluative Metering
Center-Weighted
Partial Metering
Point Metering
Evaluative Metering
Evaluative metering is determined by a combination of subject brightness and positiong, foreground brightness and background brightness. The camera uses all that information to find the best exposure ballance for the shot. (the Nikon equivalent is 3D Color Matrix meterting)
This shot has the calculated subject, the bottles and candles, well exposed and just a touch of the background exposed.
a:f/4.5 s:1/4 ISO:100
Continue reading Metering Modes - How, When and Why to use them → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 10:11 AM [No Comments] |
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| Monday, December 15th, 2008 |
The 35 Atlanta Holiday Party is as fun as they say.
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Got back from a very long and very relaxing weekend in Gatlinburg, TN for the 35 Atlanta Holiday party.
Ray and Erica did a fabulous job with everything. We had a white elephant gift exchange, tons of food and drinks, and even an Amazing Race style contest through Gatlinburg. Nothing like begging for change in Tennessee just so the team could eat at McDonald's!
You can see some pictures of the fun here!
Continue reading The 35 Atlanta Holiday Party is as fun as they say. → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 5:24 PM [No Comments] |
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| Thursday, December 11th, 2008 |
Happy Birthday! My 30D just turned 10,000
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Just a little shout out to my 30D which was giving me the "CF ERROR" message because it had just reached image 9999.
At 605 days old (April 7, 2007) that is 16.5 shots per day on average. 18% of the shots came from my trip to italy.
Anyway, thanks a lot baby and here's to another 10,000 shots.
Continue reading Happy Birthday! My 30D just turned 10,000 → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 11:02 PM [No Comments] |
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| Thursday, December 11th, 2008 |
Publish This! Flickr is just the start.
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I wrote a 4tay.com blog post 18 months ago about a pending spot in a flickr's 24 hours of flickr. I never posted anything about the actual book, so I thought it was about time.
A little back story first. Flickr had a contest where they would print a book of pictures covering one day in time, May 5th 2007. Users would submit a single picture from that day and some would make it into a book.
There were 122 pictures chosen from over 6,700 pictures that were submitted, and I was one...hooray!!
Check out the flickr group here http://www.flickr.com/groups/24flickr/
Continue reading Publish This! Flickr is just the start. → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 11:01 PM [No Comments] |
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| Thursday, December 11th, 2008 |
Posted Italy Pictures Last Night
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It has been a year since touring Italy, but I am just now getting my pictures up here. I've made a book, posted them on facebook and on 4tay.com, but had never put them up here.
Well, now they are, feel free to have a look, I put up about 80 of the 1800+ shots I took.
view the entire Italy gallery here
I hope you enjoy them, I would love any and all feedback. And, for a better view, try looking at them in the 'gallery on wall' mode by clicking here: View As Gallery On Wall
Continue reading Posted Italy Pictures Last Night → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 9:00 AM [No Comments] |
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| Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 |
35 Atlanta Associate Profile Is Up
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My associate profile on 35 Atlanta is now up to date now. I will be paired with Amber for the 2009 wedding season and can't wait for it to start.
click here to view the profile
Learn more about 35 Atlanta here http://www.35atlanta.com
Continue reading 35 Atlanta Associate Profile Is Up → |
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| Posted by Adam Parker @ 9:30 AM [No Comments] |
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