How to store your digital images is an issue that faces every digital photographer at some stage. In this post ChristinaNichole Photography shares some tips on how to do it.
I once met a very talented photographer at a digital photography class. The topic of discussion was digital image organization. Of all the students attending this class, she was extremely distraught. When asked if she needed assistance, her response was, “I never knew how to organize my pictures before, so I kept them all in one file. Where do I start?!?
Not the best-case scenario.
Though not an overwhelmingly fascinating subject, without a doubt digital storage and file handling is one of the most important lessons a photographer can learn. In the digital age, when we have opportunity to store hundreds of thousands of images on one laptop or hard drive, things can get pretty complicated to go back and try to find “that one picture of Aunt Helen at Johnny’s 6th birthday partyâ€. Especially if you don’t have an established workflow and file handling system.
Organizing your images will be one of the most time intensive and equally time saving tasks you can perform as a photographer. You don’t want to spend hours looking for that one picture if you can simply search your catalogue for it by a single keyword or date.
Various photo organizing programs can assist you in your organizing. You can customize this organization with most programs if you import directly into the program. This list of programs would include Picasa by Google, Aperture by Apple, and Lightroom2 by Adobe. Though these programs will help you exponentially, it’s helpful to begin with these general starting points:
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If you’ve ever seen images like the one at right and wondered how they are created, this post from Peter Carey helps explain the steps needed to produce your own star trail images.
Creating star trail images is a fun technique that can deliver a wide range of results depending on location, foreground objects and number of visible stars. While the technique can be relatively simple, proper setup and then proper post-processing are essential. To get started, let’s look at the equipment and tools needed for a normal star trail image:
Digital Camera, with or without Bulb mode Tripod Remote shutter release with timer (optional, but it helps) Open view of the sky A lack of city lights Image stacking software Patience and warm clothes if you don’t live in the Tropics
Any camera will work for creating images while it should be noted cameras with exposure length control (shutter priority, manual or bulb modes) work best. The remote shutter release unit is best used to reduce camera shake from pressing the shutter release button as it is used off camera (some are even cordless). If the remote has a timer function it is golden for use with this type of photography. A good timer will allow for setting of the shutter speed, number of shots and interval between shots. This is the best unattended setup if you wish to wait some place warm while your camera takes care of the pictures. Image stacking software allows for the overlay of multiple images while combining the details. A few options will be discussed at the end of this post as well as in the comments section. Read the rest of this entry
Now that the US elections have been run and won - I thought it’d be interesting to post some links to some pages that captured Barack Obama’s campaign photographically.
The three links that follow are quite varied in terms of their approach. The first is Obama’s Flickr account with photos by an unnamed photographer/s traveling with the Obama camp (with some very behind the scenes shots).The shots may not be as high a quality as the other links but they tell a fascinating story.
The 2nd and 3rd links are to collections of images by journalists on the road with Obama for at least part of his campaign. They contain some great insights as well as some wonderful imagery.
Barack Obama’s Photostream - including some very behind the scenes shot of election night.
Callie Shell - a great series of shots by Callie from the campaign trail
Scout Tufankjian - another fantastic collection of photos of the Obama campaign
I’m sure there are plenty of other links out there to both photography of Obama’s campaign and John McCains. Feel free to post links to election photography related pages below.
Update: Here’s another great collection of shots of Obama during his campaign from Boston.com
This week at DPS we finished our first assignment that had a sponsor! thinkTank photo kindly offered a thinkTANK Rotation 360 camera bag as a prize in our assignment; “What’s in your bag?” There were so many entries! We had so many interpretations of the theme and lots of thought went into your entries, thanks. I have given first place to lyskabar for her photo, congratulations! I really liked your take on this theme and, so, I’ll be sending you a thinkTANK Rotation 360 - Hope you like it! There were so many to choose from, I have chosen a second and a third place, but, I’ve also chosen a few more that I’d like to give a mention. Second place goes to kairos for “Teddy’s mean well” well done! and Third place is held by anagr for “Bag, What bag” - Thanks to everyone that has participated, and a special thanks to the guys at thinkTANK photo!
My other runners up include the following…
Camera Bag Cave by oktronic
Brian Smith’s in my bag by westcoast91
My Dear Lenses by Zetson and Nuno’s Mirror shot
Coming into the busy Christmas period, it’s always best to take some time out and “Relax” which is our assignment theme this week. While you can post any pictures that fit the theme, if you want to be part of the mini-contest, we have a few rules. First, your picture must have been taken between 5 - 19th of November 2008. Second, your post must include the words “Assignment:Relax” to show you want it counted in the assignment. And last, your EXIF needs to be intact, and it’s very helpful if you post the main points (camera, lens, date taken, ISO, shutter speed & aperture) in your entry post.
Next week’s assignment will be “Drive” you can take that any way you’d like, But this assignment is also going to have a great sponsor in G-Technology who have kindly sent us a beautiful 1 Terrabyte G-Drive Q, This award winning drive is sure to sort out all your “Drive” needs… So, Get thinking and maybe you’ll walk away with this great prize.
Hot Threads
Nudes Assignment | Light on skin Playing a big part in photography, nudes is a tricky subject to approach when you’re starting out. We thought we’d run an assignment alongside our main assignment thread and see how it went - well, we’ve had a handful of posts and it seems to be gaining momentum. If you’re interested, take a look, get inspired and join in. Help! angry customers and bad word of mouth..: Sometimes the shoots we do just don’t turn out as planned, adverse conditions, wrong clothing, bad locations.. These are all things we need to control as photographers, here is one persons account of such and a forum full of people helping out with their views on the topic. Studio portraits for children: I don’t have my own, but I know that kids can be tough to capture sometimes! moving about and having fun, here you’ll find some hand hints on just what to do to stop them in their tracks. Macbook advice?: Is it time for you to buy a new computer? Here, Cameragirl asks what she should be buying, with her thoughts initially turning towards the macbook, but is that where it ends?…
My first love in photography when I first got my trusty old Minolta SLR as a teenager was landscapes. There’s something about getting out in nature with the challenge of capturing some of the amazing beauty that you see. Perhaps it fits with my personality type - but I loved the quietness and stillness of waiting for the perfect moment for the shot, scoping out an area for the best vantage point and then seeing the way that the light changed a scene over a few hours.
While I don’t get as much time as I’d like for Landscape Photography these days - I thought I’d jot down a few of the lessons that I learned in my early years of doing it. I’d love to hear your own Landscape Photography tips in comments below.
Landscape Photography Tips
1. Maximize your Depth of Field
While there may be times that you want to get a little more creative and experiment with narrow depth of fields in your Landscape Photography - the normal approach is to ensure that as much of your scene is in focus as possible. The simplest way to do this is to choose a small Aperture setting (a large number) as the smaller your aperture the greater the depth of field in your shots.
Do keep in mind that smaller apertures mean less light is hitting your image sensor at any point in time so they will mean you need to compensate either by increasing your ISO or lengthening your shutter speed (or both).
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Tags: Landscape Photography, Landscape Photography Tips, photography tips
Photo by Mr Bones - No exposure settings supplied
Today, as a followup to our post earlier in the week A Beginners Guide to Capturing Motion in Your Photography I want to post a series of posts from Flickr that all illustrate a variation on the same theme - movement.
The following shots are all of moving subjects where the photographer has made the choice to set their camera to capture the movement as blur rather than freezing it. This is in all cases by choosing (or letting the camera choose) a ’slow’ shutter speed (although by slow you’ll see that the speeds (noted under each image) vary from anything from 1/30 second to up to 40 minutes).
Photo by Ben McLeod - Shutter Speed - 8 seconds
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