I have always been the curious sort and always love to find out how things are made.  Especially photography products.  Canon has posted an awesome video of the lens manufacturing process.  It is a little over thirteen minutes long and is broken down into three parts.  Material Processing, lens machining and lens assembly.  Just click on the link below.

Virtual Lens Plant

Have a Great Day & Happy Shooting!!

New upgrade from Topaz Labs for Adjust 5.  This is a fantastic upgrade, so take the time to check out the sneak peak video for all the cool features.  You can take advantage of the free trial.

Have a Great Day & Happy Shooting!

Good afternoon.  Hope you have a great and wonderful day.  This afternoon I decided to post a video by Trey Ratcliff on HDR photography.  Hope you enjoy

Have a great day and happy shooting! 

 Yesterday I posted about the latest update for Nik Software, so today I thought I would post about a fantastic photographer who also uses Nik Software.  His name is Matt Suess  and he is a phenomenal photographer.  One of his specialties is HDR photography and he also conducts many workshops.  As a member of his training site you can get a 15% discount towards Nik Software products.  He conducts webinars on the use of Nik Software products and how he applies them to his photography.  I strongly recommend you take a tour through his galleries as his work is simply outstanding. 

Have a great day and happy shooting!   

Sometimes there are software updates that you just can not pass up and one company that delivers that kind of product is Nik Software. Without fail I always keep my Nik Software current with the latest release. The other day they just announced a new update coming out in October for the Color Efex Pro series called Color Efex Pro 4. Without fail I have updated this over the years from Color Efex Pro 2 because I use this something from this plug-in, in every photo. I absolutely love this plug-in and I can’t wait to get the latest upgrade. They have added some new filters, features and updated other filters in this plug-in. If you are a new customer it might be a little steep at $199.95, but if you visit Terry Ratcliff's website Stuck in Customs you can find a sweet deal for 15% off Nik Software products. Now, that is not bad. I’m not giving the direct link to the coupon because his site is very much worth looking through (hint, Stuff you Need). It is easy enough to find, so no worries. Once you have the plug-in the upgrades are a good price at $99.95 and once again you can apply the coupon mentioned above for an even better deal. I pre-ordered my copy a couple of days ago. The other reason I love this company is because of their extensive use of webinars and training videos on their website.  You just can’t go wrong with their software.

Well, that is all for now. Have a great day and happy shooting!

Finished up a photo I had taken last year.  The piano was being thrown out, so I decided on the title "Silenced Forever".   This is the original angle that I captured the photo at. 

1) Get the instruction manual out and make sure everyone using the camera understands its features and controls. It probably woulnd’t hurt to read the instruction manual for the lens either.

2) The on camera flash is not going to do anything for you. If you need a flash buy an external unit.

3) Be ready. Location and timing are important.

4) Choose your setting. Manual (you have total control), AV (you control aperture, camera controls shutter speed) or TV (you control shutter speed, camera controls aperture).

5) Shoot at the widest apreture you have avaliable (F2.8, F4, F5.6)

6) Increase your ISO. The noise in the image may increase, but a higher ISO will help freeze the action. Besides that there are many programs on the market that can reduce nosie later as you process the image and as technology has evolved camera nosie has gotten much better, so use a hiher ISO.

7) Find the slowest shutter speed to stop the action. Shutter speeds will proably be anywhere from 1/250s to 1/1000s depending on “good” light or “bad” light.

Shoot through the action. Use the continous drive and shoot, shoot, shoot. Do not take one photo and stop to see what it looks like on the LCD.

9) Use a monopod or if hand holding brace yourself well to provide a stable platform. Feet apart, arms in tight, smooth breathing. Also use a VR lens to reduce movement.

10) Make sure your auto focus is set for the predictive autofocus. This allows the lens to quickly focus on the moving subjects.

Ten simple basic suggestions to improve blurred action photography.

Well that’s my rant for the day

 Have a great day & happy shooting!

Ok...are you ready to see some fun photography?  If your ready buckle up, grab a helmet and get over to Mike Stimpson's website.  www.mikestimpson.com  I ended up spending a good hour looking at his Lego photography and what great fun!  What a fantastic project and talk about lots of imagination.  He has a couple galleries Star Wars Photography and Classic Photographs in Lego.  I grew up with Star Wars and had a great time looking through that gallery.  Very fun and imaginative.  This is a fantastic example of taking something so simple and developing it into a special creative niche.  Just looking through the images you can tell a lot of hard work and thought goes into his project. 

Have a Great Week and Have Fun Shooting!!!

I came across something new (for myself anyway) and thought I would share it.  I love photography and I am always reading and looking for anything that will help me expand my knowledge.  Today I spent some time on the Outdoor Photographer website and came across a great feature for Outdoor Photographer TV (OPTV).  What a great idea.  I love it!  I spent  a good amount of time watching the different videos and all I can say is WOW!  Its only natural that I would bookmark this addition to my favorites.  Another site I absolutely love to visit is the Adorama site and I love their learning center.  These are just a couple of my favorites, but the Internet contains an endless amount of photography education.  You can never really learn enough.  With that said there are a couple of things to remember.  First the most important manual to ever read is your cameras manual.  You must be familiar with your camera to get the best out of it.  Secondly and most important is to use your head.  You have to really see and have a vision.  That can't be learned in a book.  Just practice, practice and practice!!  

Have a great day and Happy Shooting!!       

Well, Its been a long time since I last posted.  I hope all has been well in your lives.  I have been extremely busy with work over the last year with many projects then my PC's motherboard decided to fail, so its been a long road back.  Lots of stuff to catch up on. 

I did find an interesting photo book titled PITESTI by Alex Serban of some street photography taken in Pitesti, Arges Romania.  The link will take you to the book on issuu.  I love visiting issuu as they have hundreds of publications.  I just do not have enough time to spend there.  Hope you enjoy looking through the book. 

Have a Great Day and Happy Shooting!!