We photographers love our gear. We dream of camera bags brimming with the latest, priciest gadgets. The gear can run upwards of a mortgage payment, but sometimes right tools in your junk drawer. Check around your house, I bet you can fill out the gear without a trip to the store!
-A small mirror is an excellent reflector for outdoor shots. It can open deeply shadowed areas to create bold fill. A cheap acrylic one like you can find at a dollar store on won't shatter in the field. -Garbage bags protect gear when the mother nature decides its time to get wet. (Cut 3 holes and you got a poncho). Use them in lighting setups-white bags as reflectors; black ones is like blocking flags. -A Flashlight is a no-brainer. You need one when you're fumbling with you tiny camera controls in Twilight. Their aesthetic tools as well; create a delicate light painting with the penlight, or dramatic background pattern with broad-beamed light. Don't want to hold the light get a LED headlamp. -Ziplock bags are perfect impromptu weather housings (poke a hole and rubber band around it round your lens), and they keep dust off lenses and backup bodies in your bag. -Mini bungee lash tripod legs and fix broken camera straps. Bring lots so you can daisychain them into longer straps. -Gaffers tape will save those sessions when everything from your hiking boot soles to your focusing ring falls apart at once. -Micro screwdriver sets can help you fix your tripod head, and other small screws on your equipment as well as your eyeglasses.. -White paper cups make fantastic impromptu snoops if you cut out their bottoms, or even lined them with black tape to mount them as a backup lens shape. -A white paper plate is the poor photographers ring light. Cut a hole in it and tape it to your lenses reflector for backlit close-ups and facial portraits or tapes of foil, shiny side down, to the plate to make it extra-bouncy reflector. -A small spray bottle can make morning dew of foliage and flowers and mother nature hasn't done her job, and put a sheen on models faces and skin. -An eyedropper and glycerin give you a droplet control place drops of glycerin precisely where you want them on a pedal or twig perhaps, and the sticky globs will wait for you compose and focus.
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Welcome everyone, as promised last time we will be talking about: Live view mode, Burst mode, and Color-quality settings. First off I hope you're finding these mini recaps about your settings on your camera helpful? In that regard, I will have a very very short survey at the end. If you could take just a few minutes of your very busy day to respond it would help me allot with more information offerings to share with you. Live View: If you're coming from a compact digital camera, you use its LCD screen to compose and focus your image. There are disadvantages to this setup when compared to using the optical viewfinders of SLRs. But there are a ton of advantages too – the primary being ease of use. But more than that, an LCD delivers better feedback of user adjustments than an optical viewfinder. DSLR-live-view-2Essentially, SLRs that support the Live View function allow the photographer to use the LCD as a (bigger) viewfinder. Live View is a real boon for compact camera owners who are accustomed to using a viewing screen, but are thinking of graduating to an SLR. It’s also a great perk for SLR devotees because they can now take advantage of what has traditionally been a compact camera-only feature. Granted, composing and taking a photo using Live View isn’t quite as seamless as doing the same thing via a compact camera’s viewing screen. Indeed, the image transmission shuts down for a moment just before the shutter releases – a byproduct of SLR technology. Furthermore, the focusing isn’t quite as fast as it is through the viewfinder, and the image display isn’t quick to update. One more thing – using Live View drains the batteries much faster than using the viewfinder. Burst Mode: Also, know as continuous shooting mode, this function lets you choose the number of shots your camera will fire off with one press of the shutter button, its perfect for fast-moving photography like wildlife or sports. Color Quality Settings: Many in-camera menus offer settings from Black and White to pale pastels. To learn which one might suit a situation, go out and take a number of shots of the same subject just altering the setting. Thats right hold fast. I'm not talking about an old english saying shared on old sailing ships during the 1800. But A great camera strap I recently picked up. This duel camera strap which you can buy many ways is made from the folks at "HoldFast Leather Pro-Goods" The strap I bought is called the Money Maker, its constructed out of Bridle Leather and includes key items like Sliders, safety catches & 2 Camera HoldFasts. Construction is excellent, and is comfortable to wear all day. I've personally carried a Nikon D4 and D3 with 200-500mm Zooms and 70-200mm Zoom attached. If you don't like the leather options they do carry non-leather options as well. Some may consider the price a bit high. Mine was 230.00. But the comfort and security are well worth it.
Reflectors are a tool a photographer uses often. But due to size, etc, we don't always carry with us. Well there is a reflector that does not take much room, and easy to store! A white shirt is a very simple reflector . I will bounce light on your subjects almost as good as a regular reflector.
To absorb excess light do the opposite and use a black shirt! Till next time Happy Clicking Lance Hi all, had another wonderful year at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh Wisconsin. I have to give a shout out to the folks at EAA who plan and execute this very large venture. As well as the city and surrounding areas around Oshkosh. The setup which is huge with parking and camping areas surrounding still always flows very smoothly. Check in, bag checks if carrying in is all very seamless. Besides the planes of all types from warbirds to home kits which are of course my main focus of the show. You will find great education venues on how -to's and history throughout! If you never been here, or are thinking about it for next year. Be sure to download the EAA app on the iTunes store. It's updated every day and allows you to plan for the day. As it tends to get pretty warm this time of year, drink plenty of water, I also like to throw in a Gatorade during the day as well. Besides the Folks at EAA, I'd like to give a shout out to the Folks that run the Quality Inn and Suites in Kimberly, WI. I've stayed there the last two years, they're clean well-appointed rooms, good parking, and breakfast in the morning that helps set you up for the day. With a pool/whirlpool if you want to relax at the end of the day. Being only about 20 minutes from EAA it works out great. One last thing I'd like to mention is if like me your going there for photography. Plans what you want for ways you want to shoot. From static displays to ground to air shots. Remember your going to be lugging this all day, and there's allot of area's to cover. And not much shade. I learned the last year about this by Watching a presentation from Moose Peterson on the Kelby-One site. Thanks to Moose for the suggestions. I did use a Tour Classic | Hemp with optional staplettes. This like weight outfit could store the lenses I brought for statics which included a Nikon f3.5 AF-S 24-85mm zoom, and Tokina f4 17-35mm for static work. Then I carried my Nikon D4 with a Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6E VR. The bag has enough space for camera cards, blower, side straps for a couple water bottles, small iPhone tripod, and a go-pro camera. Well. I hope that gives some insight if you plan on this fly-in or others around the country. Till next time! Happy Clicking Lance Hi all, this week we're going to talk a little about protecting yourself during work in the field.
When shooting in the outdoors your knees can talk a beating, getting down on hard or rocking ground can cause issues later. But there are a few low cost items to consider to make the process more pleasant. Mats used for gardening or yoga are great low cost options, consider add on too these as well, if the ground is wet carrying a garbage bag to put under the mat is helpful. If you working on very uneven rocky or very hard ground another option would be knee pads such as used by skateboarders. They're very durable but allow a full range of motion. Till next time Happy Clicking Lance Hi all, Just returned from a fun weekend. How was it made fun you ask. Well I was able to combine two loves of mine. Fishing and photography. The trip was organized by my good friend Keith, and included a number of folks that we fished with last summer in Canada, as well as some new folks. We're planned on Ice Fishing on the Pettenwell Flowage near Friendship, Wi. Fishing while slow, was made fun by the great group of guys I was with.
The photography part came in before and After. I was able to take off early and stay another day for the trip. So going up I drove through Sauk City, Wi to see what Eagle action could be had. Did not see many at that time, so I decided to drive up some side road up to Pettenwell Flowage looking on any options along the way. I was very please to find a large amount of Eagles around Pettenwell which I was able to photograph on Friday afternoon and Sunday. I will be posting more, but here's one for you to start with. Please note my Web site has changed www.imagesbylemke.org. Do you want to see how a picture with look in a room, now you can! Including your room paint options etc. Hope you enjoy the Eagle image as much as I enjoyed getting it! Till next time Happy clicking Lance The B-25 series of Medium Bombers gained fame as the bomber used in the Doolittle raid. Sixteen B-25Bs led by then LT Colonel Jimmy Doolittle flew off the carrier USS Hornet and successfully bombed Tokyo.
This series of Bomber served in every theater of operations during World War Two. They were used as there main task, medium bombers, Antisubmarine, gunships, reconnaissance, refueling, and countless other rolls. They could sustain an extreme amount of damage and keep flying even with one engine out and down to 145mph. My picture today is of Betty’s Dream, a B-25J owned currently by the “Texas Flying Legends Museum”. This craft is truly a great representation of a pice of flying history. In this picture she is being chased down by a zero during a mock attack at EAA Air Venture this last July 2015. Hi all, Well, it's the second day of my trip to the EAA Air Venture up in Oshkosh, WI. As I pondered while getting ready today. Maybe sharing my workflow while traveling. Please keep in mind, the equipment, software and workflow are only my suggestions. But, if they can help you in any way I feel I've done my job. Please use whatever works well for you! To start with I connect up everything to my MacBook Air. Those things include a card reader, and for both backup and storage of my images, two LaCie portable Thunderbolt drives. That right two, I back up all the same images twice, just as a redundancy if one drive should go bad. (These images will be transferred to my raid drive when I get home). Now, when I input my images, I put them into folder named Lightroom pictures, which is sub categorized into folders based on the topic and the date. The reason I chose to do things in such a way, is if I ever transition to another photo editing software it would not be a big deal to bring my images into it. And I bet you think now I'm going to start up Lightroom import those photos into Lightroom right away, Not so fast. While I believe Lightroom is a great program for storing and doing most of your image editing. I don't believe it's the best software for picking and choosing your photos to keep after shoot. About a year ago MacPhun software came out with an application called SnapSelect. SnapSelect easily allows you to select your folders or photo catalogs and bring's them into the program to rate and sort in quick and easy fashion, you'll see a screenshot of the application below for a Mac this application runs about $15. You can check. Software here: http://macphun.com/products. please keep in mind I get no kickback for suggesting this application to you, I just always looking into new and current software that will help to significantly enhance my workflow. My MacBook Air, Card Reader and two LaCir portable hard drives. Screenshot of SnapSlect Software |
AuthorI'm a photographer who loves animal photography. Trying to capture that perfect moment is a passion of mine. Archives
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