Images of the week

By sparklyscotty on 3/27/09 12:26am
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Each week, I will be looking at some of the best images seen in the news this week, and touch on what makes them great.

Natural disasters often create eery, dramatic images that are made all the more interesting by strange compositions that wouldn't normally be seen.

The return of digital to film

By sparklyscotty on 3/24/09 11:55am
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The benefits of digital photography have quickly become apparent.  Digital media allows photographers to achieve significantly greater productivity and makes it fast and convenient to share images with their clients. Shooting digital is more efficient and economical than shooting with film.

Trouble is, digital media are fundamentally unsuitable for long-term archiving. Images stored on CDs or DVDs could begin to degrade chemically in just a few years, if not sooner. Images stored on hard drives are subject to mechanical failure, magnetic failure and loss caused by the future obsolescence of today’s hardware and software.

It is likely that many of today’s digital images will become unusable and unrecoverable within 10 years. When these images are lost, so are their commercial value, artistic legacy and countless cherished personal memories will be gone.



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ISO settings

By sparklyscotty on 3/2/09 1:08am
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While it’s important to make sure your camera’s shutter speed and aperture settings are in sync, you must also remember that your ISO speed is also an important part of the equation when taking crisp, clear photos.

If you are using a film camera, or playing with the settings of a digital camera using it in manual function, make sure you know how to adjust the ISO settings.

In film cameras, the ISO refers to the speed of the film, however in digital photography ISO indicates the sensitivity of the image sensor to light. It’s measured in numbers such as 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600, although some cameras may have slightly different numbering systems. In general, the lower the number is, the slower the speed and sensitivity and this means the finer the grain will be in the shots that you are taking.

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Sports Photos

By sparklyscotty on 2/25/09 6:54am
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Combining your love of photography with your love of your local sports team can be a rewarding hobby.  Knowing when to take the shot in sports is just as important as the equipment. If you want action shots, focus your camera on a spot where you know there will be plenty of it. If you do get a good location and you can use a tripod, this is the way to go, since it will cut down on camera shake and blurry images.  You will be shooting action, so blurry images will probably be your biggest challenge to great shots.   Make sure you have the scene in focus and experiment with action-freezing shots and slower shutter photos that will give a blurred background, which shows you the speed of your subject.  Continuous shooting modes may also help you get quality action photos.

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It's all about light

By sparklyscotty on 2/25/09 6:41am
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You can get some great shots with film cameras, but digital models are a lot easier to work with for many different reasons. One of the most important aspects of taking good photos is  the shutter speed, and while adjusting this technical detail on film cameras used to be a bit tricky,  digital model cameras have made this task a lot simpler.

To get good photos you need to make sure there is enough light getting into the camera while shooting. This means you need to balance the shutter speed to the aperture. (Confused already? Don't worry, most digital cameras will work all of this technical stuff out for you automatically.) The aperture settings are called F-stops and are usually noted as f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2.0, f/2.8, f/4, f/8 etc. The lower the f-stop setting means more light is allowed into the camera, in other words a smaller F stop number means a larger opening for light.



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Photographer Interview: Jeremy Standley

By sparklyscotty on 2/18/09 10:37am
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Fotofocus points the proverbial mic at some of today's top photographers to find out what makes them tick.

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Photo Journalism

By sparklyscotty on 2/15/09 11:36pm
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While photography enthusiasts may take pictures for the pure love of the hobby, others actually do it as a full time job. Some of the best and most famous images in the world have come from the hard work of talented and determined photo journalists.  These pros venture into situations that most of us would not dare,  and armed with the proper equipment, such as a digital camera and laptop computer, photo journalists can share images of the most historical and world-changing events, just seconds after they take place.



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Out of this world photography

By sparklyscotty on 2/15/09 9:29am
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If you’ve checked out Google lately, you might have noticed one of the 'in' things online at the moment is satellite photography. This gives viewers the chance to check out aerial photos that have been taken from satellites that are miles above the earth. People are fascinated by the idea that they can zoom in on their own neighborhoods and homes as well as far away places that they have never visited. You can basically see an aerial view of just about anywhere on earth and zoom in on it for a closer look. It’s great for checking out some of the wonders of the world and even some stunning images of space and other planets.



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Printing Digital Images

By sparklyscotty on 2/8/09 7:55am
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Some photographers may take thousands and thousands of digital photos without ever printing one of them.  However, if you're somebody who likes to print off copies of your photos, the quality of the printer you're using can dramatically affect the quality of the prints. Printers for digital photos range from simple on-click models to high-end professional machines with plenty of options for various formats.

The paper which you use for your prints can also affect the clarity of the image. Digital cameras can produce extremely high-quality images,  but this quality won't be seen in prints if your printer and paper aren't designed for printing high resolution photographs.

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Storing Digital Images

By sparklyscotty on 2/8/09 7:28am
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Back in the days when everybody was using film cameras, you really only had a couple of choices for storing your photos. Many people would display them in photo albums, binders, or photo boxes, while others would simply leave the photos in the envelopes they came back in from the developing store.

With film photographs, you have the actual photos you could store as well as the negatives to fall back on, just in case the prints were lost or damaged.

In the digital age, there are many more options open to you when it comes to backing up and storing your images.

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