Color in Photography

Matching colors is one of the most important skills to learn in order to be a good photographer. I've written a series of articles about the topic at photographytips.net:

 1. Color Photography--Everything You Wanted to Know about Color 1
This article about color photography shows you how to match colors and spot them in a scene.

2. Color Photography--Everything You Wanted to Know about Color 2
Did you know the natural world is filled with compelling color matches? Come find out more about how to frame color in your color photographs.

3. Color Photography--Concepts in Color for Design and Decor--Color theory not only applies to photography, but also  to digital art--photographs that have been manipulated in an image processing program like Photoshop or Elements. In this color photography article you'll learn how to match a background with a primary subject/object.

Books about Color

New Types of Lenses

Engineers, scientists, and small companies are using different liquids to make tiny lenses for cell-phone cameras. Unique imaging technologies are being used with these lenses in a race for the tiniest, fastest camera that needs minimal amounts of power.

ScienceDaily reported in 2008 that miniature lenses can be created by the power of “water, sound and surface tension." The process begins when the sound oscillates a pair of water droplets. When light passes through oscillating water droplets, they act as a lens. The lens captures 250 images per second that are both in and out of focus. Software is used to record in-focus images. “The great benefit of this new device is that you can create a new optical system from a liquid lens and a small speaker,” said project leader Amir H. Hirsa, professor and associate department head for graduate studies in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The French company Varioptic makes tiny liquid lenses that offer image stabilization for cell-phone cameras. The curvature of the lens is caused by applying varied voltage to a combination of water and oil, which act as a conductor and insulator. The optical stabilization comes about from the ability of the liquid to compensate for camera shake. “Liquid lenses with optical image stabilization will enable mobile users to take good pictures even in low light conditions as well as capturing stable and focused videos with their mobile phone,” commented Varioptic CEO Christian Dupont on the oil-and-water lens. “The next generations of camera phones will become comparable to digital still cameras and camcorders, while remaining compact and robust,” he added. They’ve created a variable-focus lens with no moving parts. The auto-focus system uses less power, is faster, and is smaller than traditional auto-focus lenses. The company expects to integrate liquid lenses into camera phones in early 2011.

There’s no question that photographers today want smaller and lighter lenses, yet they don’t want to compromise image quality or pay a high price. This is a tough conundrum for camera manufacturers. In the future cameras and their interchangable lenses will be considerably smaller. The big questions are how small is small, and are the mirrorless cameras (which come with smaller and lighter interchangeable lenses) small enough and inexpensive enough to satisfy the needs of photographers? Some photographers believe that they will , but not the high-end professionals, who still believe that dSLR cameras and their interchangeable lenses take a better picture. Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon SLR Cameras is a good example. You'll see most paparazzi with these. After all, they have invested quite a bit in this system as some have dozens of different lenses that can still be used for the for each new dSLR camera body that comes to market. From New Image Frontiers--Defining the Future of Photography

night photos

Ten Best Photo Ops in the World by Country

$30 off with 5 night booking!

Boats on a muddy lake in Myanmar.

Since I've been to just about every continent and have passed the 1000-post mark on my blog, it's about time I rate the places I've been. Here are the ten best places to photos around the world. Note that this list only includes countries I've visited. Some of the places are not very easy to travel to, but don't let that ever stop you as these are the places where you'll get the best photo ops.

Here are are two examples. When I traveled to Myanmar, I took rickety boats, broken-down, horse-drawn carriages and planes that had trouble landing for many miles to get to some of the most remote places on earth. To get to a lodge in the Ecuadorian Amazon, I traveled on a motor boat for three hours through the wide open Amazon River and canoed three more down a tiny tributary. 

Might sound rough, but it wasn't. Each trip was filled with once-in-a-lifetime photo ops, that propelled me to publish ten photography books in which these images are included.


Here's the list of the ten best places to get incredible photo ops:

Ten Best Places in the World for Photo Ops by Country

1. Myanmar (Burma)
2. United States (from sea to shining sea)
3. Thailand
4. France (Paris)
5. Argentina
6. Turkey
7. Morocco  
8. Panama
9. Greece
10. Portugal

Places I Want to Go

1. India
2. Iran
3. Cuba
4. Ukraine (Chernobyl)

World Free--MS Walk 2012 Palm Desert

The 50 mm Prime Lens

Back in 2009, I wrote about the ten best photography deals, items that are cheap, yet very functional. One of the items was the Canon 50 mm prime lens. So, what's so great about this prime lens?

1. Short and light--great for traveling.
2. f/1.8 for fast, sharp shooting.
3. Wide open aperture lets in lots of light so shutter speeds are very fast
    in Aperture Priority mode.
4. Cheap--just over $100.
5. Great in low light without flash.

Warning: If you want a 50 mm prime lens that is more durable and a bit faster, go with the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras. It will last a lot longer than the f/1.8.

The advice above follows a you-get-what-you-pay-for approach. You'll spend a couple of hundred dollars more on the f/4 lens. Don't fret, though. If you go to sell it, you can get just about all of your money back if you sell it used on ebay or other similar website. 

Photo to Digital

1960s Thunderbird with giant gold RV attached.

Converting a film photo to digital is a task just about anyone can do, but there are a few tricks to the trade:

1. If you're converting a photo to digital using a scanner and it's an old negative, don't use Digital Ice or Dust Removal options. You'll get too much noise.

2. For the sharpest picture on a consumer scanner, skip all of the options for the sharpest photo. Remember you can fix everything fairly easily in Photoshop CS 5.

3. Do your own scanning. Outsourcing your scanning doesn't ensure a better quality photo. Many scanning services use scanners no better than what you can buy for around $250 or less.

4. Opt for drum scans if you are going to outsource the job. Beware, though, it's expensive--about $30 for each frame on a negative. I'd wanted to do this but the cost for many photos is prohibitive.

5. One of the best scanners on the market is the Epson Perfection V600 Photo Color Scanner (B11B198011). 

6. When scanning uncheck all of the extra options such as Digital Ice. You'll have more work to do and start with a much sharper image if you had opted for all/any of the choices. 

By the way, if you're ever in the Palm Springs area, consider driving around the outskirts of the city and through Desert Hot Springs for some end-of-the-world photo ops like the giant gold trailer attached to the 1960s Thunderbird.

Back for Now

I never like when I have to leave my blog for weeks at a time, but sometimes I get so busy, there's no time for it. I sure missed it this time after spending grueling weeks grinding through tough author reviews of both books.

The best thing about a thorough author review (the back-and-forth process between tech editor, copy editor and author) is that after two and sometimes three run-throughs, I can be very content that I'm putting a book that photographers of all stripes will understand. This is the only book where a beginning photographer can learn about general digital photography at the same time as learning HDR. access, manipulate and store photos online is.


My two latest books are:

1. Beginning HDR Photography

2. Photography Applications for Cloud Computing

Since the cloud computing is due out in a week or two, let me tell you a little about it.

First off, I got the idea for the book because for years I've been considering uploading all of my images on to the web on some server up there (in the "cloud") in addition to my external hard drive back-up.

After uploading 250 GB to Carbonite, a process that took 10 weeks, I became convinced that, despite the lengthy upload times, having my "stuff" up there was well worth it.

I don't have to worry about my external hard drives wiping out, nor do I have to be concerned if I've accidentally thrown files away. I can rest assured that my files will be up there so that if I can't find them on my computer, I can easily locate them online.

In the book Photography Applications to the Cloud, you'll learn that there are free online photo editing programs that can process and transform images and save them without without compromising the resolution of the edited file.

I give step-by-step directions to the entire platform, which, like Photoshop and Elements, lets you use edit photos using all the bells and whistles such as layers, layer masks, clone stamp tools, selecting with feathering and so on.

If you've got the idea in the back of your head that you want to get all of your photography "up there" this book teaches you the options you have without breaking the bank.