Friday, June 19, 2009

Old Photo Magazines

I had a pile of old photo magazines that I didn't want to get rid of. They contained "how-to" articles and other information that I just didn't want to part with. The problem was that the pile of magazines kept growing. When you live full time in an RV that is a real problem since space is so limited. I used to keep one of those tiny little three ring notebooks around for my photography notes. I would paraphrase my favorite articles and authors in the little notebook and keep it in my camera bag. That way if I needed to look up a subject for a scene that Iwas working on I had it with me. Pretty soon I needed two notebooks! You can see where this is going right? A problem with the little notebooks was that I couldn't keep the pictures associated with the articles, and their were so many that I wanted to keep. (fooled ya huh!) Well, space and weight have now become a problem there too.

My latest solution was to tear the articles out of the magazines that I wished to keep, then punch them for a full size three ring binder. This was great since I could keep several years worth of articles handy in a single binder. Well I'm now on my second binder of articles and once again space is becoming an issue.

I'm not sure what my next solution to information hording will be. Most likely I'll be scanning and storing the articles on one of those little flash drives. I think I'll experiment with storing it on camera cards for my camera in a format that I can view like when I'm reviewing images.

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Photography Tips

Here are a few things you can do to improve your photography that will apply regardless of what camera you use. These are the basics that every photographer should know and do to get reasonably good pictures out of any camera.

Make sure you have a clean lens. Don't just blow the dust off, but use a clean cloth suitable for cleaning lenses and do it right.

Set up so your camera is stable and won't move as you press the shutter. You can do this a number of ways. If you will be handholding the camera, hold your elbows in against your sides, and stand with your feet apart with one slightly forward of the other. You can also lean against a solid object like a light pole, tree, building or whatever. The best method though is to use a tripod or monopod. I have both but I like to carry the tripod best. If I want to use it as a monopod I just extend only one leg and us it as I would a monopod. I'll add instructions about to how to use these tools later.

Finally the "First" basic thing you need to do is read your manual and learn what all the parts of your camera are for and how to use them. If you understand how your meter works and what white balence is you'll go a long way to getting that shot you want when the light is wierd and you are wondering why your pictures are all dark or yellow instead of like what you saw on the monitor or in the viewfinder.

I'll expand on all these topics in the coming weeks and months so you'll want to check back and see what I've added from time to time.