PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

It’s very important to know your camera. Read the manual, then get out your camera and try a few things, then read the manual again, and again, and AGAIN. Try keeping your camera and the manual on you lap while watching TV, reading and experimenting, and taking shots of the your surroundings even the TV.

Simplify your photo as much as possible, remove unwated elements and be aware of the background. A photo with too much going on wont grab the viewers attention and keep it. If the eye wanders around the picture trying to look at all the elements that are there, it will loose its effectiveness. Make sure your subject is the most prominate feature of the photo and the background is not distracting.

See articles Know Your Equipment and Better Composition.

Here is a non-official way (do-it-yourself-at-home) on the forum to map out dead pixels on Canon EOS 5D.

Make a shot with lens cap on at eg. 1/5 seconds and 1600 ISO with auto-focus off (or turn off noise reduction in CF and make shutter open for longer). After that go to Sensor Cleaning and turn it on (as cleaning the CMOS when mirror is up and shutter is open, but leave lens on) for a minute. Yes, it should be long enough. After that, switch camera off, then - on and - YOUR DEAD PIXELS ARE GONE!

Have you tried that?

From the early use of infrared (IR) films, an IR photograph almost always tends to have a very soft, misty or gloomy look. This has been considered as a distinctive feature of the traditional IR photography, and has also influenced the later creation of many IR images through a digital approach.

Since I got my first digital camera, I have been enjoying the adventure of taking IR pictures. I was amazed by how easy an image due to the invisible IR light could be seen right there on the LCD panel, and was further amazed by how striking it could turn out to be after some straightforward post processing.

What I have been experimenting with shooting IR is, however, toward the opposite direction of the traditional IR avenue while retaining its fantasy. I do appreciate the attractiveness of an IR image by its well recognized dreamy appearance. On the other hand, I also found out that an IR image can appealingly wake the viewer up by the possibility of great clarity and crisp sharpness …..full article.