New Zealand, Tours & Travel

Benefits of Catch-as-Catch-Can Travel Photography

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As photographers we may have different views on how to approach travel photography. Some folks like to allow multiple days to photograph key locations. This increases their chances of having ideal conditions. No doubt this can contribute to some truly spectacular photographs. It’s likely that this level of photographic quality wouldn’t have been possible if lighting and weather had been left to chance. A completely different approach is to purposely allow oneself to be at the mercy of Mother Nature’s whims. This article discusses the benefits of ‘catch-as-catch-can’ travel photography.

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Composition, Landscape Photography

Compression as a Composition Tool

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This article discusses compression as a composition tool. It illustrates how our choice of focal length impacts image compression. When we’re first starting out on our photographic journeys, we sometimes see focal length choice in a binary manner. For example… telephoto focal lengths for nature, and wide angle focal lengths for landscape. Broadening our use of focal lengths increases our creative latitude.

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Cameras & Lenses, Low Light Photography

Doing Your Own ISO Invariance Test

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There’s plenty of discussion today about ISO invariance and to what degree certain cameras may be ISO invariant. This is a highly technical subject and readers who are interested in exploring this topic in-depth should research it by reading articles on more technically oriented sites. As regular readers know, I’m an experiential/experimental type of photographer, rather than being technically oriented.

In a nutshell, if a camera has perfect ISO invariance (which no camera does) there will not be any penalty in terms of noise when lightening your image in post as compared to originally capturing your image at a higher ISO. This article shares some sample images captured with Nikon 1 V2, V3 and J5 cameras, while doing a simple ISO invariance test. I’d like to thank one of our readers, William Jones, for providing the creative spark for this article.

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Camera Market Statistics

2018 Camera Market at 1985 Levels

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I had a few moments to look at recent statistics from the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA). Fortunately I still have some old CIPA reports that are no longer posted on the association’s website. These old reports allow me to go back as far as 1951 to look at camera market ‘total shipments’ statistics. What I discovered was that the 2018 camera market was at 1985 levels. Continue reading 2018 Camera Market at 1985 Levels →

Photography News

reCAPTCHA Added to Blog

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Readers that have recently visited our photography blog may have noticed that reCAPTCHA has been added to our website. This was done to circumvent bogus subscriptions from being registered on our photography blog by automated bots.

The subscription boxes and the reCAPTCHA graphic is now positioned on the right hand side of the website. This means that the menu has been pushed down to accommodate the location change of the subscription registration section. Hopefully the re-positioning of the content menu will not cause readers any difficulty.

We hope readers will understand the need for this added security and that you will not find the graphic changes too distracting.

New Zealand

Construction En Route to Kaikoura

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This short article shares some images of construction en route to Kaikoura New Zealand. Sometimes conditions dictate unusual shooting conditions – like photographing one handed while driving. While our photographs may not be stellar in these situations, the life memories they help preserve for us can be priceless. Continue reading Construction En Route to Kaikoura →

Essays

What Makes Us Better Photographers?

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It is always an interesting process to go back and review old photographs. Over the past year or so I’ve reviewed tens of thousands of my images as I searched for photographs to include in various eBook projects. Throughout these image review sessions I often found myself asking the question, “What was I thinking?” as I pressed the delete key. The many hours spent in front of my computer screens reviewing old images has culminated in one, simple question. What makes us better photographers? Continue reading What Makes Us Better Photographers? →

Underwater Photography

Olympus TG-5 Underwater Images

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During a recent holiday I had a short opportunity to shoot a few sample underwater images. It was the first time in over 3 years that I had tried this type of photography… so this is definitely not one of my strong points! This article shares a selection of Olympus TG-5 underwater images captured during an hour and a half session.

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