I'm on several social media groups that share photos and ideas regarding photography. There are as many opinions on cameras as there are blades of grass on the earth. The continuing rage in the conversational circles are the complete new people inquiring about what camera they should purchase. And to add more bias, they are ask in a social media group which is dedicated to one type of camera. Now, there is nothing wrong with asking questions about the camera in those types of groups,but when they are inquiring about XYZ camera on the ABC social media group, sometimes the hackles fly up. And then, for the complete new person looking to get into photography, the question arises which camera should they get. They leave themselves open and vulnerable to the opinions of others that want to spend the inquiring person's money. My first questions to such are:
Here are my tips for the new photographer:
The bottom line is, YOU are the one who will be using the camera. it is YOUR money that YOU will be spending. Ask questions. Do your research, Ask more questions.
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I am considered by many as old. Well, in truth, I am older than most of my photography contemporaries. I don't necessarily possess any more skills then they do, I often learn much from them. I grew up in a time when we worked very hard for the possessions we have. And we found ways of putting "bandages" on them when they were broke. We only bought something when we saw a definite need to replace what we have. And often times, we didn't buy new. We bought used. I guess you can say we took advantage of the "Jones" who were trying to keep up.
There is a saying that talks about "keeping up with the Jonses". This is an idiom that one compares their neighbor and what they have what you don't. It is often used as a benchmark for social acceptance or how much stuff you have. Let's use this a step further. We all go through envy of some sort. You would be dishonest with yourself if you said it never happens to you. It is a fact of life that the neighbor gets a new car, you envy them. Or you are perusing a specialized magazine ogling over the ads for the shiny new equipment. To put this in the photography angle, camera or photography envy is the rage. A new camera comes out with ABC "enhancements" and you thing you absolutely MUST have it. Maybe you are rich and can afford shelves of cameras and lenses - I can't. As I said, I am old-school. Here is what I grew up with:
There are many though who will jump at the latest, shiniest equipment. There is nothing wrong with that - but I don't operate that way. There are some who make their living reviewing cameras, so they might have a wall of cameras ad equipment, and like a person's wardrobe closet, they will say, "which camera shall I use today?". There is nothing wrong with that - I just don't have the funds to do that. But I do appreciate those who can make their equipment last long and still take amazing shots. After all, it is 90% of who is behind the camera who makes the photo what it is. To those who absolutely must "keep up with the Jonses", ask yourself these questions:
My history with photography and trying to decide on a niche took me down many paths. Many of which I learned from. Many which I vowed I would never, ever do again. This post is not meant to bash those who choose other photography niches, but rather more power to you. :)
You who do other photography especially with people possess attributes that I apparently don't. So I stand in awe for your abilities. But let me tell you why I do what I do. I love bird photography for the following reasons:
Summer is almost over here in the Salt Lake valley. It is still hot as blazes, but I can feel much cooler night weather settling in. And the birding has changed too....
Keep in mind that you read this, I am a new birder. I am approaching my 10th month since I have been actively birding, so my experiences; which might seem trite to some are meant as hopeful helps to those just starting out like I am. Earlier in the year, I could go out birding and the birds would practically announce their location. All you needed to do was to listen and watch for movement then snap away. Well, its different now. I have noticed as I walk the woods that it is much more quiet. Almost an eerie quiet. Like a "Rachel Carson" Silent Spring" quiet. As I walk, I'm finding that I'm spooking more birds and they are much more aware of me. So, I now have to hone in on new techniques. I still try to practice my stealth skills; walking in serpentine fashion, Not staring right at the bird that I want to shoot. I am finding that my camouflage shirts are effective, much to being the point of a joke with my friends. I find that there are pockets of birds, and when I find one - sit tight and watch. I'm thinking about getting a lightweight tripod to sit and wait - especially in the early mornings and late evenings when light is not there and I have to open up pretty much everything to get a shot - most of which are garbage because of the graininess. I'm finding that my normal 3-4 mile hike is turning into a 1-2 mile hike because I am stopping and waiting more. I'm finding less and less birds that were as plentiful as ants to a picnic at one time. Gone are the red-winged blackbirds, the lincoln's sparrows, etc. They might still be around, but not in the areas that I trapse through. I'm half wondering to myself what I'm going to do when the cold and snow sets in as far as birding. Am I going to opt for the snow camo clothes? Probably. This hobby/obsession has its rewards for those those who really want it. I yearn for the earlier year when the yellow-rumped warbler announced itself. When the song sparrow accompanied me as I walked. But I know that they will be back. And I know that I'm not just going to stop birding. There's much more on the horizon from from what I hear. So, bring it on! There was a soap opera back in my days which started their daily broadcast with the phrase: Like Sands Through the Hourglass, So Are the Days of our lives. As a new bird photographer in my first year, it really causes me to reflect.
In the bird world many birds come and many go each year. We see this evidenced in migration. We see this evidenced with new chicks trying to circumnavigate the world which they live. Today, I went up the mountain with my wife. It was really my intent to not go on a bird photography trip, but to relish time with my wife who has her good days and not so good days, health-wise. Today was a good day. I knew that migration and change was indeed a surety, but I never thought that it would occurs so quickly. The last time I went up there, a thriving community of white-crowned sparrows, lincoln's sparrows and other birds were to be seen. Back then, there were many many photo ops to get the pose, of the bird I wanted. I could walk just a couple feet into the boardwalk surrounding the lake, and be greeted by a plethora of bird activity. Today was a completely different thing. Completely gone are the Lincoln's Sparrow, just a very, very few of the White-crowned sparrows remained. Even the lake itself was under a transformation. What was once an open area with water is now a lush field/swampland with a receding lake further back. It sort of made me melancholy. Knowing that the season is rapidly changing. That very soon it will be very difficult to find birds other than the permanent residents. That the mountains will be inaccessible due to snow so deep that it will bury my vehicle many times over. It made me realize to cherish what I have today. Photos have a way of capturing time, so we can look at them and relive that portion of our lives. I cherish those thousands of photos I have taken this year. But as a ray of hope and encouragement, I snapped this picture as I see the promise of return. The promise of new wildlife and when the birds will once again return to bless my life and lens. Sidenote - I have updated my webpage with some more/different photos. If you haven't check for a while, do consider going to rickgrahamphotography.weebly.com.
In the vehicle world, we drive our cars on the freeways according to the speed limits (+/-). Yet, our vehicles can go much faster. We don't drive our vehicles at the maximum speed that is indicated on the speedometer. If we did, the car would wear out much sooner. In addition, there is the safety factor. It is there for the "just in case" scenarios and is, or should not be overused. In the photography world, we have these big zoom lenses that have incredible reach. My main lens for for shooting birds and wildlife is a Sigma 150-600 contemporary. It has the capability of going to 600 mm focal length. Yet, I rarely shoot at 600 mm. I always back off the limits of the zoom. Why?, you may ask. For me, 600 mm gets the reach, but is softer than the lower focal lengths. In the photography world, we call this the "sweet spot". This is where the zoom works the best; giving you the sharpest photo. I will admit that I don't always get that sweet spot. But, for me I'm more consistent at lower focal lengths. If you find that you are consistently shooting at the maximum focal length, you might want to consider why. Perhaps its one of these:
Whichever of these, or maybe something else, you might want to be a little more aware of how you shoot. Maybe, if you are serious about your photography you might want to consider a bigger lens or a teleconverter, but the TC has it's drawbacks (to be covered in a future blog post). With today's ultra large camera megapixels, there is also some forgiveness if you need to crop in to your subject. But for me, the absolute best shots is when I don't have to crop that much. Sure, zooming to the max won't wear out your lens, or cause you to be unsafe (unless you trip and fall with it zoomed all the way out). But, in my minds eye, like the speedometer, its there for a reason, for the "just in case" scenarios. Your mileage may vary <rimshot>. I have always loved photography. I've had many cameras over the years, but never really took it seriously until last year when I was privileged to go on a church choir tour to Europe. My iPhone 6+ was my workhorse . I snapped all kinds of pictures from the typical tourist-y pictures to some unique ones. When I came home from that wonderful trip, I got to looking through the photos, shared them on social media - many others loved my photography. That was it - I wanted to pursue photography! This was August of last year.
After doing some research into the photography field, I discovered many avenues, or niches that were a possibility for me. I started out doing some portrait photography, which was okay but my heart wasn't into it. I tried to some architecture/real estate, but again my heart wasn't into it. Last November, I decided that what I wanted to try was landscape and nature. I've always loved the outdoors and couldn't think of a better match. And so, RickGraham photography was born. I found out the hard way that nature doesn't sit still. Like portrait photography, you shoot fist and ask questions later. :) Landscape is great because mountains and trees don't move that much. :) I also decided that I wanted to concentrate on bird photography. I didn't have the proper equipment to really do a good job and upgraded my camera and ultimately upgraded my lens so that I can take those far away shots. Life does have a way of throwing a curveball into my plans though. My wife was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes and a golfball-sized tumor was in her stomach. After seeing many many doctors, it was determined that the tumor was a medium grade cancer. So they decided to remove it. This caused many side-effects; some of which she is still trying to deal with. We do remain optimistic that the tumor removed was the only cancer in her body and that the Gleevec she is taking (along with many other drugs) will help her. This led me to really concentrate on the business, where all proceeds from photo sales will go towards her mounting medical bills. My priority will always be family over work. In the birding world, they have what they call lifers. These are new birds that they have seen. As a photographer, I wanted it to mean new birds that I have successfully shot with my camera. I am happy to announce that I have reached the centennial status - my 100th bird to capture! I know that there are many many more to go, but I have need to personally celebrate. It has been less than a year and I captured 100 birds of Utah! And things are looking a little better for my sweet wife. Double celebration! I know this isn't a tips blog post, but please forgive me. I will have more tips and real-life experiences blog posts. Stay tuned. Onward! As a nature photographer, I strive to get my photos as realistic as possible. I don't always get the shot I want. Luckily, I shoot in RAW which in tandem with a photo processing program, I can tweak the photo to make it the way I want it to be; in my case - as true to the subject as possible. My edits would include cropping, and doing some lighting, darkening, and a little sharpening. Here is an example of a young Say's Phoebe. This is straight out of the camera with no post processing whatsoever. It's not bad, but I think it could use a little cropping and then some lighting. Before I go any further, I need to mention that post processing is purely subjective; one person may hate what I've done and another might love it. I guess it depends on me and my eye. :) Plus, I have a long way to go. I only use Lightroom. Photoshop is on my learning radar when the snows fall - when i can't get out to shoot photos as easy as I can now. So, after some tweaking, this is my photo that I am happy with. I opted for a little tighter crop which shows the delicate feathers a bit more. The craze now-a-days is to do post processing with HDR. What is HDR? It is High Dynamic Range imaging, where adjustments to some settings can make it pop. It can be used effectively to bring out highlights, or even to make surrealistic images. HDR can be used effectively in nature photos as long as one uses it sparingly. Here is an image that I go to the extreme of HDR processing As I said, some people may say - ohhhh I LOVE that! I can see their point. The feathers are definitely more defined. I didn't go to extremes with this photo as I wanted to try to keep it true to the subject. S why don't I like this? Here are some reasons:
To my main point, that of large prints. If I wanted to sell this print to a stock photo agency, or perhaps someone wants a large 60x30 framed print to put in their office. The larger the print, or the pickier the stock agency, the worse the photo will be. A stock agency will "pixel-peep" to see how sharp the image actually is. The photography world calls this noise. Using Lightroom, zoomed in at 1:1, I can compare my modified photo with the HDR version. The image on the left is my modified version, and the one on the right is the HDR version. Take notice how much more grainy the HDR version is. In order to achieve the HDR sharpness, noise is more prevalent. Now, as I said, some may say they don't care; they love the HDR. To each their own.
I hope this helps the uninformed and the newer photographers understand what basic HDR is and what it can and can't do. Like I said, I might not know all the ins and outs and I like to keep my photos as true to the subject as possible. Happy shooting! As a photographer with an emphasis of capturing birds, I think we all have the expectation of going out and shooting tons and tons of birds. We have high hopes that even though we are going to a new area to hike/bird that we will come back with an SD card filled with wonderful shots. It's not always that way. Recently, I planned out a trek to a new area that I have never visited before. The hike is a gentle climb up and follows by a river. to the immediate right, there is forested area that abruptly stops and then goes almost vertical as it rises into one of the Wasatch mountain peaks. I thought as I planned this, surely there has to be some birds there. The hike goes over some historical sites; where the first settlers to the Salt Lake valley started to mine, forest (for lumber) for buildings and religious edifices. So, it did have somewhat of a personal impact to me. As I started on the hike, the area is indeed beautiful and as I read on it. The problem was, there were no birds heard or seen. Zip, zero, zilch. I thought that maybe as I climbed up the trail that I might see some chickadees or dark-eyed juncos. Nothing. It was a Simon and Garfunkel day: the Sound of Silence. As a matter of fact, as I type this there are more birds at my feeder than iI saw all this hike. I tried to figure out why there weren't any birds and the following is what I came up with plausible reasons:
So, rather than make this trip a bust, I decided to look around. See nature. I was pleasantly surprised by the captures that I did make. Even the smallest of flowers have intricate details. Insects have complex and beautiful colors and patterns. The river had beauty. Each of them speaks to us; but not in audible tones. We hear it with our hearts. We imagine the flutter of wings on the dragonfly, We imagine the sound the wildflowers make as the wind sweeps through them. Sometimes we are too busy looking in trees that we miss many other photography opportunities. Look up, Look down, Look ahead, Look behind. And if something captures your interests, shoot it. You never know. I belong to a plethora of Facebook groups which deal with nature/bird photography. Many of these groups are the kind that I like to call, "stroke your ego". A few of them I term, "hard cold facts". All of these groups offer the other users to give you feedback on your photos; whether just by "liking" "+1" or whatever or actually typing in a comment. Let's take into account this photo I submitted to the groups A snowy egret perched on a sign with a shed in the background. What makes this picture interesting is what a user coined, "the Marilyn Monroe of birds" :) The wind was gently blowing and I got the shot just as a tuft of wind kicked up.
So, how did the social media world react to it? I received approximately 775 likes from the combined facebook groups. That strokes my ego - but does it help? A like is, to me a non-committed nod of the head. I received 193 different comments for the users. They ranged mostly from "beautiful" to "great shot". Another stroke to my ego. Useful? Not really in my opinion. Read on to see why I say what I say. On a few selected groups, they got into the nuts and bolts of the photo that it appeared that the white of the bird was dominating and was causing a blow out. Or that they would prefer to see the bird in a natural setting; not sitting perched on a man-made sign with the man-made building in the background. They also offered some ideas for improving next time I encounter this sort of scenario. This feedback was certainly not stroking my ego. It was factual. As a matter-of-fact, some comments were plain cold. I could have got all defensive and upset, but that wouldn't help my end goal. I get it that not every picture is "the one". I also get it that not everyone is a bird photo fan. But in reality, I appreciated this kind of commentary more. Why? because it had useful information to help me improve. And that's what it's all about for me. To constantly improve. Just remember that their comments and feedback is only that. You have the ability to accept all, some or none of their feedback. Maybe they had a comments about the lighting, but you wanted the lighting to be a certain ambiance. You made that choice, you can respond with why you did what you did, you can dig in your heels and refuse to look at their point, or you can take in what they said and see if it can improve the photo. Those choices are yours and yours alone to make. It is often said that we are our own worse critics. I find that to be true for me. As an experiment, take a look at your photos. Look at the very first ones you shot. Compare them to what you are shooting now. Do you see any improvement? Do you see any trends? Or do you see mediocre photos with that rare "one" that just pops out? The latter is my case. so, armed with that information, I can look at self-improvement. I guess what I am saying that if you want to just submit photos and get all kinds of praise and adoration, there are groups for that. And if you want honest feedback, that could appear to be downright cold and mean, there are groups for that. But, keep on shooting, do self-analysis, and then seek comments from others. |