Author: Ralph Lee Hopkins

Publisher: Lark Photography Books (Sterling Publishing)

Review by Conrad J. Obregon

Sometimes a book is perfectly fine for its purpose and is worth reading but doesn’t stand out above others in a crowded field. This is the case with Digital Masters: Nature Photography: Documenting the Wild World (A Lark Photography Book).

The author begins the book with an encouragement to photographers to find their passion in nature photography and then goes on to explain the gear that is appropriate for nature photographers. Next is a workflow chapter that discusses some of the basic camera settings that a nature photographer should use and the workflow to follow from the field to archiving which emphasizes backing up one’s images. The author then discusses the nature of light, the elements of composition and the importance of capturing the moment. There are then chapters on landscape, wildlife and macro photography. The book is profusely illustrated with the author’s excellent photographs and the organization is clear and logical.

The book is aimed at photographers who already understand the fundamentals of exposure and focusing, but have never given much consideration to nature photography. For the most part, the ideas presented are at the most general level without much specific advice. I often find something to disagree with in technical photography books. That wasn’t the case here, but I also couldn’t find anything to sink my teeth into. There is little technical information about capturing images, unless one considers the explanation of such things as the basic rules of composition technical. There are no details about post-processing. In fact an experienced nature photographer is unlikely to find anything new here. On the other hand, the competent camera user may find the book an excellent way to ease into nature photography. It’s too bad that the author didn’t provide a bibliography of books that the photographer could read to follow up on the broad themes which he introduced.

In summary, here’s a good book for someone just getting into nature photography to read to whet his or her appetite. He will still have to do a lot more learning to figure out all the tricks of the trade. Experienced nature photographers will have heard all of it before.

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Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 – All Rights Reserved

It was so fast. I can’t believe it’s already over but Photoshop World Las Vegas 2010 is over. It was a great show. I learned as much as I taught and made some new friends. I was also excited to get to meet many of the Photofocus audience. That was really cool.

As for Photoshop World proper, I’ll simply say that Scott Kelby and his organization know what they are doing. If you saw the behind the scenes work that goes into pulling this thing off you’d be thinking you didn’t get charged enough for your all access pass.

Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 – All Rights Reserved

In a down economy, some people just couldn’t afford to sign up for the conference sessions. They could still get in to PSW simply by obtaining a free Expo-only pass. Now normally, this would mean being limited to listening to vendors trying to sell their stuff. But at PSW there’s as much training available ON the Expo floor as in many of the conference sessions.

Now don’t get me wrong – if you are planning to come to PSW next year, save up for the conference pass. You get the Photoshop World workbook which is full of notes from each instructor. The classrooms were full of eager learners for this and other reasons. The faculty is the best in the world bar none. But plan on coming either way. Even if all you do is hit the Expo floor, you’ll learn something.

One of the coolest things on the show floor was the Westcott live studio. Actually, Westcott had FIVE studios. They had one in their booth on the Expo floor and then they had four more in the back of the show floor. Each booth was full of Westcott Spiderlite TD5s and all the trimmings, i.e., softboxes, stands, etc.

Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 – All Rights Reserved

The studios were staffed by incredible professional models who were made up by a world-class makeup artist. It was almost TOO popular and you had to be patient to get a shot. I made all three of the images in this post while shooting over, under or in between several dozen photographers. But I think the images tell the story and the story is it was worth it.

I think Photoshop World is probably one of the healthier trade shows in the photo business. I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t been to attend. It’s become as much about photography as it has Photoshop and if you want to learn more about photography, you will at PSW.

Thanks to Scott Kelby and company for inviting me to be a small part of the show.

"lens or nut" captured by Gabriel Catalin (Click Image to See More From Gabriel Catalin)

So you bought yourself a SLR camera. What now? You obviously need more lenses.

To find out which lenses to suit your specific use is not always easy. There are several abbreviations and specifications you need to find out, and things are not better by the fact that different manufacturers use completely different abbreviations for exactly the same properties.

Below I take a review of the important features you can find on a lens, and how the different manufacturers label them.

Please note that some specs may be slightly simplified to make the article shorter and more readable. For example, the EC designation marked on Canon lenses indicates that it has an autofocus (Electronic Focus), but also indicates which frame the lens uses.

Aperture

Maximum aperture is something which is stated on all lenses. It tells you how much light the lens can get through to the sensor at its best. Much light means you can keep shooting in darker conditions without the image blurring due to camera shake. Aperture is provided as an aperture number, such as f2.8 (or sometimes 1:2.8). The smaller aperture number, the more light to the camera. Theoretically, the absolute best aperture you can get an objective equal to 1, but in practice the brightest lenses offer a maximum aperture of around 1.2. As usual, the consumer will be satisfied with an aperture number of between 2.4 and 3.2. The higher the aperture number, the cheaper is the lens. Telephoto Lenses often have larger aperture numbers.

On zoom lenses, there will usually be stated 2 aperture numbers (for example, f2.8 – f5.6). The smallest aperture number indicates that the amount of light you get the wide angle, while the largest say how much light you get through to the maximum telephoto.

Focal Length

The first thing to consider when choosing your new lens is the focal length you want. The focal length is given in millimeters, and specifies whether the lens is a wide angle or telephoto. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. With a telephoto you’ll naturally get closer to subjects far away. Telephoto lenses are also preferred for portraiture as it protects the facial proportions better than a wide angle, and it is much easier to get a blurred background since telephoto lenses have less depth of field than wide angle. Telephoto lenses have usually also lower brightness than the wide-angle, and are more vulnerable to blurriness during the shoot if there is some camera shake. Telephoto lenses are usually physically larger than the wide angle.

Wide-angle on the other hand is fine for nature photography when you can capture more of the landscape. They’re usually good both in brightness and depth of field, and are usually physically smaller and lighter than telephoto lenses. On the negative side the wide angle is not ideal for photographing people, at least not in a pure portrait context. A wide angle gives an impression of greater distance between what is close and what is distant, and it can thus quickly look like that model has a bigger nose and sunken eyes more than she / he really has. There are also more likely to get the so-called distortion with a wide angle, i.e., the straight lines begin to bend into the edges of the image.

The cross between a wide angle and a telephoto is called a normal lens. This is a lens that renders the environment as we see with our own eyes (in relation to distance and magnification). In the 135 format, a normal lens is 50 mm. Everything with a smaller focal length is called a wide angle, while larger focal lengths are called telephoto.

On regular compact cameras with 3x zoom, the focal length is usually extend from 35 mm to 105 mm (according to the 135 format). It is important to remember that the focal length is connected with the size of the image sensor to use it with, allowing the focal length of a lens to change depending on which camera it is used on. To avoid too much confusion, it is common to explain the focal length of that which is equivalent to the 135 format, or the so-called full-frame Digital SLR cameras.

Fixed or Zoom

For most, the most appropriate would be a zoom lens. Then you get several focal lengths in the same lens and therefore let you get away with fewer lenses to meet your needs. Zoom lenses have always two focal lengths specified, for example 18-55 mm, which shows how much zoom range the lens has. If you want this translated into compact camera language, you can just divider the largest number by the smallest, which in the 18-55 mm case gives a zoom of about 3x.

A fixed lens on the other hand, has some advantages. They are smaller and lighter, and usually have better brightness than zoom lenses. It is also easier to correct for various lens error on a fixed lens than a zoom, and thus it is more likely to improve image quality on a fixed lens than a zoom (although this will vary somewhat based on price and producer).

Some consider it more artistically correct to use a fixed lens, and that it is a bit like cheating to use the zoom, but strictly speaking we do not have to worry about it.

Crop Factor

The various camera manufacturers often use different sizes of image sensors in their SLR cameras. This can be confusing in relation to the size of tele or wide angle a lens actually has. The most common trick is to convert the focal length of what it would have been on the 135 format, or the full frame. To make the conversion you need the crop factor. For example, on Canon’s SLR cameras without a full frame sensor, the crop factor is 1.6. This means that you must multiply the focal length with 1.6 to determine what it would have been on the 135 format. 18-55 mm will be approximately equal to 29-88 mm.

• Nikon – 1,5
• Canon – 1,6
• Pentax – 1,5
• Sony – 1,5

Image Stabilization

Although you’ll find optical image stabilization in more and more SLR camera bodies, major manufacturers continue to swear to stabilization in the lens. This is done by moving the lens elements in the lens, which gets the projected image to move the image sensor and thus eliminating camera shake. Manufacturers such as Olympus, Pentax and Sony all use image stabilization in the camera body, so you will not find lenses with stabilization from these suppliers. Below you can see the abbreviations other manufacturers use to specify that their lenses have built-in image stabilization.

• Nikon – VR
• Canon – IS
• Pentax – Image stabilization in the cameras
• Sony – Image stabilization in the cameras
• Sigma – OS
• Tamron – VC

Color Refractive Correction

Photography focuses entirely on the light, and the headache for lens makers is that the light has some strange abilities. One of these is that the different colors of light does bend differently when they pass a lens. This can lead to color shifts, particularly towards the edges in an image. To counteract this, manufacturers are using what they call a low dispersion glass.

• Nikon – ED
• Pentax – ED
• Sigma – APO
• Tamron – LD

Distortion

Distortion is a different lens error, where straight lines toward the edges of the image is bent either inward or outward. Most lens manufacturers take this into account during construction and correct it in the best possible way, but it can still occur that you come across specifications, indicating that the lens has correction for exactly this.

• Pentax – AL
• Sigma – ASP
• Tamron – AD

Perspective / Focus Shift

Some lenses for professional use, has the ability to correct perspective. For example, when shooting a high building you may fix the camera slightly upward, and the building will look thinner on top than the bottom. Lens perspective shift can thus rectify this. These lenses also have the option to change the focus plane so that you can improve or worsen the depth of field. As a common consumer it is very unlikely that you’ll need some of those lenses.

• Nikon – PC
• Canon – TS

For Non-Full-Size Image Sensors

After SLR cameras took the step into the digital world, something had to be done with the lenses. First and foremost, because the digital image sensor had a much smaller area than a traditional negative / dias. Since the image surface is smaller the lenses can be made smaller and lighter, but at the same time these lenses cannot be used with traditional film cameras or digital SLRs with a full frame image sensor.

• Nikon – DX
• Canon – EF-S
• Pentax – DA
• Sony – DT
• Sigma – DC
• Tamron – DI-II

For Full-Size Digital Image Sensors

The manufacturers also make lenses for full frame image sensors, of course. These can also be used on regular film SLRs.

• Nikon – Lenses are not marked with DX
• Canon – EF
• Pentax – FA
• Sigma – DG
• Tamron – DI

Macro

Macro is a feature many will recognize from compact cameras. It is simply the ability to get very close to your subject and be able to take picture of the little things (insects, flowers, etc.).

• Nikon – Micro
• Canon – Macro
• Sigma – Macro
• Tamron – Macro

About the Author
Morris Scjomin has been a professional photographer for over 10 years, practicing exclusively in the field of portraiture, still life, and documentary images. He has an affection and a passion for camera lenses. To buy a new lens can be a frustrating affair. A large and growing selection of lenses makes the choice more difficult, what will you choose? Gain more knowledge and advice before choosing the right lens.

Go to Full Article: How to Pick the Right Camera Lens to Fit Your Needs




Article from: PictureCorrect Photography Tips

1. Lighter weight please. My first request is that the manufacturers continue to seek out and find lighter-weight materials. Composites can be stronger than steel. While the glass is always going to be the heaviest component, the rest of the lens needs to be lighter still to make it easier to carry and use. Heck, I don’t need lots of vibration reduction if you can make my five pound lens weigh a pound less.

2. New technologies please. Canon developed a technology called Diffractive Optics. It’s used in their EF 400 F/4 lens. It works well and makes the lens much smaller and lighter than it would be otherwise. But what happened? There’s been no additional DO lenses from Canon. And what about other optical technologies? I am afraid that the lens makers use the old tech because it’s safe, cheap and easy. Time to take chances. Let’s see what we can do to change the rules. We don’t need to do things the same way we always did.

3. Lens with built-in filters please. Why not simply build in both neutral density and polarizers right into the lens? This would allow the flip of a button to deploy the filter. If we can build drop in filter holders for big lenses, then there’s no reason in my mind why we can’t build the two most often needed filters (ND and Pol) right into the lens itself.

4. Better video integration please. DLSRs that shoot video (hybrids) aren’t going away. This is a growing trend. So why not make lenses that are better suited to video? Why not incorporate the follow focus gears? Carl Zeiss has in fact already done this on their CP.2 lenses and we need to see more of this on the traditional low-cost camera brand lenses.

5. Bring back the aperture ring please. Yes I know, many of you reading this have never even seen an aperture ring. But in the old days, turning that ring set the aperture and the field marks on the glass made it easy to set the hyperfocal distance of the lens via focusing around the aperture marks. I miss that. I really do.

These are just five of the dozens of points I made on the panel. I know some of these will make it to market. Some will not. Some will be here very soon. Some will come a long time from now. But it’s fun to speculate.

Another busy 6 months has passed in the digital photography world, and right on cue, the Ricoh CX4 appears as the replacement for the already out-of-date CX3 compact camera. New features include a reworked body, improved image stabilisation system, subject-tracking auto-focus mode, and some creative filters. The CX4 retains the 10.7x lens, 720p HD movies, 3 inch screen, and 10 megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor of its predecessor. Read the World’s first Ricoh CX4 review to find out if it can keep up with the travel-zoom competition.

Read the review »

“Above Scotland: Cities” is a new book containing aerial photographs of Scotland’s six cities from the 1920s to the present.

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The new Benro Quick Lock tripods are now available in the UK.

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