1. Lens Hoods shield yours lens from direct sunlight or other bright lights that might fall directly on the lens and in turn, cause flare. By reducing the contrast and creating flare, your pictures will have much richer colors and deeper saturation. Flower shaped lens hoods are often used on zoom lenses as a normal lens hood will block the field of view on certain zoom settings.
2. Lens Hoods also protect your lens. As the hood does project from the lens, it does make the actual lens difficult to reach. This helps reduce the accidental fingerprint on the lens or even the accidental drop which could result in the need to replace the lens. And if you are a serious photographer, you know how expensive that is!
The only time you do NOT want to use a Lens Hood is when are you are shooting Macro or when are you are shooting using the on-camera flash. In these cases, the Lens Hood can obstruct your shot.
I was looking online on how to use a Circular Polarizing Filter (CPF) and I came across this good explanation:
For the level best polarization effect, the sun should be at a right angle to your subject. That means when you’re facing your subject ideally, either your left shoulder or your right shoulder will be pointing at the sun. The polarizer will still work if the sun is at less than 90′, but to a lesser degree. It also works well when the sun is directly overhead, though it won’t have much of an effect on the sky when the sun is that high.
Sometimes the polarizer effect will be subtle, and you won’t always notice a dramatic darkening of the sky, but if you look closely you may find bright reflections being reduced and/or eliminated on leaves, rocks, etc. If you’re not seeing any effect, then you can simply remove the polarizer and gain a stop or more in shutter speed if you need it.
The nice thing about a polarizer is that you see exactly what it going to do as you rotate it while looking through the viewfinder. It’s either doing something, or it isn’t. So you don’t really have to remember to have your subject 90′ off axis to the sun though you can use that knowledge to reposition yourself and/or the subject if you want to achieve the maximum polarization effect.
Someone asked this question in a forum and here is a great answer that will be helpful to all of us!
“First off, lenses are designed for their specific maximum apertures. A 300mm f/4 is not a stopped down 300mm f/2.8. It was designed as a f/4 from its inception.
Virtually all lenses are sharpest at about two stops down from wide open. This is because lenses are designed for a range of apertures, and anything with any kind of range in its design must have compromises. The 300mm f/2.8, therefore, is sharpest at about f/5.6, and the 300mm f/4 at about f/8.
In theory, a lens could be designed with a single aperture and maximum sharpness at that aperture. Such a lens, however, would be severely limiting in its use. Mirror lenses have this drawback—this plus the fact that they are almost always use very poor glass to keep the price down.
Secondly, large aperture lenses require very primo front elements. These elements are the most critical elements in most lenses, and cannot tolerate aberations. After all, the light passes through these elements first, and, if distorted, remains distorted forever after. These elements are also the largest elements in the lenses. When grinding and polishing glass, the larger the diameter, the harder it is to prevent aberations from creeping in. Large aperture lenses means means super-precision grinding and polishing out to the very edges, which in turn means very high prices.
Take Canon’s 300mm “L” lenses as examples:
The EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM has a front element with an active area about 107mm in diameter and sells for about $4340 at B&H.
The EF 300mm f/4L IS USM has a front element with an active area about 75mm in diameter and sells for about $1269 at B&H.
Canon has announced the EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens. This is a successor to the EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS USM lens that was launched 2 years ago and was the go-to lens for professional shooters. This newest version offers various improvements on an already great design including a redesigned optical system and a closer minimum focusing distance.
Check out some of the reviews:
“The new EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens promises high-performance and quality plus greater flexibility in low-light conditions. A new Image Stabiliser provides the equivalent of approximately four stops of shutter speed advantage, while the minimum focusing distance has been reduced to 1.2m throughout the zoom range. Dust- and moisture-proof sealing has been extended for improved durability in challenging conditions.”
Photo Review Australia – Read their full review here
“Canon has improved the optical performance by redesigning the internal elements, incorporating a fluorite element and a fifth UD element to help minimize secondary chromatic aberrations and produce better image quality with improved contrast and resolution through the entire zoom range. The new lens design features improved auto focus speed due to a new focusing algorithm and a shorter minimum focusing distance of 3.9 feet (1.2 meters). It also features improved image stabilization allowing it to compensate for shutter speeds up to four steps slower than 1/focal length, a one step improvement over the previous lens model.”
Digital Camera Review – Read their full review here.
Last year, I had gone home for Diwali and as some of you might know, Diwali is the Indian festival of lights. We were invited to a friend’s place for a fireworks display and I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to try out some fireworks photography as I was quite new to this beautiful art. Not surprisingly, I found it really difficult to find the right composition, ISO, aperture and I was basically overwhelmed as I was trying to learn from the photos I was shooting while trying to get out of the way of people lighting up fireworks. Here are some of my learnings:
1. Use a tripod - This is one of the most important accessories you would need as you want the camera to be as steady as possible as you shoot fireworks. You want the only movement in the photograph to come from the fireworks itself.
2. Remote Release – Again, you do not want any shake on the camera. If you have access to a remote release cable, bring it along.
3. ISO – I tried many settings but some of the best shots I got were using ISO 100 and 200.
4. Aperture – That evening, I learned that using fast shutter speeds while shooting fireworks might give you a crisp picture but most times, that is not what you are looking for you. Slower shutter speeds will allow you to track the movement of the fireworks in the photographs and give a great story to the photograph and fill it up with beautiful light.
I hope that these tips help you when you are trying to learn how you could shoot fireworks and I would advice you to shoot as much as possible because you can study from every shot, even if its not what you wanted. Are there any tips you could offer to our other readers?
Canon has released another amazing lens that I cannot wait to get my hands on – the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM!
Check out their press release below:
“The high quality, medium telephoto macro lens, has been developed for photographers who demand the highest level of optical quality. The new Hybrid IS system features up to 4-stop correction, compensating for the effects of camera shake, during normal shooting. Low friction ceramic balls support the moving elements, which allows for the amazingly smooth movement – needed when compensating for camera shake during macro shooting. Hybrid IS corrects shift movement – problematic when shooting up close -as well as angular movement providing photographers with the benefit of up to 2 stops at 1.0x magnification.
The EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM features ultra low dispersion (UD) lenses that correct colour aberration for high resolution, high contrast images while the addition of Super Spectra coatings effectively reduce ghosting and flare for superior quality images. A nine blade circular aperture makes subjects stand out amid beautiful background blur and a silent, high-speed ring type USM Autofocus motor quickly achieves focus. The lens also includes a three position focus limiter to tailor the focus system range to the desired subject.
As part of the L-series the lens features dust and water resistant seals. Sitting ahead of the EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro, within the range, the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM supports a full range of accessories including: Tripod Mount D, Macro Lite adaptor 67, Lens Hood ET-73 and EF12 II and EF25 II extension tubes. The tripod mount attaches to the lens without the need for an adaptor enabling quick portrait or landscape switching without having to reframe the camera. Speedlites MR-14EX and MT-24EX can be attached using the MacroLite adaptor”
Whenever I feel I have plateaued or out of ideas for photos, I always turn to Flickr or DeviantArt to help me get inspired about photography again and give me some new ideas to try out.
Looking at photos that others have taken will give you ideas on what the photography medium can achieve. To get the most out of this exercise, try to look at work of different kinds of photographers and from different fields. You never know what could set off that brilliant idea.
When do you find a photograph that inspires you, you should bookmark them. There are various ways to do that – you could mark them on flickr, use Posterous.com or use Delicious.com. Personally, I find Posterous works best for me as it lets me save the image on the Posterous page as well as I can comment on what I actually found interesting about the picture. You can check out my page here – Digital Photography Guide.
I have been looking for some information on how I could clean the sensor for my DSLR and I came across this really good article on various ways that you could clean the sensor. Dirt can mess up the sensors and not cleaning it the right way could have a permanent damage to the sensors which means expensive repairs bills!
The following article explains various ways such as using the sensor swab, brush or a blower. You can read the article here.
Infrared (IR) Photography is the process of shooting pictures in the infrared spectrum rather than the regular visible light we can see. This spectrum of light is said to be in between the light we can see and the microwaves used by radars and microwave ovens. Many people confuse Infrared Photography with Thermal imaging. Thermal imaging systems are capable of detecting different wave lengths of IR energy.
IR photography involves blocking out almost all the light that is visible to the human eye and only letting in infrared light. Most DSLRs have a hot mirror filter placed in front of the sensor to block infrared light in order to prevent IR from ruining normal photographs.
Here are a couple of great articles on how to check if your DSLR can take Infrared photos and what accessories you need to take some IR photos – Instructables and Fotolia.
Boudoir is a lady’s private room and Boudoir photography is a style of photography that involves women in sexual or sensual poses. Boudoir photography should not be confused with erotic photographyas it focuses more on the aesthetic qualities of the woman. Boudoir Photography plays on the idea of teasing the subject rather than what is shown.
People choose Boudoir photography for many reasons such as wedding gifts, anniversary gifts, modeling portfolio or just for other personal reasons.
Last year, I had gone home for Diwali and as some of you might know, Diwali is the Indian festival of lights. We were invited to a friend’s place for a fireworks display and I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to try out some fireworks photography as I was quite new to this beautiful art. Not surprisingly, I found it really difficult to find the right composition, ISO, aperture and I was basically overwhelmed as I was trying to learn from the photos I was shooting while trying to get out of the way of people lighting up fireworks. Here are some of my learnings:
Canon has released another amazing lens that I cannot wait to get my hands on – the EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM!
Whenever I feel I have plateaued or out of ideas for photos, I always turn to 
I have been looking for some information on how I could clean the sensor for my DSLR and I came across this really good article on various ways that you could clean the sensor. Dirt can mess up the sensors and not cleaning it the right way could have a permanent damage to the sensors which means expensive repairs bills!
Infrared (IR) Photography is the process of shooting pictures in the infrared spectrum rather than the regular visible light we can see. This spectrum of light is said to be in between the light we can see and the microwaves used by radars and microwave ovens. Many people confuse Infrared Photography with Thermal imaging. Thermal imaging systems are capable of detecting different wave lengths of IR energy.
Boudoir is a lady’s private room and Boudoir photography is a style of photography that involves women in sexual or sensual poses. Boudoir photography should not be confused with erotic photography as it focuses more on the aesthetic qualities of the woman. Boudoir Photography plays on the idea of teasing the subject rather than what is shown.
