comments (1) There is not much point in discussing the issue over and over again. Bottom line: Always know your rights out there and stand your ground.
I’m getting depressed with all the abuse photographers suffer on the streets.
If you wish to share your thoughts or stories, please feel free to drop a comment.
Hat tip: Photography is not a crime
Disposable underwater cameras are simple cameras pre-loaded with film, protected inside an acrylic case. You can use them around and underwater up to a certain depth. Don’t expect “National Geographic” quality photos, but for beginners they are the best choice.
And now I’m imagining you thinking: “I’m already on the digital age, I have my workflow set, I’m used to digital processing, why would I go back to film and above all on a… ugh… disposable?”. Well, it’s your camera and it will be surrounded by water with increasing pressure as you go down. If you don’t have the money for a custom case that you’ll probably use once a year for a few shots, why not?
As with any other field in photography, there is a multitude of options available. The good news? As it is disposable, it will be cheap and the most you’ll loose if everything goes wrong is the camera and developing costs. From my personal experience, I never had a situation in which everything got ruined.
Before choosing which camera to take, there are several variables that you need to consider:
Water works as a massive light filter. The further you go from the surface, the less light you will have available and importantly, the less red light you’ll have. If you stay above the 10 meter (33 feet) level, this is not a major issue (although it’s noticeable), but if you want to go deeper you simply need to provide your own red light source. This is why photos taken with this kind of equipment tend to be blue all over. Bellow 10 meters, a camera with flash is a must, even in clear waters. This poses another problem: If there are particles in the water, the flash light will reflect on them and overexpose your photos. So, try to choose your camera based on what you want to shoot and the conditions you’ll have in the water.
This might sound too simple if you think that you are used to be worried with apertures, shutter speeds, depth of field, etc., and now you won’t have to. But realize that underwater you have many other things to be worried about: try staying still at 5 meters to correctly frame your photos in a water with just slight current and you’ll see what I mean.
As a guideline, try looking at the specs of three well-known underwater disposable cameras: Kodak Ultra Aquatic, Agfa LeBox Ocean, Fuji QuickSnap Marine.
As I mentioned above, when underwater you don’t have the luxury of time to correctly frame a shot, or choose the best angle, specially if you intend to shoot wildlife. First, as as you’ll notice very very quickly, unless you take a bottle with you, you need to surface on a regular basis (yes, breathing is essential) and the cute little fish won’t stay there waiting for you. Also, looking through the camera with a diving mask on your face is much harder than it sounds. The fact that you won’t have a zoom on this camera will also require that you get as close as possible to your subject while keeping you and the subject safe.
As a good advice, if you have the time, try shooting your camera of choice on an open-air swimming pool just to get the feeling of it.
If possible, try shooting between 11 AM and 2 PM to make use of the higher levels of light penetration on the water. The angle at which light enters the water earlier or later in the day will reduce the depths at which you can shoot.
While the films inside these cameras have nothing special about them, you can improve the end result by taking it to a shop that specializes in underwater film processing. They are not so easy to find but the difference between the special processing and the regular film processing can have dramatic effects on the prints, making them much more vibrant and reducing the blue cast they will have otherwise.
Although this article is not extensive, I hope I managed to provide a few tips to spark your curiosity about underwater photography next time you go to the beach and improve your experience and results.
Have you tried underwater photography on a basic level? What other tips and experiences can you share with us? Leave them on the comments right bellow.
For what I’ve seen of their site (yes, I’ve registered), at PhotoShelter Collection, it is my feeling they try to distance themselves from the “regular” microstock sites. Although the more personal touch feels good (they make it sound so familiar), the general guidelines are those of a microstock agency. No word yet as for how tough their reviewing procedure is. From their guidelines, I got the impression that PhotoShelter Collection wants to explore a certain niche inside stock photography, turning it more casual.
This is where PhotoShelter Collection distance themselves from the crowd: the photographer’s revenue is 70% (85% for photos submitted before November 5th and up to six months) and the minimum price set for a photo is $50. The price is only a recommendation and you are allowed to price your own work. At least, you’ll be getting $35 for each sale minimum. The payout is set at $100 if you choose to be paid by check but they also offer PayPal or ACH as other payment methods (no word on payout here).
I have mixed feelings about PhotoShelter Collection from what I’ve read so far. I haven’t tried to submit any work so I can’t say for now how successful it can be.
Nonetheless, the high revenue percentage, low payout amount and relatively high price per photo make of PhotoShelter Collection something to seriously consider if you want to try selling your images. Also, it’s free to join.
On the other hand, competing with all the microstock sites out there is not going to be easy (is this even their aim?). Although many companies still go for the established (and much more expensive) stock agencies like Getty, the accessibility and affordability of microstock sites is hard to beat and only time will tell how PhotoShelter Collection will establish themselves in the photo market business.
Overall, I was surprised with PhotoShelter Collection. Maybe this is just a feature to increase sales on their main business (backups) and maybe not. Anyway, I’ll seriously consider uploading some work there and see how it turns out.
If you are already into stock photography and you’re not exclusive to any site, maybe you should also consider at least looking into it.
Although I just gave a very brief and positive review of PhotoShelter Collection, I’m in no way associated with them (besides having a user account at their site) and this is NOT a paid post. Truly, there aren’t even affiliate links on this post.
One of the most common mistakes photographers make when first attempting to get lunar shots is underestimating the brightness of the moon. The first shots will almost undoubtedly come out overexposed with an ugly bright circle where the moon should have been.
Many photographers claim that since the moon is directly illuminated by the sun, setting your camera for a “daylight photo” can be a solution. Some also recommend following the sunny 16 rule (f/16 at 1/ISO) or the loony 11 rule (f/11 at 1/ISO). If you take a look at the photo above and the settings I used, none of these actually applied but probably due to the fact that the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs a huge amount of the light and this value varies according to the angle of the moon above the horizon. Using a “fixed” value does not work and you should experiment to find the best results. I tried the following the loony 11 but gave an overexposed moon with some detail loss in the brightest areas.
Start with the following settings:
Now set your autofocus to point, aim at the moon, focus and turn the autofocus off. Don’t touch that ring anymore.
For good measure bracket your EV 1 or 2 units (if your camera allows you can get a few sequential shots with different EV values).
And that is it. Moon photos galore.
Now that you have your moon, it’s time to work on it in silico.
The photo above was only cropped. No other processing. So, you can see that is possible to get average moon photos just out of your camera. If you want to make it even better, try playing a bit with the curves on Photoshop. You’ll probably manage to give more texture to your photo by increasing the contrast between midtones and highlights. Somehow I liked the result as it is (albeit flat) and decided not to touch it anymore.
If you want a more natural texture with more shadows, giving the lunar landscape a more tri-dimensional feeling, try shooting the different moon phases and not only full moon. The different angles at which the sun illuminates the lunar surface can create astonishing effects.
Now, this photo was taken back in the end of April, but for what I can see, today is full moon or very close to it. So, why not go outside and be creative? Let’s hope there are no clouds wherever you are.
Got any more tips for good lunar photography? Share them with us…
Times when what a judge saw on paper was what was achieved through the lens are gone. Computers play a big part on nowadays photography and virtually any image can be created in silico. How is a judge to deal with this?
Most photo competitions have guidelines and while some are very strict on what is or isn’t allowed others are more open. But even so, is there a way to see if a photo was overly manipulated or not? Having the photo submitted on paper is usually a requirement but it’s not helpful to the matter at hand. Moreover, if you are not required to submit on paper but are allowed to submit on file, some competitions started requiring that all files incorporate the EXIF info. It’s a start, but there are applications out there that allow for a user to modify the EXIF or even create one from scratch. So, this is also not the answer…
Sincerely, I have no answer to the problem. Although I’ve heard of this problem coming up in several photography competitions, I don’t know to which extent it propagates.
Are photography competitions still clean or are we starting to see a new kind of competition doping?
What are your thoughts on the subject? Do you usually compete? Do you have any solutions to the problem?
-->Your lenses, through use, are constantly subjected to dust, scratches, humidity and so forth. Adding another layer of glass can protect your front element to a huge extent.
If you drop your lens, having a UV filter or skylight attached can mean the difference from spending another $15 on a new filter or anything from a couple hundred dollars to a couple thousand on a new lens. Is this enough to convince you?
If not I can give you my example. Some years ago, still with my film Pentax, I was just walking around the city as I sometimes like to do. My camera was hanging from my shoulder (something that I never did again) and, when climbing some stairs, to let someone pass, I stepped to the side. Result… camera hits rail, and all my blood evaporated at the sound of braking glass. I was too afraid to even look at my lens and seeing little pieces of glass on the floor didn’t help. But ok, damage had to be reviewed and I was already thinking about the price of a new lens. Fortunately the pieces of glass came from my skylight and the front element of the lens was not even slightly scratched. Having that skylight there probably saved me about $300. Even if the lens glass had not break for sure would have been scratched rendering it useless. Two lessons in it for me: carrying the camera hanging from the shoulder is dangerous and a skylight or other inexpensive glass means a huge level of protection.
Of course there are those who think that adding a $15 glass to the front of a $1000 lens can only mean a decrease in quality. My only answer is, a scratch or a broken lens definitely lowers the quality of any photo you try to make. If you are so concerned, just remove the filter before any important photo.
I have one UV filter for each lens I carry and they all live happily together.
And you? What lives at the front of your lenses?
Even C. Westfall, director of media for Canon’s camera marketing group had this to say about it: “In compact cameras, I think that the megapixel race is pretty much over, (…) Seven- and eight-megapixel cameras seem to be more than adequate. We can easily go up to a 13-by-19 print and see very, very clear detail.”
He was right on the printing part, but nothing else. Since the dawn of digital photography, the consumer has been given the idea that the megapixel numbers of a camera is it’s more important feature, the highest the better.
This trend slowed down when the 6-8 Megapixel limit was reached and camera manufacturers had to compete outside of Megapixel numbers and started actually investing more in other features to pack their cameras with, like battery life and bigger LCDs.
But now still, the magical number for the average consumer is still the MP. Would an upgrade from 300 to 350 shots per charge make you buy the new model? Probably not, but if the MP number goes up by 2 or 3…
So Mr. Westfall, the megapixel race is healthy and better than ever… You missed by a mile on that one. If not, let’s see just two small examples:
If this is not a race, then I have no idea what a race is.
What are your thoughts on it?
Are megapixels still the most important factor for a consumer when choosing a compact digital camera?
And in the future, will the megapixel race still go on?
From the DPReview.com site:
“We’re proud and excited to announce that Dpreview has been acquired by the worlds leading online retailer, Amazon.com. Started as hobby site in 1998, dpreview.com has grown to be the number one destination for anyone interested in digital cameras and digital photography. Each month dpreview.com has seven million unique visitors (over 22 million sessions) who read over 120 million pages. “We’ve worked very hard over the last eight years to deliver consistently high quality content to our readers”, founder Phil Askey said. “It will be fantastic to be able to expand and build on that without compromising our quality or independence. With the support and resources of Amazon we can achieve this.”
Phil: Today marks an exciting milestone in the history of dpreview.com, everyone here is very much looking forward to being able to do more with Amazon’s help. We’re aiming to expand our product coverage and deliver new site features for our readers and our daily community.”
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For more information and the press release visit DPReview.com.
But does the border still even exist? When you push your “saturation” bar a bit too much, or mix channels (or any other digital effect) in a way that turns the photo more unnatural, are you still in the realms of photography or are you entering the digital art world? To some extent, and from what I’ve been hearing, if a photo is too much modified, then loses some of its creative value. I don’t agree. Photography as art is done to elicit emotions. If the artist’s objective is better achieved with digital modifications, then let it be so. On the other hand, if you are trying to capture reality as it is, maybe you shouldn’t push it too much on the processing.
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Look at the two images above. Can you say for sure which one is a photo and which one was digitally created from scratch? Well, from the tone this article is taking I bet you could guess… The photo is the one on the right (with saturation and tonal levels dramatically changed I’m sure); the left image was created with Adobe Illustrator. But if you had not read this far it could be hard to distinguish without a closer inspection.
When you plan a photo, having already in mind some digital changes that you intend to do even before taking the shot, are you creating fine art photography or using photography to create digital art?
But what is fine art photography after all? According to the Wikipedia, fine art photography is defined as “pictures that are created to fulfill the creative vision of an individual” thus integrating any digital arrangement you might include in your work. I’ll stand with this definition. Simply putting it, digital processing exponentially increased the creativity levels you can now achieve and express with photography, but it is still photography.
And what are your thoughts? Are you creating fine art photography or digital art?
