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Articles by Simon Ringsmuth
What is it and How to Use it?
Nestled quietly on the back of most cameras is a button that is often ignored or misunderstood, particularly by those who have recently upgraded to a DSLR or mirrorless camera. I’m talking about the exposure lock button, which can be a tremendous asset for photographers who are looking for ways to get more control over their cameras (and their photography in general). But what actually is the exposure lock button? What does it do? And what makes it so helpful for photographers?
Retouch4me Review: Time-Saving Plugins for Portrait Retouching
My favorite part of shooting portraits is interacting with clients out on location. We talk about the session, share ideas, try poses, laugh a lot, and make some good memories (in addition to making great images!). Of course, I want my clients to look their best, which means I spend a lot of time in Lightroom and Photoshop – cleaning up files, removing blemishes, and handling other retouching tasks.
Four Essential Beginner Photographer Tips
If you are new to photography the possibilities can seem endless and the options almost overwhelming. Buttons, dials, apertures, shutters, flashes…where do you even start? Of course, it’s always good to learn basics like the exposure triangle, but there are some simple beginner photographer tips that will immediately elevate your picture-taking prowess.
Finding Photography Inspiration in Ordinary Places
A Post By: Simon Ringsmuth Photography is filled with highs and lows. One week you might find yourself overflowing with ideas and see photographic opportunities all around you. The next week, you’re stuck in a vast wasteland where nothing seems to be worthy of your camera. Finding photography inspiration isn’t something that requires exotic travel destinations or even fancy camera gear. Often you can uncover extraordinary picture opportunities in the most ordinary of places.
Exploring Your Home with Close-Up Filters
A Post By: Simon Ringsmuth Macro photography is all about exploring the wonders of the world around you from a very close distance. Macro lenses let you see the tiniest parts of the world in extreme detail, often exposing an array of colors and patterns hidden right before our eyes. Macro lenses are also expensive! However, if you find yourself stuck at home for a while, you can start exploring your home with close-up filters instead.
The dPS Top Travel Photography Tips of 2019
A Post By: Caz Nowaczyk This week on dPS, we’re featuring some of the top articles in different categories that were published on the site throughout 2019. It’s always a bit tricky to gauge the overall popularity, as some were published earlier in the year and have had more time on the site than the ones posted more recently.
Why You Should Hire a Professional Photographer
Photography is more accessible now than ever. Advances in technology – particularly mobile phone cameras – have made it possible for almost anyone to create the type of art that would have been entirely out of reach a decade ago. However, there are still some situations that are best suited by hiring a professional photographer.
How to Nurture and Build a Child's Interest in Photography
One of the most important things you can do as a photographer is to help guide, nurture, and inspire the next generation of artists. It’s a humbling experience to know that you might be the person who inspires the next Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz. It could come from something as simple as sharing some pictures with a young person or helping them figure out how to use their camera. You never know when you might have the opportunity to make an impression on a child, or anyone for that matter.
How to Move Your Lightroom Library to an External Drive
Many photographers put their pictures on their computer’s internal hard drive. This can be a great solution since even laptops now have fairly generous storage options compared to their counterparts in days gone by. It may take you a while to fill up a 1TB or larger internal drive even if you shoot in RAW, but at some point, you’re going to run out of space, and you’ll have to address this problem.
4 Tips for Doing Photography on a Budget
Several times in the past few months people have asked me how to get into photography without spending a lot of money. I must admit the idea of emptying your wallet to get all the camera bodies, lenses, flashes, tripods, and other gear you need to do some serious photography can seem quite daunting, it certainly was for me when I first got bitten by the photography bug.
How to Get Kids Interested in Photography
Kids are fickle creatures. One day they’re into painting and drawing, the next day they want to learn to play guitar, and pretty soon they’ve moved on to something else entirely like soccer or basket-weaving. For parents who want to get kids interested in photography, it can seem like a losing battle. They are competing with all the other hobbies and activities occupying their kids’ time and energy, and when they finally show some interest, it can be fleeting at best.
Tips for Client Photo Sessions - What it's NOT All About
There are a host of things which are important when doing photo sessions for clients. But if you’re not careful you could end up falling into the trap of assuming that photo sessions are about something that they really are not. The list of things to keep in mind covers topics such as lighting, exposure, location, posing, and even practical elements like what to charge and what to recommend they wear.
How to Understand Your Camera's Exposure Compensation Feature
In this article, learn about the Exposure Compensation feature on your camera to get the best exposures. Whether you’re shooting sports, animals, portraits, toys, snowflakes, rocks, fish, weddings, or pretty much anything else you almost always have one goal in mind. You want your pictures to be properly exposed. Of course, you can fix an image in Photoshop if it’s too light or too dark, and shooting RAW definitely helps with that.
RAW Versus JPEG - Which one is right for you and why?
Most cameras today can shoot pictures in one of two main formats: RAW versus JPEG. The debate about which format to use is as old as digital photography itself and the internet is rife with articles, blogs, videos, and seminars illustrating the differences between the formats as well as opinions regarding which one to use. Ultimately the question of which is the correct choice becomes steeped in subjectivity.
Tips for Understanding the Lightroom Adjustments Panel
Lightroom can be an intimidating program. Even longtime users sometimes find themselves confused at all the options or unsure of exactly what to do to achieve a specific type of look for their pictures. Fortunately much of this can be mitigated by learning new things slowly and carefully, and taking the time to master just one new tool, option, or set of sliders at a time.
Why You are not in the Photography Business - You are in the People Business
I did photos for a high school senior recently who remarked that many of her friends were having their class pictures taken by one of the teachers at school. We chatted about this as I snapped away with my full-frame Nikon D750 and accompanying 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, a setup that delivers good results but often gets quite heavy and cumbersome after a long photo session. As we walked around and continued to take pictures, she told me how much her friends liked the teacher’s photos.
Using the Histogram to Take Better Pictures
You might have seen some articles here on Digital Photography School about using the histogram when editing pictures in Lightroom and Photoshop, but it can also be a very handy tool when you are out shooting images as well. Most cameras have the ability to show you the histogram when you review your photos on the rear LCD screen, and some even allow you to see a real-time histogram in Live View.
Speed up Your Workflow with the Accent AI Filter in Luminar and Batch Processing
It’s not uncommon for me to sit down at my computer with a memory card full of images and stare blankly at my ever-growing Lightroom catalog while my mind reels at the thought of editing each and every one of them.
How to Create a Delicious Blurry Bokeh Background in 4 Easy Steps
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How to Photograph a Solar Eclipse
On the afternoon of August 21, 2017, an event will take place in the United States that has not happened in almost 100 years. A total solar eclipse will be visible for a huge swath of the mainland population. While total solar eclipses aren’t an entirely uncommon phenomenon, it is highly irregular for one to be seen by such a large portion of the country and it won’t happen again anytime soon.
How to Learn Your Camera's Light Meter and Master Manual Mode
Most cameras have a few different shooting modes such as Automatic, Aperture Priority (A or Av), Shutter Priority (S or Tv), and Program. It’s not uncommon for people to take a majority of their photos in Automatic mode since it generally does a good job of getting decent results, though more advanced photographers will often use Aperture or Shutter Priority.
Back Button Focus: What is it and why should you try it?
What operation on a camera could possibly be more simple than pressing the shutter button to take a picture? There’s not much to it, really – you look through the viewfinder (or at the LCD screen on the back of the camera), press a button with your index finger, wait for the camera to focus, and voilà! You’ve got a photo. Well, as the popular saying goes, what if I told you there was a better way?
4 Secrets for How to Get Tack Sharp Photos
We’ve all been here before. You get home from an afternoon with your kids in the park, at the ball game, or even a formal photo session only to load your pictures on the computer and realize that many of them are fuzzy, blurry, or just plain out of focus. It’s a problem that has plagued photographers for years.
4 Key Lightroom Sliders That Will Supercharge Your Photos
Lightroom is kind of like a Swiss Army Knife or, better yet, a Leatherman Wave, in that it does so many things and is an invaluable program for many photographers–amateur, professional, or anywhere in between. Regardless of whether you’re the kind of person who prefers presets, or someone who likes scooting sliders, there are four options hidden in plain sight, right on the Basic panel of the Develop module, that can dramatically enhance almost any picture.
Total Beginner's Guide to Lightroom - Step by Step
I had tried Lightroom in the past, but always preferred using Apple’s Aperture photo editing program. But in the spring of 2014, when it was announced that Apple was no longer supporting Aperture, I decided to make the leap to Lightroom. At first I found it difficult to use and not really intuitive, but I soon found my way around and I was a Lightroom convert.
3 Tips to Help Keep Your Photography Passion Alive
Photography is like any other pursuit in life, in that it requires a great deal of time and practice. Unless you make a living as a professional photographer, you might find that you simply don’t have enough hours in the day to devote to taking pictures. With work, family, school, and plenty of other obligations in our lives, it’s easy to let photography take a back seat to everything else.
How to do Basic Processing on a Portrait in 5 Minutes Using Lightroom
There’s a Triangle of Service that you may have seen before which goes something like this: You have three options available (cheap, quick, quality) but can only choose two. I first saw this on a sign in an automotive shop years ago, but it applies in almost any professional setting where goods and services are produced for consumption, and is especially true in photography.
Which is right for you?
A Post By: Simon Ringsmuth Recently there has been a great deal of buzz in the photographic community regarding a few terms that might sound a little odd or strange, like “mirrorless” or “micro four thirds.” These refer to different types of cameras that might not be as popular as standard DSLR models right now, but many think are the future of photography.
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