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Did You Know?
Pittsburgh in the Winter – Dinosaurs!
If you have ever been to Pittsburgh you've probably seen this dinosaur standing guard outside of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Say hello to Dippy the dinosaur, named after the species Diplodocus Carnegii. You may also recognize the name "Carnegii", the species was actually named af[...]
Understanding Your Histogram
If you aren't taking advantage of your cameras histogram then you are leaving too much to chance. The histogram allows you to tell if your photograph is over or underexposed in a way that viewing it on your tiny little LCD screen just can't. If you learn how to use your histogram you wont ma[...]
How to Clean Your Camera’s Image Sensor
Image Source: Wikipedia If you've owned your camera for a while now and have interchangeable lenses there is a pretty good chance your sensor needs cleaned. A great way to check is to slap on your zoom lens and zoom all the way out and fire off a shot or two. When your lens is zoomed out it r[...]
What is Bracketing?
-2 Stops (Source: Wikipedia) +2 Stops (Source: Wikipedia) +4 Stops (Source: Wikipedia) Bracketing Bracketing is a term you should familiarize yourself with as you learn to shoot manually with your camera. It will prove invaluable when you are shooting something you'd really like to get rig[...]
How to use the White Balance Setting on your Camera
Left: Unbalanced Right: BalancedSource: Wikipedia What is White Balance? Humans have been equipped with amazing eyes. You can literally detect one single photon of light with your little peepers. Amazing, right? The sun shines a spectacularly bright blue (ya, not yellow) while incandescent l[...]
How to Shoot a Portrait
Taking a portrait shot can be tough when you factor in squiggly kids, unpredictable lighting, rouge bystanders photo bombing your shot, and all the other uncontrollable things that can happen in the millisecond it takes to snap a shot. Here are some tips to capture some great portraits. Dis[...]
What’s the “P” Setting on Your Camera?
Exposure Modes So by now if you've been following this site you should be familiar with the three most popular exposure modes: Shutter Priority, Aperture, and Manual. One of the less talked about and consequently less known about modes is the Program Mode. That's the P on your control dial. [...]
What is Light Metering?
Light Metering Modern Cameras use reflective meters that measure the light reflected off the subject your about to photograph and determines, based on a database of built-in images it uses for reference, what type of scene your shooting and adjusts your exposure accordingly. Although with moder[...]
What is Shutter Priority Mode?
Shutter Priority We talked about manual mode, we talked about aperture priority mode and now it's time to talk about shutter priority. I'll keep it pretty short since it's pretty straight forward. With everything else, you're going to want to throw your camera into shutter priority mode and e[...]
Most Important Accesory for any Photographer
"Say Cheese" You guessed it! A tripod. Wait, you didn't guess a tripod? Well we are going with tripod. There are hundreds of different types of tripods out there so I'm going to focus on just a couple and let you figure out what works best for you. First, why is the tripod so important?[...]
The Difference Between RAW and JPEG
Whether you have been taking photographs for a few days or a few years you have probably already encountered the debate regarding the format you should use when taking pictures, RAW vs. JPEG. Each person should decide for themselves so before you cave to peer pressure lets learn a little about[...]
What is Aperture Priority Mode
A is for Aperture Priority Believe it or not, the A on your cameras selection wheel does not stand for Awesome. It stands for Aperture Priority mode. That's the mode where the camera selects the shutter speed depending on what conditions your trying to shoot in and you as the photographer get[...]
Where did the Word Photography Originate
Photography has a long interesting history dating as far back as 1826 when the first permanent photograph was taken by a guy named Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Later in 1839 the word photography was coined by Sir John Frederick William Herschel Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. I'm kidding, his name was[...]
How to use your Circular Polarized Filter
Photo Courtesy of Amazon So you just ordered your B&W Polarizer from Amazon and you are confident you can master this bad boy by slapping it onto your lens and snapping photos like never before. Not so fast. Lets go over a few pointers so that you can get the most out of your filter and[...]
Camera Lens Filter Guide
For all intensive purposes we are going to briefly talk about six different types of filters available for your camera. The filters are used to change the tone and mood of your photographs enhancing the image in some way that could be done post processing with photo shop or similar program. Th[...]
