Tag Archives: andy frazer

Commentary

Quick Friday Links and Notes

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Catching up on some links and thoughts I’ve been meaning to post during the past few days:

I see that Andy Frazer posted a piece about a book of photographs from ‘The Presidio’ by Charity Vargas and that Tim Baskerville has posted a longer piece on the same topic at his blog.

(Related to the above, I got the first notice yesterday of another night photography adventure at Mare Island Naval Shipyard scheduled for this Saturday… which included a deadline for participants to submit their application that had passed a week ago. I’m rather disappointed about that, as MI is one of my favorite locations for night photography, I’ve photographed there on several occasions with The Nocturnes, and I’ve been looking forward to going back soon. I’m hopeful that someone will reply to my email and let me know that I can still join them…)

Jim M. Goldstein posted a brief story about and links to photos of a sea otter doing something you don’t see every day and he has posted a new podcast of an interview with Aaron Johnson, the creator of the “What the Duck” photography comic.

One notion about “the right way to learn photography” that comes up a lot… and drives me crazy… is the claim that beginners should start with a single prime and stick to it if they want to understand composition and other important issues. The Readers Digest version of my thinking on this is that it was fine advice a few decades ago, but it is now obsolete. In any case, one of the arguments is that those who use zoom lenses instead of a prime are “lazy” and that they should “zoom with their feet.” I’ve been meaning to put together some photographs to go with a post illustrating the problems with this old-fashioned notion. I made the photos a week or so ago, and I hope to finalize this post before long.

Commentary, Photographs: Nature

A Bunch of Saturday Links

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This past week I came across a number of interesting links. I didn’t have time to post then, but now that it is the weekend and I have a bit of time, here they are:

  • John Paul Caponegro has been posting frequent updates about a photographic expedition to Antarctica at the John Paul Caponigro Blog.
  • Speaking of Antarctica, the Boston Globe has published a stunning series of photographs from Antarctica, made by a variety of photographers all over the continent.
  • Over at his blog Jim M Goldstein has reported on his hard drive disaster and his successful efforts to recover. He also shares some interesting and useful ideas about backup strategies.
  • Yosemite photographer – and author of a highly regarded book on photographing in Yosemite – has started a blog: Michael Frye Photography Blog. He has a lot of good information to share about photographing the Valley, and he has already published useful information about photographing the iconic Horsetail Fall in the next month or so.
  • Andy Frazer has offered another in his ongoing series of commentaries on night photographers, this time with words about and links to Aaron Hobson.

All good stuff!

Commentary, Equipment, Tests

Testing the Canon 5D II for Noise

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From Night Photography blog by Andy Frazer: More 5D Long Exposure Tests:

Seattle-based night photographer Brian Chapman has posted another set of 5D MkII long exposure tests, this time all taken at night. Although this set was taken at ISO 400, underexposed, and then pushed during RAW conversion, the results are very interesting.

Brian Chapman’s experiments are essentially a night photographer’s torture test – shooting at high ISO, underexposing, compensating in post, adjusting the image, and including areas of uniform color and luminosity. If you aren’t familiar with real life noise issues in digital photography you might think, “Ugh! Noise.” If you have done night photography and made prints for images like those in the test you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s pretty darn impressive!”

Equipment, Software

FocalWare Moonrise Calculator for the iPhone

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Andy Frazer links to a description of some software that is almost enough to make me buy an iPod Touch. (Not an iPhone – the monthly fee is too high for the way I use a phone. :-) FocalWare Moonrise Calculator for the iPhone.