Kia ora tatou: I know I have banged on about tripods ad nauseam, but I feel it is time to visit this again, having been at a workshop where the $80 tripods which are a chiropractor’s best friend were present. A good tripod is indispensable for a photographer.End of story. If there is one piece [...]

ETTR-new thoughts Kia ora tatou: in all my workshops which deal with camera craft and postproduction, I’ve taught the technique of ETTR, or expose to the right. In the process I’ve made a number of assumptions which I assumed were correct, but now I’m beginning to rethink those and I want to share those thoughts [...]

For as long as I’ve been involved with photography, I’ve subscribed to the edict (and taught it) that you should have a filter on the front of the lens. Until now. After a conversation with a camera technician in South Africa, I’m rethinking the whole thing. I’m coming to the conclusion that they aren’t necessarily [...]

  Kia ora tatou: I guess it is every photographer’s nightmare; you’re a stranger in a strange land, dependent on your equipment, and your key asset (CAMERA!) fails  on you. What do you do?  I was to find out.  Canon advertise the 1Ds Mk III as having a shutter cycle life of around 300,000. Certainly, with [...]

Kia ora tatou: I promised to lift this post from deep down in the archives, dust it off and repost it. Think of it a more as a consciousness-raising exercise than a 20 000 word treatise on the subject. There are plenty of how-to links on the Net. Look here and here. Oh, and here. [...]

Over the year I get to try a lot of software in the digital imaging and related computer area. Some is good and some unashamedly awful. I felt like having a small ceremony to give an award of no value whatsoever as a way of celebrating the best and worst in a few simple categories. [...]

DNG vs RAW vs Jpeg-the mission continues… Kia ora: in a post not long ago, I pointed out that sooner or later, I would respond to Mary Jo’s request for some sort of statement on the question of the DNG format and why you might want to use it instead of Raw or JPEG format. [...]

There’s so many different worlds So many different suns And we have just one world But we live in different ones -Dire Straits The most important skill of the photographer is to know how to see. Yes, one sees through one’s eyes, but the same world seen through different eyes is no longer the same [...]

Kia ora tatou: Over the last few months, as I have travelled, I have spent time amongst Maori communities, including Ngati Whakaue, Tuhoe and Taranaki. I have come to realise that for them their treasures are not so much material as historical. Their stories are what they really treasure, for the histories that surround them [...]

Kia ora tatou: A number of you sent in comments pointing out how you like looking at the images I make with one or two suggestions that I talk about how I go about doing so. Blush. Gulp. Well OK. Assuming that, I will put up a few of my own and talk about what [...]

Kia ora tatou: It’s time to talk about that photographic add-on that so many of us take for granted, that rather ugly accessory that most of us buy last, perhaps as an afterthought, maybe even with a touch of guilt, the contraption which often rattles around in the boot of the car gathering dust. Yes, [...]

Kia Ora tatou: The holidays are a great time to take a break, sit back and reassess all sorts of things. Photography is no exception. There is no question that digital has matured as a technology. Just look at what is now available in camera stores (and what isn’t). I remember about 12 years ago [...]