Comments on: DIY Bugs

By: Rami

Rami — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:15:07 +0000

I am a sports photog for a college newspaper and even in sports I almost always try to get that one perfect shot using timing. While I have my camera in burst mode the first shot usually comes out the best. I hear the cameras around me doing similar things. Shooting 2 or 3 shots is about the maximum that most professional sports photogs take in a burst. After that the action is over and you waste both battery and memory.
My other recommendation to both beginners and moderate photogs is to turn your camera on in manual mode whenever possible and practice that way. Computers have come a long way but the human eye through a view finder is still a much more powerful tool.
Best of luck to all of you out there and just stick to it!

By: Fred

Fred — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:56:43 +0000

You should also recommend that beginners buy the best tripod they can afford. Their photos will be noticeably better.

Especially since they’ll still be using it in 10 or 15 years (if not 25).
Getting a cheap and nasty tripod makes absolutely no sense. Happens too often unfortunately.

And of course, taking lots of pictures never really increased the odds of getting a good one. Except maybe by accident.
Burst is fine for fast action (I use it a lot when shooting wild animals because I know I won’t always have the time to react). Same with sports I suppose (I don’t do sports photography).

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:14:08 +0000

This is a really interesting articles, I had never thought of it this way, thanks for sharing.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:22:43 +0000

This may come off as overly critical, but the article reminds me of the old Kodak books; Taking Better Pictures, which were better written. This article may be helpful to rank beginners, but some of it is too simplistic or just plain wrong. For example, instead of recommending cleaning a lens with a tissue, which is made from wood byproducts, why not recommend a good lens cleaning system, like the Lenspen or Giottos Rocket Blaster Lens Cleaning System?

As for getting a sharp picture, I think it is poor to recommend that people take a lot of pictures in burst mode in hopes of getting one good one. I used to shoot a burst of images then have 12 poor photos – none usable. Why not recommend that you prefocus on where the main subject will be then shoot at the peak of action? Too many beginners today think taking MORE pictures is a suitable substitute for taking BETTER pictures.

You should also recommend that beginners buy the best tripod they can afford. Their photos will be noticeably better.

As for keeping the camera still which is normally good advice, why not describe shooting options, like panning the camera to follow the action for a blurred background to accentuate the action?

Nonetheless , I commend you for trying to help beginners. I hope my critique is helpful in that effort.

By: Ilan

Ilan — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 15:23:13 +0000

Some of these mistakes can be pretty easily fixed if using RAW (of course, that mostly true to the DSLR crowd)

This photo had the same problem as the second example in the post – http://www.ilanbresler.com/2009/05/what.html – The fact that I shoot in RAW helped me to “save” the skies.

I processed it in two ways – One, leaving the street lit and the skies ‘burned’
Two – Dark street but ’saved’ skies. And combining the two for the final result.