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How to Read MTF Charts

When my article on field curvature was published a while ago, where I talked about how one could do a quick analysis of lens MTF data and determine if … [Continue Reading]

How to Read MTF Charts

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G for Wedding Photography

As promised in my Nikon D800 for Wedding Photography article that I wrote a couple of days ago, I am continuing the series and this time with the … [Continue Reading]

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G Weddings (10)

Which Nikon DSLR to Buy First?

Even though quite a few of our readers are beginner photographers, we often talk about things that, while simple to us, are much more difficult to … [Continue Reading]

Which Nikon DSLR to Buy First

Nikon D7100 Review

This is an in-depth review of the Nikon D7100 DSLR that was announced on February 20, 2013, along with the Nikon WR-1 wireless remote controller. … [Continue Reading]

Nikon D7100

Which Nikon Prime Lens to Buy First?

Buying a DSLR often means having several accessories to go with it, among which are lenses. But choosing your first lens isn't easy - there are so … [Continue Reading]

Which Nikon Prime Lens to Buy First?

Nikon D800 / D800E for Wedding Photography

While I had talked about my plan to use the Nikon D800 / D800E for wedding photography on our site a few times before, I never had a chance to post … [Continue Reading]

Nikon D800E Sample (21)

Nikon 18-300mm VR Review

Nov
29
2012
November 29, 2012
By 53 Comments

Overview

This is an in-depth review of the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G DX ED VR lens that was released in June of 2012 along with the Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR lens. Thanks to the popular demand of the 18-200mm and the full-frame Nikon 28-300mm VR lenses, Nikon decided to add another superzoom to the DX line. While the 28-300mm works well on both full-frame and cropped sensor cameras, its 28mm focal length is too long for general use on cropped sensor cameras (with an equivalent focal length of 42mm). Therefore, a redesigned version of the lens with wider field of view makes the 18-300mm VR a more attractive superzoom option for DX users.

Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

The Nikon 18-300mm DX is a variable aperture lens with a 16.7x zoom range for enthusiasts that need a single, “all-in-one” lens for everyday and travel photography. The variable aperture of f/3.5-5.6 (which changes from f/3.5 on the widest end at 18mm to f/5.6 when zoomed in), along with the lack of the gold ring on the front of the lens indicate that the lens is not on the same level as professional-grade constant aperture lenses in terms of optics, which is quite understandable, considering what it can offer in terms of zoom range.

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Nikon 18-300mm VR Review2.6666666666655Nasim Mansurov2012-11-29 22:22:51

Overview

This is an in-depth review of the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G DX ED VR lens tha…http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Filed Under: Cameras and Lenses Tagged With: , , ,

How to Use Prime Lenses in Low-Light Environments

Nov
27
2012
November 27, 2012
By 34 Comments

Fast prime lenses offer a number of advantages. They are great tools in many situations – whether you need discretion, low-light performance, portability or aesthetics, there’s a lens for every taste. However, these strong advantages also come with certain issues. When used wide-open (meaning at maximum aperture), many prime lenses render extremely shallow depth of field. In normal lighting conditions modern AF systems are capable of focusing accurately. In low-light environments, our DSLRs start to suffer, which reduces our chances of capturing sharp images. Because of this, missed focus is often mistaken for lack of general lens sharpness by beginner photographers. In this article, I will introduce you to several tips on how to use fast lenses in low-light environments, which hopefully will make you feel a little more confident when using them for your photography needs.

How to Use Prime Lenses in Low-Light Environments

Tips on Shooting in Low-Light Conditions

1) Calibrate Your Lenses

The first step you need to take in order to focus accurately in any light, is to make sure that your lens(es) can focus accurately in general. Front and back-focusing has become a very known issue recently. It has become especially visible with higher resolution sensors – they are most unforgiving if you miss focus even slightly. If you want to know why these issues happen, please read our How Phase Detection Autofocus Works article where we explain everything thoroughly. If you want to identify whether your gear has any of these problems, read our How to Quickly Test Your DSLR for Autofocus Issues article.

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Filed Under: Photography Techniques Tagged With: , , ,

Mastering Lightroom: How to Enhance Landscape Photos

Nov
26
2012
November 26, 2012
By 5 Comments

So, you’ve taken a photograph of a beautiful sunset or a peaceful, fog-covered valley. But something is missing in the picture – it just doesn’t look as good straight out of camera as the scene you were seeing at the time. By using simple Lightroom tools, such as Clarity, Graduated Filter and Curves, enhancing a landscape can be a very simple and fast process. While there are many advanced ways of processing landscapes, not all images require that much post-processing. In this Mastering Lightroom series article, I will show you how to quickly enhance landscape photographs using just Lightroom 4.

Mastering Lightroom: How to Quickly Enhance Landscape Photographs

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Filed Under: Post Processing Tagged With: , , , ,

Which Nikon Prime Lens to Buy First?

Nov
25
2012
November 25, 2012
By 89 Comments

Buying a DSLR often means having several accessories to go with it, among which are lenses. But choosing your first lens isn’t easy – there are so many choices available at so many different price points, which can make it quite confusing for a beginner to find a lens for a particular need. In this article, I will discuss several budget Nikon fast prime lenses most suitable as a first step into the fixed focal length world. Which Nikon prime should you buy first? Which one would make the most sense? You need a lens to stay on your camera for years to come, you need it to be good for family portraits and some occasional snaps. Or maybe even for your future photography business – who knows?

Which Nikon Prime Lens to Buy First?

Well, read on as I highlight the strengths of each affordable fast prime Nikon has to offer. I hope this article will help you with this tough choice most of us had to make at one point or another.

1) Why Buy a New Lens?

So you bought yourself a brand spanking new DSLR and now you want better pictures. Where do you start? When our images do not turn out good, we usually blame the camera, without even having the patience and time to learn how to use it. Do you find yourself using the camera in Auto mode all the time? If yes, then why don’t you first educate yourself and learn what those other “PASM” modes are for? We have plenty of beginner tutorials on this website and our photography tips for beginners page is a good place to start.

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Filed Under: Cameras and Lenses Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Prime vs Zoom Lenses

Nov
23
2012
November 23, 2012
By 8 Comments

In recent years, zoom lenses have been taking over the hearts of many working professional photographers as the more obvious, versatile choice. With the latest image sensors producing amazing quality, even at extremely high ISOs, it makes sense why more people have been leaning towards the convenience of zoom lenses. Zoom lenses have also gotten impressively sharp – most, even some cheap kit lenses, are sharp enough for day-to-day needs and also boast effective image stabilization systems. Some of the modern pro-grade lenses offer image quality that matches or even surpasses primes lenses in the same focal range. Despite all this, prime lenses haven’t really lost their desirability. Lens manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon have been rapidly updating and expanding their lens arsenal with new and better choices. Third-party manufacturers like Sigma are stepping into the game with confidence. Thanks to this, choosing between a zoom and a prime lens is now harder than ever. In this beginner guide, I talk about prime vs zoom lenses in detail, explaining their differences, along with some image samples.

Beginner Guide - Prime vs Zoom Lenses

1) What is a Prime Lens?

A prime lens is a lens with a fixed focal length (also commonly referred to as a “fixed lens”). What this means is that such a lens has a set angle of view which can not be changed – unless you move, you can not make the image appear larger or smaller within the frame. The only way of enlarging your subject and making it fill more of the frame is by physically getting closer to it. In turn, the only way to fit more into the frame is to step back.

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Filed Under: Cameras and Lenses Tagged With: ,

Black Friday Specials

Nov
21
2012
November 21, 2012
By 6 Comments

As we have promised earlier, we will be posting some Black Friday deals on Photography Life throughout this week. The best holiday season deals for photo gear will be posted on this page, so instead of writing separate posts and spamming your mailboxes (we have to respect our readers from other countries), we will be updating this post regularly. As usual, expect some crazy sales on all cameras, lenses and accessories this week, especially on Thursday and Friday. Some items will run out quick, so the ones that expire fast will be posted on the very top of the page.

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Filed Under: Photography News Tagged With: ,

Focus and Recompose Technique

Nov
19
2012
November 19, 2012
By 68 Comments

One of the requests we have been getting lately from some of our readers has been to provide more simple and easy to understand photography techniques. So far this year we have covered a lot of complex topics that are for more advanced users, thanks to such new fine tools as the Nikon D800. So for the remainder of the year, we decided to focus on photography basics again, covering simple and basic techniques and tips for beginners. In this article, I will go over the focus and recompose technique, which can be quite useful when photographing in various environments – whether shooting in low-light situations, or composing your shots with the subject in the corner of the frame. I personally use this technique quite a bit in event photography and it saved me a number of times when the light conditions were extremely poor and my camera could not properly focus.

Sample Image for Focus and Recompose Technique

1) What Recomposing Means

Before I talk about this technique, let me first explain what the word “recompose” stands for in photography. When you take a picture, you carefully frame your shot and place your subject somewhere in the frame before you take a picture. In other words, you compose the shot. Recomposing simply means framing your shot first (for example to acquire focus), then moving your camera to re-position your subject somewhere else in the frame.

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Filed Under: Photography Techniques Tagged With: , ,

Current and Upcoming Holiday Deals

Nov
18
2012
November 18, 2012
By 10 Comments

Starting from this week, many US retailers will be having special holiday sales for cameras, lenses, lighting equipment, various accessories and other photo gear. Instead of spamming our readers with constant deal alerts, I decided to create a single page where we will be hosting the best deals that are available as of now. The page is called “Current Deals” and it is accessible from the top navigation of this site, right next to “Contact Us”. So far I posted some great deals on the Nikon D600, third party lenses from Sigma and Tamron, Memory card deals and more.

I will be updating the page as new deals come in, although we will probably do a separate post on Black Friday deals when they become available. Check back more often this week, since you might miss some crazy deals that will only last several hours, until stock is all gone. This is that time of the year when it happens. If you miss the deals, next Monday is “Cyber Monday” and some additional deals might be available. I have gotten a number of inquiries from our readers, asking me whether the killer Photoshop deal Adobe had this summer is going to come back or not. To be honest, I do not think we will see another deal like that, but check back daily and hopefully there will be some good incentives from Adobe again.

Nikon D600 Deal

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Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With: , ,

Impact Two-Light Digital Light Shed Kit Review

Nov
17
2012
November 17, 2012
By 4 Comments

Do you need to take photos of small objects or products, maybe in order to sell something on E-Bay or Craigslist? You could make a white walled box out of paper or sheets, but doing so can be a bit of a hassle. What if you had a pre-assembled light shed that is easy to set up and quick to take down? The Impact Two-Light Digital Light Shed Kit is a ready to go kit to help you take product shots easier. Let’s take a look at it and its capabilities in more detail.

Impact 2-Light Digital Light Shed Kit

1) Product Information and Specifications

What’s Included:
1. Impact’s Extra Large Digital Light Shed is a high-quality, translucent cloth material housing for photographing small and medium products that can be lit with daylight, HMI, electronic flash, fluorescent, quartz and tungsten light sources.

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Filed Under: Flash Photography and Lighting Tagged With: ,

Lightroom 4.3 and Camera RAW 7.3 RC Update

Nov
16
2012
November 16, 2012
By 17 Comments

I typically cover Lightroom and Camera RAW updates pretty quickly, but this time I am a little late in the game. For those who have not yet updated, last week Adobe released the release candidate versions of Lightroom 4.3 and Camera RAW 7.3. If you own one of those new Macbook Pro laptops with a retina display, you will be happy with this Lightroom update, because it makes the interface more compatible and easier to read in the Develop module. Aside from the usual bugfixes, Lightroom got additional support for new cameras. If you are a Nikon D600 owner, you should update as soon as possible, since the release now has full support for the camera (Lightroom 4.2 only had partial or “beta” support for the D600). A long list of newly supported lenses (mostly Leica) is provided below.

Lightroom 4

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Filed Under: Post Processing Tagged With: , ,