Recently, I had a chance to visit the beautiful country of Jordan, where I had a chance to stay for a whole month with my family. Although this was a family trip, I did not want to miss the opportunity to do some photography, so I grabbed a bag full...
Photographing a Blackbird Chasing a Hawk
If we're lucky from time to time we get the opportunity to capture an interesting bit of nature playing out before our eyes. I had one such opportunity on Saturday afternoon when I was able to photograph a blackbird chasing a hawk in flight. I was sitting at my kitchen...
Beginning Photography Equipment
Buying photography equipment for the first time is a daunting task. Useful guides exist to help beginners choose a good camera, but few newcomers realize that the camera itself is only the first of many pieces of equipment necessary to create a full setup for photography. In this guide, I will suggest a complete kit...
Macro Photography Lighting Tutorial
For our readers in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s that time of year again — days are hotter, nights are shorter, and the air is stuffier. With the changes in weather, two different creatures are beginning to emerge from their deep winter slumbers: the insect and the macro photographer. As macro photography grows...
Photographing Hummingbirds in Flight Without Using Flash
Most people who enjoy taking images of birds will attest to the fact that it can be especially challenging to photograph hummingbirds. These little 'pocket rockets' dart around constantly and very seldom stay in one place long enough for us to find them in our viewfinders, let alone actually get...
Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery Review
One of the worst feelings as a photographer is to realize that you have accidentally deleted one of your photos, and you have no way to recover it. Most photographers have horror stories about such situations — I once nearly lost all my photos from a trip to San Francisco...
Photographing Cormorants in Flight with Nikon 1
As part of the field work for my review of the Nikon 1 V3 I took some images of birds in flight under rather harsh winter conditions earlier this year. While I did have some success with the Nikon 1 CX 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 zoom lens I wasn't satisfied that I...
14-bit vs 12-bit RAW – Can You Tell The Difference?
12-bit image files can store up to 68 billion different shades of color. 14-bit image files store up to 4 trillion shades. That’s an enormous difference, so shouldn’t we always choose 14-bit when shooting RAW? Here's a landscape I snapped, then found out later I had shot it in 12-bit...
A Practical Approach to Landscape Photography on Vacation
My name is Ori Cohen, I am a semi-serious photographer, and a computer science PhD student. Last year my wife and I traveled to Switzerland, so I packed a Sony NEX-7, a Sony 16mm f/2.8, a Minolta 24mm f/2.8 attached to an LA-EA4, and a Haida ND1000 filter. I am...
Venus Optics KX800 Macro Flash Review
Macro photographers tend to struggle with two crucial variables when lighting their subjects. First, high-magnification macro photography usually involves apertures between f/16 and f/32. To use an aperture this small, you need a high-powered flash — especially if you want to use a diffuser. The second major issue is that...