Amazon’s Neewer Photo Deals

While getting the latest, shiny Canon or Nikon gear is nice, it's not always needed, especially for students who are still trying to figure out their style and what they'll use gear-wise. There's a few good brands like Neewer or Yongnuo that can give you a lot of bang for your buck, especially when it...

SD cards and the importance of write speeds

I thought this Shutterbug article by Ron Leach was a great explanation for students in our program; I've just talked about the different speeds of cards to my Intermediate class, as I showed them a medium format digital camera and what it needs to run well; while I use brands that display the speed on...

Too-Smart Phone Cameras

I thought this was a really interesting article, and something I've thought about a lot with some of the newer smart phone photos I've seen both in some of my classes and out on the webs; what smartphones do by default becomes what we assume is normal. For years I've been trying to retrain students...

Gnarbox 2.0

What is a Gnarbox? Gnarbox is a rugged backup device. It’s a tiny computer, that you control with your phone and can be used to back up your photos from memory cards, USB card readers or external drives. I first heard about it from this website: https://www.hdrshooter.com/2019/06/08/gnarbox-rugged-backup-device/ But it seems to have been updated with...

How to turn your camera into a webcam

Ok, so I don't think this is really crucial information, but it is fun information. It is possible, if you have a dslr or a mirrorless camera, to turn your camera into a webcam for zoom. Why on earth would you do this? Control of depth of field, less distortion of facial features, and maybe...just...

New (free) Raw Editor

Filmulator is an open-source RAW photo editor based on the process of developing film, and while far more limited than software like Lightroom or Capture One (it lacks tags, for example) its tone mapping algorithm is supposedly designed to be faster and easier to get a good result that mirrors the depth of color film.  Filmulator...