The highest compliment I can pay a photographer goes something like this…
“I saw a photo on Facebook and instantly knew that it was yours.”
If you have a recognizable style. . . If you have developed and perfected a particular approach to photography over a prolonged period of time. . .If you have mastered a type of photography to the point where you are a true subject matter expert, then you have a body of work.
We had our first contest last year and gave away a bunch of gear to happy photographers. (Read about it here – https://picturemethods.com/2019/07/31/announcing-the-first-picture-methods-camera-giveaway/) Now we’re gonna do it again.
In our second gear giveaway, we’ve got great prizes for PictureMethods readers and listeners.
Music Is the Space Between the Notes
(Yes this is applies to photography too)
French composer Claude Debussy famously said, “Music is the space between the notes.” It’s a reminder that art sometimes relies on the space around it to shine.
Without that space, there is only noise, clutter, and chaos. Photographers who ascend to the heights of their craft intuitively know this, even if they cannot articulate why.
Platyball presents a new, revolutionary way to level. Featuring an inverted design, single handed ergonomics and a unique twist-action Arca compatible clamp, we have literally taken the classic tripod head design and turned it upside down. Redesigned from the ground up, the Platyball becomes an extension of your hand and allows you to quickly level your camera better than ever before. It is heavy duty and accurate to 0.5 a degree.
Why would you want manual focus? Any time you need precise control over focus, manual focus is your best bet. For me, a working example would be when I am using ProCapture to photograph birds landing on and taking off from a perch. I set a focus target on the perch where I think the bird will land (see illustration below.) I switch to manual focus and then aim at the target, lock in my focus and then I forget about it. I am going to be pressing the shutter button when birds enter the plane of focus. Since birds move quickly and change direction quickly, and since there is always a potential for the background to confuse the autofocus in those fast-moving situations, I prefer manual focus.
The software business is much harder than it looks. Developing photography software even harder still. But I am glad to say that with Luminar 4.1, I think Skylum has found a sweet spot between serving serious and casual photographers.
I have never in my life written a review of a cable. But there’s a first time for everything. I’ve reviewed hundreds of electronic products for various magazines, blogs, websites and more. But it never occurred to me – that spread out among the cameras, lenses, camera bags, tripods and more that I have reviewed, a 1.5 meter, USB cable would be something that got me excited. And then I found out about Nomad.
