Professional photographer Thom Hogan has decided to let you all take a peek inside his camera bag - find out what a professional typically carries with them.

“Articles showing what gear a pro is using are always popular with readers, but I’ve hesitating doing one on this site because my equipment since my switch to digital has been in an almost constant state of flux. With the appearance of the D2x, I find myself once again honing in on a more stable set of gear, so I’ve decided to let you take a look in the bag, complete with short explanations for many of the items I’ve chosen.”

Website: Thom Hogan - It’s in the Bag

O’Reilley Digital Media have published a great guide to getting the best performance out of Photoshop Elements 3.

“Nobody is neutral about Adobe’s decision to include the Organizer as part of Elements 3. It has some wonderful features, but if you already use another program for organizing your photos, or if you just want to be disorganized, you may find it vexing as all getout to have to use the Organizer. The good news is that while you can’t install Elements without the Organizer, you can hide it from Elements if you really want to, and run an Editor-only version of Elements.”

Website: O’Reilley Digital Media - Revving Up Photoshop Elements 3 for Windows

Luminous Landscape publish an article by Pete Myers titled “Making Images – Not Taking Images”, which I suspect you will either completely agree or disagree with…

“Taking an image and making an image are two completely different animals. What I often see in landscape photography are photographers taking beautiful pictures, and performing minimal work on the image in postproduction before printing the image. For these photographers, they believe that their work relies on mastering the tools at hand – the camera and lens – and using them to best advantage in the field – not working on the image in postproduction.

While many of these images are beautiful and compelling in their own right, I would suggest to these photographers that they have not availed themselves of the true magic of photography in the digital photographic era. We need not take beautiful pictures, we can make beautiful pictures – and the computer is the tool that lets us perform the magic.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - Making Images – Not Taking Images

“How to Establish a Personal Photographic Style” for a Specific Image with both Film and Digital Capture” is the ninth part of Alain Briot’s Aesthetics and Photography series over on Luminous Landscape:

“While visiting a street art show last year I was amazed at how many of the exhibiting photographers had merely copied the styles of famous photographers. I surmise they had done so in order to give a unique “quality” to their work and, perhaps, to allow them to stand out among the many other photographers who exhibit at art fairs. Among them I found several “Ansel Adams,” several “David Muench,” and at least one “Jerry Uelsmann.” The show being held in the Southwest there was a large number of landscape photographs on display. But if the subject had been portraiture, wildlife, travel photography or other mainstay photographic subject I believe I would have found a similar attitude in regards to other famous photographers. I do understand that this approach is legitimate from a legal perspective. After all these artists all create original works of art and do not sell copies of images created by the originator of the style they emulate. However, it is difficult (if not impossible) for me to remember these artists for anything but a pale copy of the masters they copy.”

Website: Luminous Landscape - How to Establish a Personal Photographic Style

Photo Tidbits has just published a detailed guide to creating infrared photos with your digital camera - apparently this is a technique best suited to cheaper digicams (found via StillJournal):

“Ironically, digital SLRs (except for the E-10/E-20 by Olympus) do not allow you to use the LCD monitor for picture preview and composition. You have to compose without the filter (using a tripod, of course), then put the filter on and shoot blind. If you have a digital SLR and intend working in infrared, you will be better off getting an inexpensive non-SLR model specifically for infrared. You need a small backup camera anyway.”

Website: Photo Tidbits - Infrared Photography With a Digital Camera

About Photography have a detailed look at taking care of your lenses, from a digital SLR point of view, explaining how best to change them, protect them and clean them.

“I’ve noticed that some photographers have far more trouble with dust on digital sensors than others. In part this seems to be due to camera differences, and in general CMOS sensors have seemed to give fewer problems than CCD devices. This could reflect differences in electrostatic build-up on the two types. How well the mirror physically seals the sensor may also be important, as well as heating effects in different areas of the camera during use which could cause air currents. But even photographers using the same camera model find marked differences, and my hunch is that it may be down to how we change lenses.”

Website: About Photography - Lens Care: Cleaning and Changing Lenses

Digital Outback Photo have published part 2 of a series of articles by Byron Jorjorian that will interest anyone who is interested in making some money from their photography by selling them as stock images.

“Consider telling your friends and relatives about your ventures. They may know art directors or editors in companies that need the type of images that you produce. Experts say that everyone knows at least 200 people. Those 200 people also know 200 people. That means by contacting the 200 people you know and asking for referrals, you have gained access to more than 40,000 potential photo buyers!! Naturally, they aren’t all clients but you only need a few for your business to begin moving forward.”

Website: Digital Outback Photo - Marketing Your Images Part 2

Luminous Landscape have today published a new article on the subject of RAW files by Michael Tapes. I personally shoot exclusively using the RAW format, “developing” my images in Capture One Pro.

“The JPEG shooter and the RAW shooter both capture RAW data. The JPEG shooter uses the camera as their RAW converter (developer) and is willing to give up the potential to do a better development in the future. The RAW shooter, saves the RAW data (and maybe a camera developed JPEG as well) so that the potential of the image can be maximized by using his or her RAW converter of choice. Or by developing a critical image on several RAW converters to find which one produces the best rendition of a particular image the best (Neither Capture One or Adobe Camera RAW, or others, will yield the best rendition on ALL images, so having more than one “developer” (RAW converter) is a common practice and a good idea. One main converter for best workflow and image quality, and another (or more) for those certain images that might need a different twist,  or turn.”

Website: Luminous Landscape -  Looking at RAW From a Different Perspective

This press release is obviously biased to Sandisk’s product range, but it does contain some useful tips for new digital camera owners nonetheless.

Sandisk Press Release

SANDISK OFFERS POST-HOLIDAY TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST OUT OF A NEW DIGITAL CAMERA OR CAMERA PHONE

Here Is What Every New Camera Owner Should Know About Selecting and Handling Flash Storage Cards

Sunnyvale, CA, Feb. 8, 2005 – With 3.8 million digital cameras sold in the U.S. during the December holidays, representing a 28 percent increase over the previous December*, plenty of people are now experimenting with their new cameras and learning about the use and care of flash memory cards. SanDisk® Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), the world’s largest manufacturer of flash memory card products, offers important advice for photo enthusiasts on how to get the best performance from their digital storage media.

Mike Johnston’s “Sunday Morning Photographer” column this week urges you to remove all those UV and Skylight filters from your lenses which you use to protect the front element - they could be causing flare in your photos…

“Here’s the news flash, though, although it’s not exactly news, since it’s been true for a good long while now: good modern lenses have very hard glass objectives, and/or scratch-resistant coatings. They make it difficult to scratch or mar a lens. With reasonable care, and perhaps a decent lens hood for physical protection if the objective is not recessed, there is almost no chance you will scratch the objective of your lens. Empirically, this is confirmed when you survey used lenses for sale. How many do you find that are scratched? How many eBay auctions for lenses don’t say “glass mint” or “glass perfect”? Don’t overestimate lens owners: if it were so easy to scratch up a lens, there would be a lot more scratched lenses out there than there are.”

Website: Sunday Morning Photographer: The Filter Flare Factor

About Photography has an interesting article that explains how you should read a photography book. “Surely I already know how to read a book?” I can hear you asking yourself. Trust me, it’s well worth the 10 minutes of your time that it will take to read.

“‘The Americans’ is a book perhaps best thought of as a film. In the edition I own it starts with an introduction by beat poet/writer Jack Kerouac; although of interest, it isn’t really essential to read before you look at the pictures, and the book for real starts with a page blank except for the single word ‘Photographs’. Turn over and you see the opening image, two people at separate windows and the cropped American flag, watching a street parade in New Jersey. They, like you, the reader, are looking at America and the Americans.”

Website: About Photography - Reading Photography Books

Shutterbug Magazine has a short guide to creating panoramic shots with digital cameras, concentrating on the technique rather than the particular stitching software package.

” If your camera captures only 1, 2, or 3 megapixels, there’s another benefit to this technique. Combining two or more frames to make a pano can significantly increase the file size, detail, and resolution, so you can make bigger prints. Furthermore, there’s the wide angle factor. At the wide angle end of the zoom on most consumer digital cameras, the angle of view bottoms out at the equivalent of a 35mm lens on a 35mm format camera. That’s not nearly wide enough for me. But by shooting two or more frames and combining them you can expand the horizontal angle of coverage, effectively creating a serious wide angle view.”

Website: Shutterbug - How To Shoot & Stitch A Panorama With Any Camera

Digital Outback Photo have published the second in a series of articles metadata and the role that it plays in photography. The latest article looks at IPTC metadata.

“IPTC metadata is a very important part of my workflow, since it allows me to specify my own metadata for my images and makes it easier to retrieve images once they are catalogued. As long as the individual software programs that you use in your workflow do not strip your IPTC metadata, there’s nothing that should prevent you from adopting IPTC metadata support, if you have not done so yet.”

Website: Digital Outback Photo - Using Metadata in Your Workflow: Part 2: IPTC

Kodak Press Release

Kodak’s Monthly Tech Brief Removes the Milli-Amp Mystery of Digital Camera Batteries

ROCHESTER, N.Y.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Feb. 2, 2005—Baffled by batteries? If you’re one of the millions of newcomers to digital photography, you may find more than a few choices when you’re looking for batteries to power your digital camera.

Kodak’s Monthly Tech Brief offers ideas to help power up your picture taking. Just as you choose a car or bus for a short trip, or a jet or train for longer travels, you can select batteries that meet different picture-taking needs.

If your digital camera uses AA-size cells, you can choose from several chemistries to meet different needs. Rechargeable Ni-MH AA batteries are your best overall value. In addition, Ni-MH cells are better for the environment and require no special handling.

In an earlier article, Luminous Landscape’s Michael Reichmann shared the contents of his camera bag with us as he prepared for a 2 week trip to Bangladesh. Now he looks back at what worked and what didn’t:

“I shot about 5,000 frames over 13 days. Because the 1Ds MKII produces roughly 15 MB raw files, this means that I ended up with around 75 GB of files by the end of the trip. And, since I always back everything up in the field, this means that I needed to have some 150 GB of storage with me. (The idea of having just one copy of once-in-a-lifetime shots is too scary. I always make field backups. After the card has been downloaded to a hard drive, I then make sure that it’s copied to a second hard drive before I go to bed at night, and that this second drive is stored and transported separately the whole time).”

Website: Luminous Landscape - Bangladesh: What Worked – What Didn’t

If you’ve already read my article on “Beating the Photography Blues” and are still searching for inspiration, then Photographic Magazine’s article “How to Stay Motivated in Photography” may be just what you need to get out there and taking some great shots.

“Buy an Inexpensive Camera
You may be out and about on the weekend with your prized camera. But what about the rest of the time, like a workday or chore time? You may not take your good camera to work or the grocery store. But what if you had a simple camera, inexpensive enough that you can slip it in a bag or purse? Then you’re ready for anything. You can make pictures during those brief moments when you’re early for a meeting, when you have 15 minutes to kill before the next event, or when you just have some free time and see something worth photographing.”

Website: Photographic - How to Stay Motivated in Photography: Seven New Year’s Resolutions

Ever wondered why some of your digital photographs have coloured fringes along the edges of your subject? PhotoReview.com.au explains that this is caused by one of two things; chromatic aberrations and blooming, and suggests a couple of software packages that will remove the unwanted effects (found via Digicamera.net).

“If the picture was captured on film, deciding what caused the coloured fringing is easy: only chromatic aberration can be blamed. It’s more difficult if the shot was taken with a digital camera because both blooming and chromatic aberration can create coloured fringes. Teasing out which one is relatively easy once you understand how the fringes are produced.”

Website: PhotoReview.com.au - Colour fringing explained

Following yesterday’s IDC report that the majority of you prefer to print out your photographs, USA Today is running an article urging you to do just that as the best way to preserve your memories.

“By now there are an estimated 54 million digital cameras in American hands, and digital sales have outstripped sales of film cameras for the past two years. An estimated 10 million digital cameras were shipped in the USA just for the holidays, with millions upon millions of pictures snapped at parties and family gatherings in the past month alone. As growing numbers of amateur photographers are discovering, digital technology allows you to delete an unwanted image while it’s still in the camera. Did Junior cross his eyes for the Christmas photo? No matter — just press a button and it’s gone, ready for a retake.”

Website: USA Today - Memories gone in a snap

KW Media Group and Adobe Systems Press Release

Free Photoshop Elements Training Session Offered by KW Media Group and Adobe

TAMPA, Fla.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Jan. 21, 2005—KW Media Group and Adobe Systems announced today that a free Photoshop Elements training session will be held Monday, Jan. 31st from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. at the Arlington Convention Center in Arlington, Texas. The Photoshop Elements 3 Summit, hosted by Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter and its companion website, http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com will cover the new features found in the latest edition of the popular Adobe Photoshop Elements image editing software and explore the variety of actions and techniques that it offers.

“This is our first in a series of nationwide Photoshop Elements Summits, and we’re excited about the opportunity to get to know America’s Elements users and offer them a training session specifically tailored to their needs,” said Dave Cross, editor-in-chief of Photoshop Elements Techniques.

Digital Outback Photo casts doubt on a photographic technique that I use all the time - select the centre autfocus sensor on my camera, point it at the part of the photo that I want to be in focus, then reframe the image as required. Sounds like a familiar technique that yo use too? Well, at least in Jonathan Wienke’s opinion, this will cause the focus to fall behind the subject, instead of on it, which is pretty critical in situations where you have a very shallow depth of field available. Wienke’s suggests that we should all use the autofocus points that is nearest to the subject instead to achieve correct focus, which does mean having to faff about with changing the autofocus point…

“The error introduced by focus-recompose is greater with shorter camera-to-subject distances. If you are using a telephoto lens and focus-recompose on a football coach on the other side of the field, the error introduced would only be a small fraction of an inch and would be dwarfed by many other factors such as subject movement, photographer movement, and the fact that depth of field at 50+ yards distance is usually at least a few feet; even an inch of error in that case is about as significant as a fart in a tornado. But when shooting portraits at close range with wide apertures and the resulting narrow depth-of-field, it can really cause problems.”

Website: Digital Outback Photo - Why Focus-Recompose Sucks