Good day everybody!
I hope this day was as good for you as it was good for me.

My photo was printed in National Geographic magazine,

Israeli August issue! I wanted to share my joy, and I’d also

like to explain how I did it. I imagine that this is a dream for many photographers.

As you know (or might guess) there is a National Geographic web site – www.nationalgeographic.com. At their web site they also have a section named “Your Shot”. In this section people from all over the world submit their photos. Each day twelve photos are picked to be displayed on the site that same day – they call it “The Daily Dozen”. But in addition photos that editors like the most are picked and printed in the printed version of National Geographic magazine.

Since many countries translate National Geographic magazine to their language, they also add to each issue some articles regarding the local country. In that section they sometimes also print photos from local photographers with a few lines about the photographer and the photograph.

I created an account at National Geographic Your Shot section and uploaded my photo there. It turned out that they liked it in NG headquarters in Washington and also in Israel, contacted me and asked for a little info about me and the photograph. Then after a month or two – voila! my photo was printed, and I also received a free issue of that month.

Now I will show my photo (show off!!!) and describe how I shot it. First of all here is the photo:

I took this photograph about 40 minutes after the sunset, and in addition I was using polarizer to reduce the light even more. Actually polarizer created an additional effect – it made colors more saturated by eliminating the reflections (or anything that was left of them after the sunset). Of course I was using a tripod and a remote shutter cord to eliminate camera shake. The exposure time was 25 seconds and the aperture was f7.1. I used wide angle lens (Canon 10-22mm) at its almost widest angle (12mm).

The interesting thing about this photograph was that during the 25 seconds of exposure many people went by, but they are not seen in the photo! It was because people were too dark and stayed too short time inside the frame to get “noticed” by the camera. The only person that is visible is the one that was sitting during all that time on the bench.

I shot several photos at that location slightly changing the composition. I had a shot without the rail in front. That shot was “divided” in two sections – the sea, and the boardwalk. I felt that it was out of balance, and searched for something to balance the photo. The rail across the bottom of the photograph provided this balance creating the final shot I was satisfied with.

You can see more photographs from that day on my web site where I display my work: IsraNature in the album named “Sea World”. Well what the heck – click here to go directly to that album. I recommend watching all the photos on full screen (there is a button at lower right corner).

And last but not least here is the link to the National Geographic “Your Shot” section: Your Shot

Popularity: unranked [?]

I decided to write this review since I have this bag for more than 7 months now and have been using it a lot. Before I bought it, like most of us do, I searched the net for reviews and thought I’ve got it completely figured out. I was sure back then that this bag is exactly what I need. And now, after months of experience with it I would like to share my conclusions and hope they would help some of you to make the right decision.

Buying Kata 3n1 (20) bag my requirements were:

1. I like to hike a lot, mostly one-day hikes, and I always want my camera with me. So I needed my photo bag to sit comfortable on my back.

2. Usually I take three lenses on a hike with me, all of them being Canon lenses: EF-S 10-22, EF24-70 2.8L, and EF70-300 f4-5.6. I needed my backpack to have room for these lenses, their hoods, 40D camera body, two polarizing filters and some additional stuff.

3. All the equipment should be properly stored but easily accessed when I need it.

4. Sometimes I take a tripod with me.

5. I also wanted a very durable bag that would provide a proper protection for everything I put in it since I am not so gentle with my equipment (except lenses of course!!!).

So did Kata 3n1 20 bag do the job?

Let’s go over each requirement and see:

1. This bag has very versatile shoulder straps. You can unclip each strap at its base and clip it to the other side making it possible to carry the backpack in three different positions: the usual backpack position, the sling position, and the x-position.

I tried all of them during my hikes and here are my conclusions:

The usual backpack position is the most comfortable one. I could hike for hours on rough terrain with backpack sitting comfortably on my back. The X-position is not very comfortable. I couldn’t walk long distances using it because x-shaped straps started pressing on my neck and shoulders and I had to pull them to the sides with my hands. Also the sling position, which is very convenient when you want to quickly get your camera, is not very comfortable. I couldn’t hike long distances using this position – the weight on a single shoulder (and neck) was too big. I think that if your gear doesn’t weight as much as mine, then you could use the sling position, but since I had to carry pretty big weight I didn’t find it useful.

2. I have enough room for all the equipment described above and I even have some free space left. So this requirement was fully satisfied.

3. But having this equipment organized conveniently is whole another story. The easiest thing is to get the camera with attached lens out of the side opening (the bag has openings from both sides so you can choose which side you want to use). But when you want to reach other lenses, it is not so easy. You have two options: a. To try and pull the lenses through the side opening and this is pure hell. And b. To take the backpack off your shoulders, put it on the ground (or table, or something), open the central compartment and take out what you need. Even the second option is not as easy as it seems since the central compartment can’t be fully opened – you can see it from the photo:

So when I put a lens in the far end of the bag then it won’t come out as easily as I would like it to. I have to say that the top compartment is very good. I like the way it opens and although it seems pretty small, I manage to put there quite a lot of stuff. I also like the handle on top. Two small side pockets on the outside are good for ipod, filters and cleaning cloths.

4. There is nothing on this bag that allows to attach a tripod, and this is too bad. If it had only a little something that I could use to securely attach a lightweight tripod, I would be a much happier man

5. This bag is very and I mean VERY durable. Its build quality is excellent. Much thought was put in all the weak elements, and in this bag they are very strong. All the gear is perfectly protected inside the bag, and it also has a rain cover. I took it on several hikes during rain and all the equipment stayed dry. I couldn’t say enough good things about the materials and the build of this bag and I am not going easy on it when I use it!

Conclusion

Pros:

• Excellent build quality.
• Comfortable when carrying it as a usual backpack.
• Very convenient side openings.
• Great top compartment.
• Good equipment protection.

Cons:

• The main compartment can’t be fully opened, which makes it difficult to access gear.
• If your equipment is heavy, then you can only use this bag as a backpack and not as sling.
• Impossible to attach tripod.

All that said, I am still using this bag and probably will use it for a while.

After publishing this article as you can see from the comment below, I was contacted by Doug Feldner, the product manager for the Kata line in the US. He told me something very interesting! There is a tripod holder for the Kata 3n1 series! When I try it I sure will write a few lines about it here.

Popularity: unranked [?]

To post-process or not? This is a somewhat philosophical question. It is also a very controversial one. Some people claim that photo should be seen the way it gets out of the camera without any adjustments. Others do adjustments freely and sometimes even take it to the extremes. So what is the right thing?

Any photographer, even an amateur one like me, has an opinion on this issue. And here is mine.

I think that even if you don’t adjust anything after downloading your photo from the camera, it is already not faithful to reality. It doesn’t have “real” colors or the “real” white balance. That photograph looks as your camera “saw” it considering the settings you set. There is no such thing as one and only reality. So even by the action of pressing the shutter-release button you are already making adjustments to the reality.

Another thing is that even before you press the shutter-release button, when you building your composition, you are already adjusting the reality by making the viewer of your photographs see things the way you want.

Then what is the difference between these “adjustments” and adjustments in Photoshop like contrast, levels etc.? I don’t think there is a big ideological difference. In my opinion you are free to make any post-processing you like as long as you manage to convey the meaning, the idea, the story of your work to the viewer – just like any other art.

Of course there may be adjustments or extremes that people go to in Photoshop that I don’t like. For example – any kind of fraud, I mean editing the original photograph by changing or adding (or detracting) some features in it, and then saying that this is how it was from the beginning.

But if you present your photo as work of art, then personally I relate to it only in this way, and examine only the final result whether do I like it or not.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Many advanced amateur photographers are familiar with notion of f-stops and shutter speeds, and also know that there are many different combinations of f-stop+shutter speed that allow for the same amount of light to hit the sensor of the camera (or the film). But there is a catch involved in it that I would like to focus your attention on in this article.

I will say it right away that for this article to be of any use to you, you have to know what is f-stop, shutter speed, and exposure. But even that said I’ll start with a little theory, which may serve just as reminder for most of the readers (myself included) but for beginner photographers it might be even something they didn’t know before.

There are many different combinations of f-stop and shutter speed that represent the same exposure, so for the same lighting conditions you can choose for example f/11 with 1/15s for correct exposure, but you can also choose f/2 with 1/500 for exactly the same exposure. Of course there are substantial differences between these two settings, which you also have to take under consideration, but both of them allow for the same exposure.

So what exactly are the combinations of f-stop and shutter speed that result in the same exposure?

The answer is pretty simple, but with a little twist. First – the answer. There are 9 full f-stops, and also 9 common shutter speeds (actually there are few more, but here I’ll concentrate on these). So if your correct exposure consists from a certain f-stop and a certain shutter speed from these nine, then to receive exactly the same exposure with different f-stop and shutter speed combination you’ll have, for example, to set one f-stop above your current one, and one shutter speed below your current one, thus you will close your aperture so that less light will hit the sensor, but at the same time you’ll prolong the time that the sensor is exposed, so eventually the same amount of light will hit the sensor. This way you can continue changing the f-stop/shutter speed combinations but still have the same exposure.

And now the twist:

In the modern cameras you can actually set more f-stops and shutter speed than these 9. Between the full f-stops there are now intermediate f-stops, and this fact confused me because now when I changed to the next f-stop I didn’t know whether it was a full one or an intermediate, same thing being with shutter speeds. So having modern digital camera denied me this knowledge of getting the same exposure due to having intermediate settings.

What are original full f-stops and shutter speeds are then? Well, here they are for your (and mine) convenience:

f-stops: f/1.4  f/2 f/2.8  f/4  f/5.6  f/8  f/11  f/16  f/22

shutter speeds: 1/1000s  1/500s  1/250s  1/125s  1/60s  1/30s  1/15s  1/8s  1/4s

And the f-stop@shutter speed combinations that will result in same exposure are:

f/22@1/4  f/16@1/8  f/11@1/15  f/8@1/30  f/5.6@1/60  f/4@1/125  f/2.8@1/250  f/2@1/500  f/1.4@1/1000

Just to make it more clear – if you set your camera to automatic mode, take a shot and see that it used f5.6 f-stop with 1/60s shutter speed, you then can switch to manual mode and set f/4 with 1/125s and also have properly exposed photograph. Of course that by changing from f/5.6 to f/4 you reduced your depth of focus, and also shutter speed of 1/125s will make it harder to create blurring effect, but about these implications of different f-stops and shutter speeds I will write in another article. And until then – take care!

Popularity: unranked [?]

In one of my recent articles I wrote about HDR photography (you can read it here). So I learned about HDR, and I played with it, and everything seemed pretty clear to me. Of course there are endless variations that can be done with HDR, and only your creativity is the limit, but during my explorations I kept stumbling into these strange words: “Pseudo HDR”. Most of the photos I saw under this title looked pretty much as ordinary photos, but some of them looked like real HDR, and if I wouldn’t see that “pseudo HDR” phrase, I would have thought that it was usual HDR.

So this got my curiosity up and running, and finally I found out what the words “Pseudo HDR” mean. I want to share this knowledge, and in order to do that I have to start with something else.

RAW camera format

Those of you who have advanced point-and-shoot cameras or any type of SLR camera know that you can choose that your camera will save the photos you shoot in RAW format (there is usually a choice between JPEG of different qualities and RAW).

When you choose to shoot in JPEG, it means that when you click on shutter release button, light comes through the lens and hits the digital sensor. Then the information from the sensor is processed by the internal computer of the camera according to the camera settings (choice of white balance for example), compressed to JPEG file format, and finally saved to the memory card. Now, and this is important, during the JPEG compression phase, some information that was recorded from the sensor during the shot is LOST forever. Because of this loss, when you process the image in photo-processing software, you are less flexible in the adjustments that you can do to the photograph without compromising its quality.

This is why there is RAW format. RAW format means that all the information that is recorded by the digital sensor of your camera during the shot is saved without any compression or processing by the camera’s internal computer. When you process RAW file in your favorite photo-processing software you can apply pretty radical adjustments to your photograph without compromising its quality.

One of such adjustments is exposure. You can pull up your exposure by about 2 stops without compromising image quality (well, maybe I exaggerated a little with two, but 1.5 for sure). I wrote especially about the adjustment of exposure because it is critical for the explanation of the Pseudo HDR, but another generally very important adjustment is white balance, so even if you set the white balance setting completely wrong during the shot, you will be able to change it during the processing.

Note: In order to process RAW files you will probably have to install special software (however in Photoshop there is a built in plugin – so that when you open a RAW file you will automatically get a RAW processing window. You can also process RAW files in Lightroom, and almost certainly in Picasa). For example Canon supplies RAW processing SW for free when you buy a camera.

And now I finally get to the point:

Pseudo HDR

Pseudo HDR photo is made from a single RAW file. As I said you can change the exposure settings of the RAW file without compromising on image quality. So basically you open the same file two or three times, each time setting different exposure, revealing different areas. Thus in low exposure you have good highlights, and in high exposure you have good and visible shadowed areas. Then you merge this to a single pseudo HDR image. You see, it is not a real HDR image, you didn’t take three different photos taken with different exposure settings, but you achieve similar effect.

Of course there are some drawbacks. For example if the scene you shoot has very deep shadows and very bright highlights, then single RAW photo just won’t do it because there is a limit to how much exposure range you can pull from a single photo.
So pseudo HDR is mostly used when you only have to make slight adjustments to the picture. For this article I tried to take Pseudo HDR to extremes and here is what came out of it.

This is the photo without any adjustments and exposure changes ( shot in RAW format):

And here is what came out after processing this single shot using exposure and other adjustments:

You can see that in the final photo shadowed areas are more clearly visible, and hilights (the sky) are not burned. I created this pseudo HDR photo in Photoshop by myself and didn’t use automated programs such as Photomatix.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Recently I was browsing some photos of a photographer I liked and saw this beautiful photo of waterfall with smooth water flowing between the rocks. Then in the comments below I saw a question from someone asking how to make this “smooth water” effect. There was no answer in the comments.

Though I think that many even beginner photographers know answer to this question I decided to write here a short explanation on the subject and also provide additional useful info that I learned while trying to achieve this effect.

The “Smooth Water” effect

The effect of smooth water is achieved by using long exposure. The longer you set the exposure (starting with about 1/4s) the smoother the water will be. It happens because water doesn’t stay still like the surrounding rocks, but constantly flows, so during all that time that your shutter is open, the water slightly “changes” its appearance many times, which results in the smooth water effect. But it is not always simple to achieve this effect:

First of all you absolutely need a tripod. You need everything else besides water to remain sharp, but if you will hand-hold your camera and shoot with long exposure setting, everything will be blurred due to camera shake. If you don’t have a tripod you can try placing your camera on a rock (or anything that doesn’t move) and composing your shot from there, though it won’t give you the freedom of the tripod.

Additional problem that can be a serious one – if you are shooting on bright sunny day, there may be too much light for long exposure that will result in burned photos. So you are stuck with either not smooth water or a burned photograph. What can you do in such situation?

• First – check your ISO settings and make sure that you are on the lowest ISO possible in your camera.

• Second try closing the aperture as much as possible – lets say f22 (maybe less if you see that its enough).

• Third (not always an option) wait for some clouds to block the sun.

If nothing helps then, in order to achieve the smooth water effect you will have to put filter on your lens to reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor. There are two types of filters that I use: Neutral Density (ND) filters and Polarizing filter.

Neutral Density filters have different densities and they can reduce the amount of light entering the camera by 1, 2, or 3 stops. By using them you’ll actually make a bright day darker. The combination of ND filter, small aperture, and low ISO should do the job.

Polarizing filter (or simply polarizer) is widely used in Landscape photography. There is more to polarizer but now what matters is that this filter reduces the amount of light entering the camera by about 1.5 stops, thus acting like ND filter in this aspect. If the only filter you have is polarizer then put it on if see if this would be enough light reduction to use long exposure.
You can find more useful info about polarizer at Great Landscape Photography

So as you can see though the explanation of “smooth water” effect is pretty simple, it is not always easy (or even possible) to achieve without proper tools.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Why photographers use tripods? Well, the answer to this question is pretty simple – to prevent camera shake as much as possible and create sharper photos.

Beginner photographer might think that tripod is necessary only for long exposures, but it is not exactly so. The longer your focal length, the more sensitive you get to camera shake. For example if you shoot with wide angle lens (I am intentionally taking this to extremes) with shutter speed of 1/60s you will get pretty sharp photo, but if you’ll take your telephoto lens, lets say 300 mm (without image stabilizer) and shoot with the same shutter speed, most of the chances that you’ll get a very blurred result. But consider also this – most professional landscape photographers use tripod even when they are shooting landscapes in bright light using wide angle lenses! So in order to get tack sharp photos you must use tripod.

How to use tripod correctly

Though it seems pretty simple – just put your camera on a tripod and start shooting, there are several things you need to know that will help you get good results from shooting with tripod.

1. Use Manual Focus.

When you hold camera in your hands and shoot, you can always press the shutter button half-way to focus on your subject, then recompose, and take a picture with correct focus. But when you shoot with tripod this simple task gets a little bit more complicated. So what you should do is use auto focus to focus on your subject, then switch to manual focus, recompose according to your intentions, lock the tripod and then shoot. Since you switched to manual focus, it won’t change when you press the shutter button after recomposing. Of course that you can always use only manual focus, making this advice irrelevant.

2. Use Manual Shooting Mode.

Same as with focus, when you shoot handheld, you can take light metering from the area that you want to, then lock exposure, recompose, and shoot. Using tripod you’ll have to first take light metering from the desired area, then set shooting mode to manual and set the correct exposure according to metering. After this you can recompose and shoot.

The following tips will help you get even sharper photos when shooting with tripod

3. Use Cable Release.

Cable release is simply cable with a button. You attach it to your camera and instead of pressing the shutter release button on your camera, you press the button on the cable. This prevents the camera shake caused by your finger pressing the shutter release button.

4. Use Mirror Lock.

In SLR cameras there is a mirror lock option. For those who doesn’t understand what it means, I’ll shortly explain. When you look through the viewfinder of your SLR, you see everything through the lens. Although you must have noticed that actual position of the lens is much below the viewfinder. In other words – viewfinder and lens are not in the same plane. So how can you look into the view finder and see through the lens? Thats right – there are mirrors involved. There is a mirror that you can see when changing lenses, it is at 45 degree angle to the lens. This mirror is reflecting everything the lens “sees” up, to the viewfinder (there is also a pentaprism involved which enables you to actually see through the viewfinder, but that’s not important right now). When you press the shutter button this mirror goes up, and then shutter opens to expose the sensor (or film). I bet you have noticed that when you press the shutter button, you can’t see nothing in the viewfinder – it is because the mirror is up.

And now to the sickest part – camera shake caused by the mirror movement! When you press the shutter release button, this mirror goes up, and this movement also causes camera shake! Though this shake might not seem to be a significant one, it exists. In order to prevent it there is a mirror lock option. This option first locks the mirror in the up position (when you don’t see nothing in the viewfinder) and only after the mirror is locked the shutter is released.

5. Turn off Image Stabilizer.

If your lens has image stabilizer you should turn it off when shooting with tripod.  Image stabilizer  is very good when shooting hand-held, but on a tripod it is of no use since there is no camera movement. Image stabilizer engine can even cause some shake thus making images less sharp.

So as you can see, shooting with tripod is not as trivial as it might seem at first, but also not that hard when you know how to do it.

Popularity: unranked [?]