Guest blogging for Gotsaga

I was asked to do a guest blogpost for Gotsaga about 5 places to visit in Gothenburg, so i accepted the challenge and created this post:

http://www.gotsaga.com/detailsaga/top-5-best-places-and-things-to-do-in-gothenburg-sweden/4416

Gotsaga is a great resource for discovering new places to visit when traveling or if you want to rediscover your own city!

Links to visit: http://www.gotsaga.com/ http://twitter.com/GotSaga, http://twitter.com/PatriciaVance

Thanks again to Gotsaga for the guest post opportunity :)

A better way of finding your next lens.

I was thinking about when i should get a new lens and it struck med that there is a way that works great, is cheaper then getting it at the store and allows you to try it out before making a decision, namely look around your network of photographer friends and see of one of them have a lens that they want to sell.

This method not only works great, it also helps your photographer friend to find a quick buyer which enables them to try a new lens at the same time!

Depending on the level of friendship you can get a great price and at the same time help out the economy of your friend.

This is by the way the method i have been using to get to my current lens setup and i love how i was able to make my friend happy by helping him/her out with some need cash for excellent glass :)

So the next time you want a lens ask around and you will find that your friends may have the one you want :)

How do you find your lenses?

Do you get them new or used?

lenses, finding, trading, price, friends, network, glass, optics, wanting

Year in review time!

We are almost starting the year of our lord 2011 and before that happens i would like you to do a year in review of the photographic art you created during 2010.

It is a important step into becoming a better photographer by learning from your photos and memories of what happened during those times you were shooting.

You may ask though: Why would i want do a review of the past??

The answer is to learn from your experiences and to remember the mistakes that did or may have ruined a great photo from being created!

So i would suggest to you to look at your photos from 2010 and pick 30 that made an impact on you. This could be by feeling, by the technical difficulty or by what the experience of taking that photo was.

Then make a list of thing you did right and a list of thing you failed at and use those things as a way of learning. Then finally write a list of things or places you want to visit so that you don´t miss that special seasonal moment again!

Most importantly do the year in review throughly so that it you really learn and become a even better photographer!

Have a happy holiday and a happy new year :)

Expose for the snow!

The other day when i went and shot a roll of tri-x 400 film and today i developed the roll and found out that i didn't expose for the snow!

So why is exposing for the snow important?

The lightmeter on a camera tries really hard to give you a good exposure but snow plays a nasty trick by being really bright which results in pictures where the snow is grey instead of being white.

In my case my Canon A-1 is from the late 1970:s and it has only one light metering mode (center weight), as a comparison a modern dslr has four different ways of metering light!

Thankfully center weight metering mode is easy to use and as long as you remember to adjust the exposure the result will be great!

So as a "this happens when you fail" example here is two images that show how badly underexposed some of the photos ended being for me:

So the next time you go out for some snow photography make sure to go into your camera settings and overexpose the image and you will see that snow will look white and not gray!

What is your experience when using a film slr and compensating for the snow?

Challenge yourself!

If you are feeling down and need to find that inspiration again then its time to challenge yourself!

I recently found myself being in a stage of non creative mode and finally decided to do something about it!

So i loaded my Canon A-1 with a 50mm 1.4 lens and a roll of Tri-x 400 b/w film and told myself go out and not to come back until i taken all 36 frames!

Well it worked allot better then i thought and not only did i take 36 frames i carefully composed but i also challenged myself to be creative!

So tomorrow (dec 10th) i am going to develop and scan the roll so you can see what i saw today.

So the lesson is to tell yourself to go out there and do something so that your day becomes allot better and you will feel great after accomplishing the task/s!

So what are you waiting for get creative and be feel great about yourself!

How do you get out of a non creative mode?

Please share your tips and tricks :)

Surviving the winter dullness

Winter is here and while some love the snow and the outdoor winter activities i find it to be the worst season to photograph because of the lack of variation of colours!

So i found a solution to my problem: take allot of portraits and other objects using a tele lens. The use of a longer lens not only restricts what i can capture in one frame but it also forces me to be allot more creative!

So my plan is to only use my two favorite tele lenses (the legendary Nikkor 105 2.5 and the equally great Nikkor 200mm 4.0) and take some creative and great photo :)

Taken with the 105 2.5 @ 2.5

Here is the two sets on flickr which has photos taken with these lenses.

NIKKOR-Q 200mm 4.0 F pre ai

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157623672876653/

Nikkor 105mm 2.5 F pre ai

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157623585020903/

Do you like the winter season?

How do you find creativity during the cold and gray season?

Auto or manual focus?

To some this is a easy choice, why would anyone ever want to use manual focus when you just need to press a button and the image is on focus?

I prefer manual focus because it allows me to slow down and spend more time on the composition, i still use autofocus lenses when the subject is moving way to fast and i dont have a chance to set the focus manually but since those moments only happen now and then its not a issue for me.

The choice of manual focus does requires me to do some extra calculating but other then that i dont feel disadvantaged compared to using autofocus.

Here is two example shots from the first of may demonstrations were i only used a manual focus lens to cover the whole event and got excellent results:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=1%20maj&w=15505413%40N00

With that said i do plan to get the excellent canon 24-70 2.8 L USM lens for when i need autofocus, but for now i am very happy with my Nikkor 1970:s tele lenses that cover everything i need for taking the photos i want :)

What do you prefer auto or manual focus?

Have their been a moment when autofocus was a disadvantage for you?