What should I upgrade my kits lens to?

I’ve been looking to upgrade my kit lens recently and it’s really difficult to find a suitable lens amongst the many many lens available from Nikon (I’m a Nikon user) and from third party lens manufacturers.

Digital Photography School has an article summarizing the recommendations from Digital SLR user magazine about upgrades for Nikon lenses.  Here’s what Digital SLR User magazine recommended:

1. Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Nikkor Zoom Lens - Rated at 4 out of 5 Stars
2. Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED IF AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens - Rated at 4 out of 5 Stars
3. Nikon 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens - Rated at 4 out of 5 Stars
4. Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens - Rated at 3 out of 5 Stars

As an existing owner of a 18-135mm Nikkor lens, I wouldn’t want to “upgrade” to the 18-55mm and 18-70mm. The difference is minimal and probably unnoticeably to my untrained eye. However, the 18-200mm is a possible choice for me. The great focal range will be excellent for travelling without having to constantly change lens.

Another lens I’m considering is the Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Nikon Mount. A friend of mine recently bought this for his Canon 40D and works beautifully. Fairly affordable too when compared to the Nikkor lens at f/2.8

Here’s my list of choices to upgrade my kit lens:

1. Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Nikkor Zoom Lens
2. Tamron SP AF17-50mm F/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Nikon Mount
3. Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Zoom Nikkor Lens
4. Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens

I can only dream about the last 2 options. They are quite far from my budget right now.

For Canon users, fret not. Here’s a video from CameraLabs.com on some upgrades for Canon kit lenses:

Thanks to Digital Photography School for the great articles! One of my favorite photography blogs!

Tools for cleaning your camera and lenses

Every now and then, we’ll need to clean our camera bodies and lenses. It’s time for me to clean mine too. It’s been about 3 months since I’ve really cleaned all my gear.

Before we get into the details, I have to say that I’m not confident in cleaning the sensor inside the camera body. I normally leave it to the professionals to clean it for me. I clean my lenses on the surface just to get rid of oil stains, finger prints and dusts.

Here is a couple of handy cleaning tools:

Blowers - Great for blowing dusts off lenses and sensors before wiping them with the cloth. You can get this delivered to you for free from DealExtreme.com. It’s only $5.64!! I got the exact same blower from my local camera shop for $10 bucks. And that’s excluding my transportation costs!

If you’re using the blower to clean the insides of your camera, be sure to turn it upside down so that any dusts will fall out of the camera instead of falling into!

Read more >>

Calibrating colors in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom

I’ve been using Photoshop for quite a while but I’m pretty much a newbie still. I’ve started to use Adobe Lightroom for my workflow recently. I have to say its a fantastic application. It has simplified my post processing tremendously.

From Lightroom, you can choose to edit your photos in Photoshop by right-clicking on the photograph and selecting “Edit in Adobe Photoshop CS2/3″ as shown below:

The first time I did this, my eyeballs nearly fell out when the colors of the same image were so different between 2 applications made by the same company. Here’s a sample:

On the left, we have Lightroom and on the right is Photoshop. For some reason, the difference is more visible on my computer instead of the screenshot above. Read more >>

The Art of Food Photography

Food photography is one of my favorites type of photography. You can see some of my (bad?) attempts on my talented wife’s blog, lilkoala.com. She’s a great aspiring chef!

To be honest, food photography is ALOT more difficult than I initially expected it to be. Have a look at this great video for some ideas on how the professionals do it:

Did you see all the lighting, reflectors and other equipment that was necessary to produce the top-notch results? Lighting, food styling and effects (smoke, seared marks, etc.) are all important to get great food photographs.

Is it a little “deceiving” to use artificial effects to make food look more appealing and attractive in photographs? I guess if you look at it from a portrait photography angle, you often apply make-up to your subjects too. What do you think?

Is photography 50% capture, 50% post processing?

Brian Auer recently conduct a little experiment that produced fascinating results. He posted the above photograph and invited people to edit and upload their results. Even though the original photo was pretty mediocre, the edited photos were remarkable.

Brian believes that this affirms his belief: Photography is 50% capture and 50% post processing. I do believe that post processing plays a part in photography today. But 50/50? I’m not so sure.

There are several photographers that I know of who can produce great out-of-camera photographs. Personally, I try to do as little editing to my photos as possible too.

Head over to Brian’s blog and check out the results!

Does age matter in Photography? Hell no.

Joey Lawrence, no not THAT Joey Lawrence, one heck of a photographer. Take a look through his portfolio, simply inspiring. And best of all? He’s only 17.

Some of his pictures on the website are taken with a 1.3 Megapixel Point-and-shoot camera. He has moved on to the Canon 5D since then.

Check out his website and portfolio. He has a training DVD for you folks with cash to spare. Its not cheap, USD $299. And, no I don’t get commission for it, although I wished I could afford a copy.

60 seconds - That’s all you need

The Hidden Pond by Stuck in Customs

iDigitalPhoto has a great compilation of tips to improve your photos. Here are some of the tips that I find extremely enlightening:

Lighting

Light from the side brings out shapes, textures and structures. That’s why early morning and evening are rich times to photograph.

Color

Our eyes naturally adjust to colored or tinted light sources to make them appear white and so will your digital camera but only within certain limits. (Ahh, so that’s why!)

Flash

Balance the flash with day light for stunning results. Your camera may offer a ‘slow flash’ or ‘synchro flash’ or ‘daylight synchro’ setting.

Direct flash on groups of people produces better-looking images than direct flash on a single person.

Read more >>

Awesome Black and White Portraits

Some of you may have already known about Tom Stone. I’ve only found out about him recently through a photography forum. I have to say, the black and white portraits of homeless people he produces are simply inspirational for me.

As one commenter mentioned, what he has is more than talent. There is just an unexplainable feeling to his photos. He can capture the essence of the people he photographs. Have a look through his gallery for fun or for inspiration, if you need some.

Tom Stone’s Website & Flickr

Make a Remote Shutter Release with your Old Mouse

Here’s a spiffy DIY project for all you photographers who’d like a weekend project. Transform your old mouse that’s collecting dust into a Remote Shutter Release! This little DIY is from Dave Schlier.

You’ll need to have the following things for this project:

1. Soldering skills
2. Spare mouse
3. 2.5mm Stereo Jacks with solderable contacts
4. 3 or 4 wire cable (I.E. Telephone Cable)
5. and of course, some elbow grease

Thanks to LifeHacker for the tip!

Aperture and Shutter Speed

Its been quite awhile since we talked about Shutter Speed and Aperture in photography. I came across a great video that demonstrates the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. It reminded me of the importance of the relationship and how it works to make a good exposure.

Have a look at the video and let us know what you think in the comments!