Quest for the Best Focal Length
March 23, 2023
If I were to be left with only one focal length to take photos with for the rest of my life, which would I pick? This is my journey through 15+ years to find the answer to that question. Why it’s taken me this long to arrive the answer has a lot to do with experimentation, self-discovery and some great technological advancements. It all starts with the wrong type of 50mm.
Continue reading →
Farewell, Photography
May 19, 2014
Update: I couldn’t stay away for long. That, and I conquered the sharpness gremlins plaguing my experience with the heavily used AF-S DX 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G VR.
We had a good thing going for eight years or so, but it’s time now to bring it to a halt.
Back when I started, I had no dearth of time to give to myself and I had no one but myself to spend money on.
Continue reading →
The Lost Flickr of Hope
July 4, 2013
I woke up this Tuesday morning to a shock.
OMG this Yahoo! bar on top of @Flickr is fugly. If this bar doesn’t go from Flickr, I will. pic.twitter.com/dolGKR8jJu
— Tahir (@codie) July 2, 2013
This bar is wrong in a lot of ways. The way it stands out in all its ugliness from the rest of the Flickr visual design speaks volumes about how it was executed (thoughtlessly, in a draconian way), how little the Flickr development team have a say in how things work (I can’t imagine a product owner who would allow such visual desecration of their product without a protest) and how little Yahoo!
Continue reading →
From Shooting RAWs to Shooting JPEGs
May 10, 2013
To Shoot RAW or JPEG? I have been shooting photographs regularly for over 7 years now. I spent the first year shooting with a 2 Megapixel phone camera. Since then, however, I’ve almost always had RAW capable cameras and shot RAW compulsively. And why not? I get 16x or 64x more colour depth than JPEGs. I don’t have to bother about setting the right white balance, contrast or sharpness. I don’t have to choose between monochrome and colour at the time of shooting.
Continue reading →
High on Lo-Fi
February 15, 2012
The camera industry is going through some pretty big movements these days. Since the advent of digital cameras and social networking websites, more and more people have been finding interest in taking photos and exhibiting them online to friends and public at large. Somewhere in this explosive growth of photography, veterans and early enthusiasts sometimes find themselves in a tight spot.
Big Camera, Small Camera Since their inception, digital camera sensors have been pushing the boundaries of the quality of images they produce.
Continue reading →
My Imaging Tools and Workflow
November 1, 2010
As my photos get backed up and burnt on to a DVD, I thought I might just do a quick cataloguing of the software I’ve found useful for developing my photographs and what each does. I’d also outline my workflow as I present each software in the order in which it appears in the workflow. Just to set the context, I use Microsoft Windows 7 for my imaging tasks, and my camera is a Nikon D90, so I do use a lot of Nikon software.
Continue reading →
Take Two
July 31, 2010
This isn’t my first time writing a photography blog. I started one, almost 3 years ago and wrote a few posts regarding technique and gear. It was probably too early to start writing, though, and the blog fell off the edge when my hosting plan expired and I didn’t renew it. This time, it will hopefully stay.
Photography is, for me, a new way to experience things. It’s about delving deep into the visual characteristics of the environment around me — shapes, contours, colours, location, the light that I’m seeing by.
Continue reading →