Category Archives: Digital Photography 1 on 1

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The 60 Minute Challenge


Mark explains how to get outside and shoot a self-assignment in order to expand your photographic skills. He gives himself two assignments and spends an hour taking pictures and SEEING things that most people would just walk by.

Gear used in this video

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Setting your camera correctly


If you’re new to photography, two of the most important things to learn are aperture and shutter speed settings as these will give you a lot of creative control. If you’re not sure what settings to use Mark has an easy to follow spreadsheet to help you determine the right settings. A lot of people have been asking where they can find the spreadsheet in today’s Digital Photography One on One video. You can download the spreadsheet by clicking here.

Gear used in this video

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On Location Flash

I know, it’s been a while since we last updated the blog. We’ve been busy creating lots and lots of content for AdoramaTV. We’ve created 44 new videos. Ten of those have been new Digital Photography One on One episodes. We’ve been getting a lot of feedback and we’re working hard to keep the videos fresh and useful.

Last week we released Episode 20: On Location Flash and have seen more activity on this episode than most, so I thought I’d post it here as well as a few of the photos we shot for the video.

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Model Katherine Lee. In this shot I overexposed the background and used a medium softbox to add some fill light on Katherine.

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This image was shot using strong backlight. I used the softbox to balance the light. I adjusted colors in Lightroom before exporting.

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This is an example of a balanced fill flash. Katherine was standing in the shade and without the fill flash she would have been almost completely underexposed. By matching the flash exposure to the ambient light I was able to create an image that looks like 100% natural light event though I used a flash.

Gear used in this video

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Depth of Field


In this episode I’m talking all about Depth of Field. Three things impact Depth of Field:

  1. Aperture
  2. Focal Length
  3. Distance from subject

After posting this video to YouTube a few people commented that I left out sensor size. Well the truth is that sensor size does not determine depth of field… but it does influence it. Let me explain.

If you have a smaller sensor and a full frame sensor both shooting at the same distance with the same aperture and focal length the DOF will be the same for both. Therefore, sensor size does not determine DOF. The problem is that with a small sensor you’ll need to use a wider angle lens or shoot farther from the subject to get the same scene as a larger sensor – and that will impact DOF because you’ve changed one of the three deciding factors.

So does sensor size impact DOF? No. But it does change how you have to shoot and that in turn does impact DOF. So yes, sensor size ultimately impacts DOF.

Gear used in this video

 

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