 
Hey Everyone! I hope today finds you healthy and safe. Today's topic is what camera mode should you shoot in? Let's go back in time a bit. When I started using an SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera, it was a manual camera that you had to kind of figure out how to shoot. This was before digital so you had to shoot a roll of film, send it off to get developed, and then see what worked and what didn't. You also had to take notes because there was nothing to tell you on the film negative what your settings were. But I learned and became pretty good at getting a properly exposed photo. I shot like this for years. When I finally went digital Technology had flown past me and I had to learn the other modes like aperture priority, shutter priority, and all of the camera settings that you can get now. It is actually overwhelming how many camera modes there are now. But what is right for you? I am a firm believer that you, as a photographer, should know how your camera works. How a photograph is exposed and the exposure triangle. That said, I don't shoot in manual all of the time now, but it is because I know how I can revert back to it when I need it.
So what do I shoot in? Ninety percent of the time I'm shooting in aperture priority. I set the aperture and
the camera does the rest. I set the depth of field for the shot I want, and I let the camera make the decisions on what my ISO and shutter speed are going to be. We pay a lot for our cameras and they have powerful computers on board to make decisions to get a properly-exposed photograph. And 80 to 90 percent of the time they get it dead on. It's that other 20 percent that we have to take over and fix what the computer is fooled by. That's why I think when you're a beginner you should shoot in manual all the time until you fully understand what you are doing. Then you can change to one of the other modes on your camera and not worry about what setting you have. You can just shoot and compose your shots. The other 10 percent of the time I'm shooting in manual mode, usually when I'm using a tripod and working slowly and methodically or when I'm using studio lights. Other than that I'm in aperture priority. But that's just me. There are tons of other shooting modes that can be found on almost any camera from a point and shoot to a DSLR. So let's talk about some of these.
 The MetroCommuters waiting for the Metro in Washington DC.
Shutter priority is when you set your shutter speed and let your camera make all of the other decisions like aperture and ISO. This mode would be good to use if you're trying to show motion, like a car passing by and blurring out. Or just the opposite, it could be set really high so you don't get the blur, maybe for shooting flying birds. Now shooting in manual, aperture priority, or shutter priority you still shoot in raw, but most of the other modes your camera puts you into shooting JPEGs. So you might want to take that into consideration before you use them. But some of them are great. For instance, fireworks, soft focus, underwater, background de-focus, water painting effect, fish eye effect, handheld night scene, stars, portrait, panning, panorama, self-portrait. These are just ones I pulled off of my Canon G7XII. They are all self-explanatory, like for shooting fireworks you use the firework mode. For nighttime, you use the hand-held mode. ISO for shooting dark night scenes that are handheld, not on a tripod. Some of these modes will take multiple shots and combine them to give you the best photo. All of these modes are found under the scene setting on my camera and should be under something similar on your camera. So out of all of these, what is the best mode to shoot with? Well, it just depends. It depends on what kind of photographer you are, it depends on what you're shooting, it depends on your experience as a photographer. It just depends on lots of things. But one thing is for sure. You should know the basics first and then experiment with the other ones. So figure out what is best for you and get out there and shoot. So until next time, get out and shoot!
 Max Stansell Photography
Hey everyone! Hope ya'll are doing well and are healthy and safe. What's up with the title this week, "Photographers Are the Ultimate Scavenger Hunters"? Well this again might just be a me thing. But I think that to be a good photographer you need to be able to pick out subjects or scenes out of your larger field of view. In my real job I commute to a lot to different towns and places and do quite a bit of driving. But while I'm doing that I'm framing different shots as I go with my eyes. And it's not just when I'm driving. I do it all of the time. Looking for leading lines, putting the subject of whatever I'm looking at on the 1/3 line. I think photographers as a whole tend to see in photographs. At least I do. I think it's a lot like a scavenger hunt, looking for different things in everyday scenes to pick out and shoot.
Have you ever done a photographic scavenger hunt? It's pretty fun. You and some friends or maybe your camera club can do this. You don't need fancy equipment or a camera. A phone will do. Then make a list of things to find or shoot. Maybe a portrait of a stranger, shoot through
 Goldsboro Fire House
something, a pair of something, you get the picture. LOL Then just set up a time frame, maybe a couple of hours, and the location it will be shot like downtown. Then everyone goes off in a different direction looking for the items on the list. After everyone is done you can get together and compare, and you will be surprised of all of the different photos you will have for the same subject. It's pretty fun and you can see how other people see things also.
When you're taking a trip with the family and you have a long car ride, look around and see what kind of photos you can take with just your eyes. It doesn't have to be a grand photo, but maybe an opening through a fence or maybe a horse grazing in a field. Work the scene with your eyes and your mind's eye on how you would frame up the subject and how it would look in the end. You can do this in a split second. Then move to the next thing, a farm house sitting on a hill. Man on a bicycle. Just keep going. What your are doing is getting your photographic eye in shape, putting it through a workout if you will. So the next time you're out with your camera, your photographic eye takes over and you only see in pictures and photographs. And you can quickly pick out the important things in a scene without struggling for a composition. Like anything it takes lots of practice, but it will help you in the long run. You might even see something that you just can't pass up and have to stop that car and make the shot that you've seen.
 Cotton Sail HotelCotton Sail Hotel, Savannah Ga on River St.
Another way to develop your photographic eye is to look at others' photographs. Looking at sites like Flickr, 500px, and Instagram can help you improve your mind's eye. Other people post photographs that are their best ones or they wouldn't have posted them, and looking at these over and over again will help you develop the way you look at things and the way that you want to see things. So be a scavenger and look at as many things as you can as a photographer to develop your photographic eye. Try to pick other photographers' photographs apart, try to see what they saw and how they took the photograph to improve your own.
Well that's enough for this topic. Until next week keep shooting and get outside!
Hey Everyone! Hope everyone is healthy and safe. Photographers are tearing up the landscapes we love. With the growing popularity of photography and landscape photography, new photographers are going to the places we love to get their selfies, tearing up the landscape as they go. The popularity of social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and such are having people in hoards going to our national and state parks, and that's a good thing if they follow the simple rule to take only photos and leave only footprints. But many are wandering off of the beaten trail and leaving behind trash, and the sheer number of people can trample our beloved special places, all to get likes or followers on social media! There is a right way and a wrong way to do things when you're out in nature, and this blog will cover some of the basic principles of "Leave No Trace."
Leave No Trace has been around for years and isn't just a politically correct statement that is popular. I was
taught this in Scouts 50 years ago. Outdoor enthusiasts have been practicing this for years, but with the onslaught of the internet, we have brought new people to the wilderness that haven't ever strayed from their local Starbucks. But now, because they saw a post on Instagram, they just had to have a selfie at Mesa Arch. According to the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, there are seven principles to Leave No Trace. They are:
1. Plan ahead and prepare.
2. Travel on durable surfaces.
3. Dispose of waste properly.
4. Leave what you find.
5. Minimize campfire impacts.
6. Respect wildlife.
7. Be considerate of others.
Do all of these really relate to a day photography trip? Most of them do. We were given a great gift with the national parks and forests and the state parks and nature reserves. We need to be stewards of the land that was given to us so we can give it and its natural beauty to the ones that follow us in the future. If we don't they could be gone forever, and our grandchildren and their grandchildren will never know the beauty of our great nation. Forest rangers aren't there to pick up after us like we are at a hotel. That's not their job. It's yours and mine! So let's go through the principles from a photographer's perspective.
1. Plan and prepare ahead of time. If you're going to the wilderness, look for trail maps and find out the rules of the place you're going to. There may be special rules in the area to protect some species of plant or wildlife that you don't know about. 2. Travel on durable surfaces. That means stay on the trail making the least amount of impact as possible to the environment. With the amount of people going into the wilderness areas now, this is especially important. We don't want to trample the area like a herd of elephants. This is a big one. 3. Dispose of waste properly! I have been five miles off the beaten path in the middle of the Smokeys and found a gum wrapper! Haul all of your trash with you out of an area. If you eat a power bar, take the wrapper with you when you leave. I won't even get into what backpackers do when they have to use the bathroom in the wilderness. Just take your trash out, please. 4. Leave what you find. Don't take anything natural out of the park for a souvenir. By doing so you're stealing the beauty from the park. Leave it for someone else. Don't take plants out of the parks. You could be spreading diseased plants and accidentally spread it to your house. Leave them, please. 5. Respect wildlife. Give them plenty of space. Bears, elk, moose, snakes, and all kinds of critters need their space. Remember, you're in their house, so respect their house. Give them the distance they deserve and they will most likely leave you alone. 6. Be considerate of others. We all want to see the beauty of the forest or natural wildlife scene. Don't ruin it for others by carving your initials into a tree for everyone to see. Nobody wants to see it. Remember, the place that you are in is fragile and must be cared for so others will enjoy it also. 7. And lastly I don't think there is any reason to talk about campfires, but if you do have one, follow all of the rules where you are at. You don't want to start a forest fire.
Common sense is what's needed here. Do unto others and all of that. I know of a lot of famous
photographers who do not give the location of where they got the great shots and scenes from just for the reason that the masses will come and destroy them. Nick Page, a pretty popular photographer, puts Mesa Arch on all of his photographs just so people won't go to where he photographed them. Not because he wants to keep the place for himself, but because he wants to protect them. I don't go to that extreme. However, if I'm at a tourist location, I'll give the name, say, the Wright Brothers Memorial. But if I'm not and I think that the place is fragile, I'll just put North Carolina for the location. Not that I'm popular and people are looking, but just in case someone wants to go to that place they will have to do the research to find it and maybe that will keep them from trashing it.
Well, that's pretty much it for this topic. Please take care of the land. There isn't any really being made at the moment, so we must take care of what we have. Until next week, keep shooting and get outside!
Hey Everyone! Hope everyone is healthy and safe. As you know photography is an expensive hobby. Unless you're one of the lucky ones and have a disposable income, acquiring good gear may take a while. That is a good thing, because if you just went out and got what everyone else says is the best gear, you might be disappointed because it might not be right for you. Gear is personal because I think that photography is art, and the gear we use is just the tools we use to make that art. And artists use all kinds of tools to make their art.
Photography gear has changed in recent years and is more complicated than it used to be. Back in the film
days you got a camera body and you used it for 20 years. There was really no upgrade to do. It was all mechanical. But since the digital age has come there are upgrades every year, and people are upgrading (in my opinion too soon) every couple of years. That's expensive and maybe not as mush needed as it used to be in the early days of digital. My advice is to take your time, be patient, and research before you make the decision. Slowly upgrade your equipment one piece at a time. Here's what I mean.
 _MSP6316
Most of us invest in a first camera in some kind of kit where they give you a cheap lens along with your camera body. My advice is to use that cheap lens until you can save enough money to upgrade the kit lens. Take your time and research which lens you want to upgrade to. Learn to use that cheap lens until you think it's causing you to not be able to get the shots you want to get. The same can be said for camera bodies. Use the body until you think it is hurting your photography. The camera bodies that I am using are about four camera body versions behind the newest versions. But I'm sticking with the one I have until I think it's not doing the job for me and I need an upgrade. Sure, the newest ones do all kinds of neat things with all of their bells and whistles, but for the type of photography I do (landscape/travel), I really don't need that animal eye detection or that 4K video mode or so many frames per second. And when you upgrade a body or lens, it doesn't have to be a brand new one. You can upgrade to a used lens or body. In my kit, for example, the main body I use was purchased used, and two out of my three main lenses were bought used. I did just upgrade my long telephoto lens, only for one reason. I wasn't getting the shots I
 11-sony-a6300
wanted because the reach on the one I had was too short in my opinion to get that occasional wildlife or long-range shot. So I put away a little cash each week, and when I got enough and did all of the research, I purchased a new one. I will probably sell my old one before too long to offset the cost of maybe something else. Tip, when buying from a local camera shop, you may be able to trade in old camera gear for store credit to help you upgrade to newer systems. You might not get what you would if you sold it outright, but sometimes it's hard to sell on eBay or to friends. When I switched from Nikon to Sony, it took a while to sell all of my Nikon gear, but I eventually did and used that money to upgrade kit lenses I had with my Sony gear. The point I'm getting to is that upgrading is a slow and ongoing process that never ends. I have a great kit now, but it took me a long time to get there. I will be upgrading in the future, but it will be slow and methodical, which will save me money and frustration in the future.
Well, that's enough for this time. Slow and steady is the course for upgrading camera and photography gear. So get out and use that gear, and keep shooting!
Hey everyone! Hope everyone is healthy and safe. This week's topic is about upgrading your camera kit to a full frame sensor camera set up. Is the grass always greener on the other side? As photographers we are always looking for an advantage or something to make our photographs better. Buying new gear is something we think will improve our photography. I am no different than any of you. I love gear and do have GAS (gear acquisition syndrome). Nowadays, I try to do it smarter and research instead of emotionally making decisions about gear. Almost every YouTube video by your favorite photographers praise the advantages of full frame cameras over smaller sensor cameras. But they are all professionals or professional-want-to-be's and make their living from photography. I am not. I am a hobbyist and do photography just for me. So do I need to go by the same standards that professionals go by? I have owned and used both full frame and crop sensor cameras and will give you my take on this subject. Today we're going to look at the advantages and disadvantages of full frame cameras and the questions you should ask yourself before you buy one.
Advantages of Full Frame. There are lots of advantages of full frame cameras, especially if you make your
Living as a professional Photographer and depend on your equipment to put food on your table. Full frame cameras tend to be built better than their smaller sensor counterparts. They are heavy duty and sometimes built like a tank. They tend to be better weather sealed in most cases to keep dust and moisture out in rugged weather conditions. Larger sensor cameras collect more light than smaller sensors, so they are better in low-light conditions. They can have more resolution with massive amounts of megapixels, and you can print larger prints. Depth of field (the amount of what is in focus in the frame) is shallower. They are great cameras and perform well under many circumstances.
 My Camera's
Disadvantages of Full Frame. There are some disadvantages of full frame also that aren't talked about as much as advantages are on YouTube videos. Full frame cameras have large files. The files take up lots of space on your computer, and your computer needs to be pretty fast to edit them. So if you get a new full frame camera, you better upgrade your computer system also. Full frame cameras are big and bulky and heavy, whether they are mirrorless or DSLR. Although the mirrorless camera body may be smaller, the lenses are the same size. A 70-200mm f2.8 lens is heavy! Shallow depth of field was mentioned in the advantages, but can also be a disadvantage. If you're doing landscape or architecture photography, you want depth of field, not shallow depth of field. And of course the elephant in the room is price. On average, full frame cameras are at least twice the cost of smaller sensor ones. Lenses are much more expensive also.
Questions you should ask yourself. There are many questions you should ask yourself before going to a full
frame sensor camera. The first question is what type of photography do I do, and do I need full frame to do it? If you are a professional, I think the answer may be yes, but many professionals do use smaller sensor cameras with lots of success. If you are a portrait photographer and that's all you do, the answer may be yes. If you are a landscape photographer, the answer may be no. In landscapes you want the largest depth of field in your subject, not mentioning the weight of the equipment you'll have to carry to get to those subjects. If you are a street photographer, I would say no. The small size and being able to conceal your camera is an advantage over the large sensor. If you shoot sports, the answer may be no. Many sports photographers shoot crop sensor cameras in JPEG to make the files smaller because they shoot so many photographs at one time, like a machine gun. The same may be said for wildlife photography. If I am a hobbyist and only shoot for myself and my photos go to Instagram and Facebook and only print occasionally, then the answer is, no, I don't need a full frame camera. If you're a gear head and really enjoy spending lots of money on new gadgets and must have the newest, then knock yourself out and buy that full frame.
My Two Cents. As a former full frame Nikon shooter and now a crop sensor Sony shooter, I can see both sides of the argument. For me it kind of happened full circle. I started with a crop sensor Nikon and had to have that full frame and all of the gadgets that went with it to big fast glass. And the photos I was getting were great. Then I got a mirrorless camera for hiking because the full frame with a 24-70mm lens was over seven pounds and heavy and the mirrorless was much lighter. I started using the mirrorless more and more. And before I knew it I was grabbing the crop sensor 90 percent of the time over the full frame. Finally, after a couple of years, I went on a workshop where my crop sensor camera was my main camera, and my full frame I used as my backup. I go to this workshop every year, and the photos are similar year after year. I compared shots from the crop sensor and from the full frame from the year before and really had to pixel peep (zoom in really far) to tell the difference. To the naked eye I couldn't tell. I had over $15,000 invested in the full frame set up and only a few thousand for the crop sensor. That's when I made the choice to go to crop sensor and sell all of my full frame stuff. I took a beating on selling everything, but in the long run I'm really happy with the kit I have now and feel confident that my photos are of the best quality. I shoot as a hobby. I don't need all of the megapixels, and I'm not printing a lot. Most of my photos go on Instagram or Facebook. When I go on photoshoots with my friends, I have the smallest kit, and I love it. It doesn't weigh me down, and I have more energy to go exploring and find new things to shoot. It is totally the best decision I have made in my photography journey, and I wish I had asked these questions before I jumped into full frame in the beginning. Those are my thoughts on the subject. Please think long and hard before you commit to full frame. If it's right for you, great.
Until next week keep shooting, stay safe, and go outside!
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