Hey Y'all ! Hope your week was a good one. Me? Busy, Busy ,Busy. This week I want to talk about something that is easy and quick to do. It won't cost a dime extra and it will make your photography experience easier. It's to incorporate your mobile device into your photography workflow. We all have them now some sort of mobile device that we have with us all of the time. Now a days the camera's on them are pretty good and the programs in them are much more advanced than what is in your big boy or girl camera. But most of us just lug them around and check the weather or emails and don't use them as a added resource . I am guilty of that myself. So in this blog I want to talk about the ways we can incorporate the mobile device into your photography workflow.

Used to reference things. Using your phone to look things up is a great way to start to incorporate it into Tybee Island Pier Sunrise your photography. There are many apps that can be very helpful to your photography. One of them is "Photo Pills" This app is a very good app and can do lots of stuff from letting you know when and where the sun will rise. When and where the moon will rise and what position the milky way will be in the sky.  It will help you with long exposure with calculators that will help you figure out how long of a shutter speed to use when doing long exposures like when using a natural density filter. Another app that everyone uses is Google . It can tell you all sorts of information like where the nearest restaurant is or information abut where you are that could influence a photograph. Of course there are weather apps that can help with when its going to rain or if its going to be cloudy all day. So you can see that using it as a reference tool is very handy and you may be already doing that as well.

Hunting Island Beach Use as a framing tool. If you are doing landscape , architecture or any photography where you have time to really work on the framing using your cell phone to get to the right angle quickly and take test shots is a great way to use your phone. Say you went to an area that you haven't been before and you were doing a landscape. Before setting up your tripod and camera up and moving it to many places to see if the perspective is the right one use your mobile device and the camera on it and try out different places until you have found the best spot and then set up your tripod and camera. This could save time and potentially get you to a spot quicker and maybe one you haven't even thought of before.

Use as a second camera. The camera's on your mobile devices have become so good you could used them as a second camera. For example on a nature recent trip I had a long zoom hooked to my camera but I was using my phone for the wider shots. Phones take great panorama shots of scenes and can be used for wide angle shots. When doing street photography have your main lens on your camera say maybe a 50mm but when something wide comes up instead of using your main camera and changing lenses just pull your phone out and take the shot. On a recent trip to Savannah and Charleston my photo buddies were doing this and getting great shots with their phones. They got such good shots with their mobile devices when I got home I had to upgrade mine to a newer model . 

Used as a video camera .  If you're interested in video this is a great way to start. The video on these devices are fantastic. I have a small youtube channel with mainly hiking and photography videos but when I was starting out I used my cell phone as a video recorder and it worked great. So if you want to try your hand at video blogging this is a great way to start. I watch many thru-hike videos of people hiking the Appalachian trail or the Pacific Crest Trail and they use their phones and it looks really good. So if your out and about and want to take a short video of a town or park or yourself using your mobile device is a great way to go.

We all have these devices and like our cameras we don't use them to the fullest extent that we could. Listen you've already paid for the phone. Use it more than to check Facebook or your email. Incorporate it in to your photography work flow. So until next week pull out that mobile device and get outside and shoot!

Hey Y'all !  Hope you had a great week. This week I want to talk about taking a photography trip and what you need for your trip. But I'm not going to talk about camera gear you probably already have that figured out but I'm going to talk about the accessories that you may need to support your trip. If you have never taken a photography trip before you might not have thought about these things before. I've been taking one or two big photography trips per year for the last 10 or more years I've come up with a checklist of things that I think you should take. Most of my trips have been taken in a car but a few have been while traveling by air and no matter how you travel these things will come in handy. So lets get started.

Electronics

2563e370f98e53afa59b4ddfed93f621 Computing. As photographers in the digital age we need some sort of computer to edit , manage and backup our photography. Laptops are the overwhelming choice for this but I use an iPad Pro that I can do the same thing that will do all of the tasks mentioned before and is smaller to carry. What ever you decide to take make sure you have all of the cords and cables you need to charge your device.

Storage. Extra SD cards is a must I like to have an SD card for each day of shooting. I take the spent card store it in a SD card wallet  and that's one of my backups. So if your taking a 7 day trip 7 cards. Some type of external drive to hook to your computing device. I have a 1 terabyte SSD (Solid State Drive) that I hook to my iPad and backup all of my photo's to. That makes two copies of my photo's. One on the SD Card and one on the SSD drive. I store these in separate places incase luggage is lost or stolen so I always have a copy no matter what. 

Chargers. Make sure you have a charger for all of your devices. Phone, watch, earbuds, batteries etc... A multi-port USB charger can come in very handy so you can charge more than one thing at a time. Nothing is worse than a dead battery when traveling. Another good tip is to take a small multi port surge protector with you. Hotel rooms or sharing a room with someone makes electrical outlets precious . So a 3 or 4 port surge protector allows you to charge many things at one time without hogging up the outlets in the room.

Earbuds , head phones or plugs. Having earbuds or headphones work great when your flying canceling out Podcast the noise of the plane. But they also work great to listen to music or watching movies or videos when traveling with friends. They may not
want to listen to your music . If your like me I get up way earlier than my travel companions so I use earbuds to watch the local news on my iPad  without waking others up. Ear plugs can come in handy if your sharing a room with someones that snores loud and still you can get a good night sleep.

Mobile Battery. A mobile battery charger is handy to have when you're traveling. You don't need a super large one but one big enough to recharge your phone a couple of times. Comes in handy in Airports especially. We keep everything on our phone's and nothing is worse than a dead phone when traveling. A 5000 mah or a 10000 mah will be large enough and can be had pretty cheaply.

Camera Accessories

Rain Gear. You never know what the weather is going to do. Rain gear
for your camera and you is a must when traveling. If it looks like rain take your rain gear with you. Something as simple as a disposable shower cap that you get at a hotel can save your camera gear. I always have one in my bag.

Cleaning Supplies. Keeping your camera clean while traveling is a must on getting good photo's. Taking enough microfiber cloths blowers brushes whatever you use to clean your camera stuff is a must when traveling. I always have a microfiber cloth in my pocket for quick cleaning .

Other Considerations

Clothes. Now this is one of the hardest things to do is pack for a week long trip. What I usually try to do is pack enough clothes for 4 or so days and have a way to wash clothes half way through the trip.  That will keep the bulk of your clothes down. Try to pack with layering in mind so you can peel layers off if it's too hot or add layers if too cold. I personally try not to pack cotton items because when they get wet they stay wet. I usually have polyester or blends to keep as dry as possible. A Puffy jacket almost always goes wherever I go. They are small and lightweight and can be compressed to not take up precious room in your suitcase. Comfortable shoes are more important than cute shoes. On a photography trip you may be walking for miles and miles and keeping blister free is a must. I also try to take an extra pair of shoes incase I get one pair messed up.

Toiletries. I'm not going to get into toiletries that you must take just make sure you have what you need and not any more. Use small bottles like the travel sized bottles you can get to save room and make sure you have enough medication that you will need for the duration of your trip. I also take stuff like tums  or aspirin for those upset stomachs or headaches that come from traveling.

Water Bottle. A water bottle or sealable cup is great to have traveling. If your staying at a hotel the free coffee in the lobby is much better than the coffee that is in the room and if your cup is sealable you can take it with you. Later during the day you can rinse out your cup and put water in it to make sure you don't get dehydrated which could leave you with headaches and weak.

Now is this everything you might need? Well no , everyone is different and have different needs. This is just some suggestions. I would also say sit down and think about what you might need on your trip. Make a checklist and have it handy if you think of something add it to the list. Before long you will have a good packing checklist and if you use it while you're packing you won't forget anything. Nothing is worse than being somewhere away from home and you have forgot something important because you rushed to pack and didn't take it with you. Like your Camera ! LOL Summer traveling season is coming up so get out there and travel and keep Shooting!

Hey Y'all ! How are you doing this week? Me ? Pretty well. This week I want to talk about he past. We all have one and most are very different. But the past I wan't to talk about is our photography past. More importantly the camera's that we used or owned that shaped how we see things and how we do things when it comes to photography. Some of our most basic instincts and feelings are formed when we are children and the things that surrounded us. For example when I grew up as a child in the 60's and 70's when black and white was still a big thing. I can remember watching the moon landing on a black and white TV with rabbit ears trying to adjust the picture for my dad. I was the remote! LOL But now my grandchildren  were born with phones that took photo's so they have always had a camera in their hands that could take video as well as stills. So their experiences will be much different than mine. Growing up in a lower income family meant we didn't have fancy cameras. We had cheap ones that were only brought out for special occasions like birthdays, Christmas or a vacation that was taken by the family. This is when I got to use the camera. So lets look at the camera's that shaped me.

Kodak Brownie. The Kodak Brownie has been around for a long time and had many variations from made from cardboard to plastic. The one I Brownie Memories got to use on family vacations or special occasions was a plastic one. Really no Focus just point shoot and advance the film until full and then rewind and then send to the drug store to get developed.  I would say the mid 1960's to early 70's is when we used this camera the most. This camera has disappeared from our family probably sold in a yard sale wish I still had it.

Poloroid camera. I do remember using this camera and was amazed that it would flash and the photo you could see right away. The photo's didn't seem to last like the film ones did as we only have one or two photo's left that were taken with the Polaroid .  Film then as now was expensive.

Pentax K1000. My first real camera that I bought was a Pentax K1000. This a totally manual SLR 35mm film camera. Back before the internet we had catalogs that you could buy things through. I bought this camera from Sears and Roebuck specialty catalog. The camera cost me 99 dollars.  It had a 50mm lens and the film I bought from a company called Clark. When you bought the film you also got an envelope to send the exposed film and in a week or so you would get your photo's back in the mail. I got this camera when I was a teenager and took it to high school with me many times and still have photo's of people and events from my high school days. I purchased a 135mm lens for this camera from a friend and still have the lens. So I had a small telephoto at 2.8 that I used. I sold this camera after I joined the military while stationed in the Philippines and hated to part with it .

Old Eyes Pentax MX. My next camera that replaced the K1000 was the Pentax MX. The only thing different from the K1000 is that this had a self timer on it so you could shoot selfies or photo's with the family. I shot a lot of color slide film with this camera and developed myself. I still have this camera and that first 135mm lens that I bought as a teenager and still shoot occasionally with it. I used it until I got my first digital and haven't looked back.

Kodak DX 4900 Digital- This first digital camera was crazy I could take photo's and put on a computer right away! I got this in early 2000's maybe 2002 or so. Before this camera I was developing and printing black and white but after this camera no more chemicals and converting my bathroom into a darkroom. This camera changed the way I took pictures .  I could see the photo's instantly!

I have had many digital camera's since that first Kodak digital camera when I went to Nikon and shot with many camera's and then I switched to Sony and have gone threw many cameras and still shoot Sony. But those first cameras when I was looking through a viewfinder for the first time and seeing the Square of what the shot would look like changed me forever and gave me this great hobby that I have now and enjoy decades later. What camera's made you? What was your first one? Let me know in the comments. Until Next week Get out and Shoot!