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Shot of my bird feeder from my deck.  Left:  3x zoom (no digital zoom) Middle:  15x digital zoom from 3x camera.  Right - 100% crop from 15x I recognize that smartphone cameras are becoming something of the norm when it comes to capturing images these days.  And as wonderful as they are for shooting scenes about the house or capturing business-related images, they do not have the capability to do extreme stuff well. Take the example above.  I recently purchased an iPhone 15 Pro that comes with 3 cameras (0.5x, 1x, and 3x) and decided to photograph some birds in my back yard.  The 3x zoom is a mere 77mm relative, which in my books makes it equal to about a 1.5x zoom relative to a 50mm lens shooting a normal perspective.  You can, however, zoom in from there, and the phone boasts a seemingly impressive 15x magnification ability which relates to a 404 mm focal length on a full-frame camera body. As you can tell though, the digital zoom capacity is not great at rendering details in the ima

A simple light box setup to photograph gear to sell online. If you have ever sold stuff on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Kigigi, or other such online buy-and-sell sites, this will sound familiar to you. You take one or more photos of your item to sell and plug them into a favoured online sales site.  The photos may not be great, but does it really matter?  You took them with your cellphone or perhaps a stand-alone digital camera and then did the work to post them.   The answer is, yes, it matters. I used the above setup to photograph some camera equipment I am selling (in order to buy more stuff - yes, I'm a camera addict).  It is certainly not a professional setup, but its simplicity is outstanding and it produces acceptable results. Better yet is the fact that you can use the setup with your smartphone or tablet; there is no need for a flash, on-camera or otherwise. In this case I used a lightbox I have had for many years and a ring-light made for cellphone videos.  I p

Red mite photographed at 1:1 reproduction ratio (RR) on an APS-C Nikon camera with a 20 mm extension tube. There are a number of ways to calculate image size and magnification, but all of them rely on using math.  One of the problems is on viewing the final image because its size will ultimately determine the degree of magnification.  This, however, plays no part in determining the subject's actual physical size.  That process is a much simpler one. In the above photo, we know that the horizontal distance across the image is 24 mm.  We can set up a simple cross-multiplication scheme to determine its actual size.  We need to know three values:  distance across the sensor (24mm), distance across the image (measure in = 508 mm) and the image distance of the subject (36 mm).   Calculating the size of the mite using cross multiplication. The mite's body is 1.7 mm long.  We could also determine the overall distance, distance with legs spread out, and so on.  Each would require the me

I used the boulder as a foreground subject to add depth to the image. Whenever I come upon a lovely scene, something that calls my inner being to photograph, I always look for a foreground subject that will add extra appeal, meaning, or depth to an image.  It could be almost anything, but usually it is something of nature or people visiting the area.  If you want to go for a contrasting scene, you can pick a foreground/background combination that are antagonistic. In the case above, I drove along the short escarpment road until I found a favourable subject.  The rock was perfect as it complimented the rugged nature of the area and the mountainous backdrop.  The trick was to position myself and choose a focal length that would not make the rock either too small or too big in the shot.  In this case, the focal length was 70 mm on a full-frame body. Depth of field can be a little touchy at 70 mm, so I had to use a small aperture and alter the point of focus to extend it as much as possibl

My son Josh and his daughter, Nora. Communication between people, especially those who care about each other, is an important component of maintaining good and healthy relationships.  The problem is that it is difficult to be a good communicator.  Not because we can't find the words, but rather because of the demons and fears that fill each and every one of us.  After all, we are only human. A good example of this occurred when my son's family came to visit us for Kathryn's birthday.  I tend to be a bit of an authoritarian and will try to help them in child rearing by directing their children how to behave.  It has been a sore point between us in the past and it was deja vous all over again on this visit.  And the correction that I received for interfering made me angry. The problem was that I took the reprimand personally, not that I did something wrong but rather that it was my son's personal dislike towards me as a person (stemming from conflicts we had when he was a

Josh, Nora, Emma, and Chanelle photographed with and without flash. While I firmly believe that fill flash in outdoor portraits improves the final image, it can be said that it is not always needed.  The above photos demonstrates this, as the image quality of both photos colour, contrast, and saturation is good.  The top image was taken without flash while the bottom was. If you look closely, you can see where flash made a difference.  The shadows are filled (look at the necks of both adults), there is a catchlight in the eyes where flash was used, and the clothing isn't quite as dark.  However, if you were to see both photos independently of each other, there would be little cause for criticism, aside from the position of the members. Most of the time fill flash makes more of a difference than this.  Sunny days, bright backgrounds, flat lighting, and shooting in a shaded area all tend to produce better results when fill flash is used.  Nine times out of ten you will end up with a