Understanding Your Camera’s Histogram

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Photography is a uniquely technical art. Indeed, the art of photography can be broken down into two areas: composition, and balancing competing technical constraints. This article is about those constraints – or, more specifically, about using your camera’s histogram to better understand how the decisions you’ve made impact the exposure of a photo.

What is a Histogram?

In photography, a histogram is a simple diagram showing the distribution of light and dark areas in a photo. You will find histograms on modern digital SLRs and in photo editing tools such as Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, or the GIMP.

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Product Photography Tips From an Ad-Hoc Shoot

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The setup I used for LynzyLou's product shots.

My wife owns an operates a small boutique, and recently asked for my help with the photography for her site. I’m not really a professional photographer these days, so I don’t have the gear on hand for a pro-caliber shoot. Still, I told myself – “Photography is about results, not gear!” – and off I went, building an ad-hoc lighting stage for her products.

Building the Lightbox

Luckily for me, hairbows are relatively small items, which means I could get away with a very small lightbox. To make it, I picked up a used laundry detergent box with no lid at a local grocery store. After reinforcing the edges, I cut out the sides of the box, leaving about a 1″ border all the way around. Over this, I taped plain notebook paper, the thinnest weight I  saw at Walmart. Finally, I grabbed a couple of poster boards and a couple of coroplast signs from my office.

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Buying a Used Lens

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If you’re anything like me, when you bought your dSLR you probably thought that was an insane amount of money to spend on a camera. Now, here you are, looking to plunk down another large wad of cash on lenses for your baby.

As with anything else, buying used lenses can save you a good deal of money – but you can also get badly burned if you don’t know what to look for. Here are the things that I look for when considering the purchase of second-hand glass.

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Grey Market Photography Equipment: Pros and Cons

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When purchasing camera equipment new, you may run across the term “grey market”. Grey market camera equipment is typically priced slightly lower than typical retail, but what exactly are you giving up to save a little money?

Grey Market vs. Domestic Products

First, to be clear, there is nothing shifty about purchasing grey market equipment. All the term means is that the product is intended by the manufacturer for sale in a different geographical market. In almost all instances, the equipment is exactly the same, perhaps even manufactured on the same assembly line.

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Choosing the Best Camera Strap for You

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Courtesy Sparkieblues

One of the things that I’ve discovered over several years of carrying a camera is that the accessories you use make a surprising difference in the experience. One of the most important pieces of kit a photographer has in their bag is the lowly camera strap. It’s probably not glamorous – I’ve seen straps made from paracord, old seatbelts, and once, a bicycle cable lock – but you’re depending on it to keep your precious camera at hand. If it fails, you’re likely to discover it with the sickening crash of you camera hitting the hard concrete floor below.

Things like that never happen on shag carpet. Funny how that works.

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Photo of the Day – Pedal Power

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Courtesy Dave Krugman

Why This Photo Works For Me

This photo is a great example of both using a natural frame – the curb – to keep the viewer’s eye in the frame, and of keeping at absolutely vertical horizon. That may seem counter-intuitive at first – after all, there is no visible horizon in this photo, and the bike is parked on a hill so that curb itself is on a slight incline.  Note, however, that the vertical lines in this capture at absolutely vertical – the pole to which the bike is attached, the door frame, the alignment of the bricks – these things come together to let the viewer know what is horizontal, and it isn’t the ground.

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Photo of the Day – Potential Energy

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Courtesy Ricky Flores

 Why This Photo Works For Me

This photo incorporates many of the “rules” of photographic composition to create a very solid capture. First, the “Rule of Thirds” is in play here – the car is located almost precisely in the bottom right third of the frame, immediately catching the eye into that corner.  This is emphasized with a relatively shallow depth of field, keeping the entire vehicle in focus but subtly blurring the background.

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