Focal length usage

I recently ran my images through a little program that tells you the number of times you've used a particular focal length, aperture, etc. Looking at the results, I can see why I'm so happy with my 24-105 zoom and 60mm macro. I'm pretty much focused on 28-100mm...
The 60mm macro explains the huge number of shots at that focal length, but clearly I don't get out the 17-24 range very much. The really low numbers indicate shots with a compact camera... There is a hump at 17mm, indicating that I'd probably go wider on occasion, if I had it, but not enough to justify an expensive lens.

2000 Sales

My stock photo sales are ticking right along - I passed 2000 sales this month! Here are some recent uploads:

Maximize your sensor

Different cameras have different aspect ratios, and this has various impacts on your photography. For isolated stock photos, I've found that there is a way to increase your use of the sensor. For example, on my Canon 40D it has a 3x2 ratio - 50% longer than it is high. If I'm shooting something long, I often find I can get closer (making the subject larger in the frame) if I shoot it corner to corner in the frame, rather than squared up. Ultimately, this means I get an image out of it that is longer in terms of pixels. In the example below, I did two shots:

1. Key horizontal in frame.
2. Key rotated about 40% so it went corner to corner.

The first obvious thing was that I had to actually move closer with my macro lens to fill the frame when I went corner to corner. Below you can see the result of taking the rotated key and making it straight (right side of image). I ended up with a larger image. Here I've just copped the head of the key to show the difference in size with a 100% crop.
What does this all mean? It means that for an isolated subject you end up with a larger file that normally possible with your camera - say a 12MB file by pixels from a 10MB sensor. I would expect a little loss of something when I rotate, but close inspection of these two images suggests it is more than made up by getting more pixels on each detail in the subject.

Happy shooting!

Happy Father's Day

I'm not the "Hallmark" Dad getting out and golfing, fishing or watching football with a beer, but I do love the actual 'Father' aspect of the day. I can't wait get away this weekend with the family and kids. Nothing else compares to the joy of raising kids and having a loving family... Happy Father's Day!

Another reject!

I guess if I pay attention I'll stop submitting flowers to DT :) It is a shame, as these are significantly better than ones I've had approved before...

Rejected

Over the course of a year I have had many photos rejected at Dreamstime. Of course, the agency has every right to reject what isn't up to their quality standards, if they don't think they will sell, or if they just have too many already. Here is an example of a recent reject, that I particularly like. Oh well - you can't take it personally (it was rejected because they have too many of this type already)...

Canon 40D Review

As I've mentioned before, I recently moved up to a new Canon 40D from a Canon 20D. I was looking forward to several feature upgrades and was pleasantly surprised.




I figured it would be helpful for anyone looking at upgrading to have a list of features I actually appreciate:

1. 10MP versus 8MP. This is obvious but it really does give me room to crop a bit and maintain larger file sizes for stock photos.
2. Noise. I used to have to do some noise reduction on almost any shot to clean up shadows but now I rarely have to do any noise reduction below ISO 400, even for stock submittal. This has really made my workflow faster.
3. Focusing. I really appreciate the 9 cross points - you can really use all 9 focus points even in lower light. With the 20D I could rarely make use of the additional focus points when I really needed them. I get a lot more keepers out of it on continuous focus, as well. One nice feature is that it can show the focus point used on the playback.
4. Viewfinder / screen. Just a little bit bigger in the finder, but lots bigger on the back LCD. I couldn't believe how small the 20D's was when I took it out the other day :)
5. Awake from any button on the back. Surprisingly this is great. When you pick up the camera you don't have to half press the shutter to wake it up.
6. My Menu. This is another great feature. I rarely have to go to the other menus.


7. Custom modes on the dial. This is pretty good - I have one set for manual for flash and another for continuous shooting (Focus mode, fps maxed, aperture priority, ISO 200, etc.).
8. High light priority. I haven't used it much, but worked nicely to keep snow from blowing out the other day.
9. 3fps. I like having the option of 3fps versus 6.5fps. It is very easy to accidentally fire off two shots in 6.5fps. I do like the fast speed for HDR type stuff, and action sequences of course.
10. Live view. Hey - call it a gimmick if you like but I've had about 5 times so far that I wanted to get a shot of the kids down low and loved being able to see what was going on. Can't say i'm in love with how you focus, but it is handy once in a while. Nice for macro tripod work as well (10x magnification for focusing).
11. RGB histogram. Nice - you can't really ever be sure with a luminance histogram, since it doesn't show a single channel clipping.
12. ISO visible all the time. I absolutely love having ISO in the viewfinder and on the top LCD. It is so obvious that you left it on a high ISO. i've never had shots at too high an ISO with this camera.
13. Responsiveness. It is hard to put a number on it, but the 40D is just that much quicker. If you take a sequence of shots at 6.5fps when you stop you are looking at the last one, not watching them trickle in. If you view 9 shots at a time on the back LCD you can spin the dial and it just rocks through them. I love it! With the 20D there was always an almost imperceptible lag that annoyed me.

All in all a solid upgrade from the 20D.