Sydney Harbour Bridge

Glenhaven Paddle Video

Check out my latest video from a trip to Glenhaven (Drakensberg) in December 2012. Make sure you don't miss our wipe out...

The WCC Weekly Roundup

Camera Simulation for Begginers

Want to play around with your camera settings and learn exactly what each setting does? Now you can, and you don't even have to use your camera. Canon have put together this simulation website where they give you a virtual camera and you are able to play around with the settings, take photos and learn how each setting affects the way the photo comes out. Once you done, you can take the challenge and see how quickly you able to complete it. This one is aimed at begginers but try the challenge out anyway. Its quite fun.

More Free Books

 

David duChemin, a world humanitarian photographer has put together his second Craft & Vision ebook. The book covers "More Great ways to make stronger photographs". Topics include: Making sharper images, learning to shoot in manual mode, balancing flash with ambient light, developing style and consistency, learning to see the light plus much more. Best of all- It's FREE. Not only that you can get the previous version for free at the same time. Get it all right here.

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Converting to black and white: When and How?

In this article by DPS, they cover the When and How to convert photographs to black and white. In other words, how do you know which photos will be good candidates to convert to black and white? Not all photos look better or good at all when they are converted. And how do you use Photoshop to convert images to black and white? I'm sure most people can give you 3 different methods quite easily but some methods can cause a loss of image quality. Do you know which one is the best method?

Inspiration

 

This week's inspiration comes from "The Big Picture".  In this article, they feature the finalists the Smithsonian's Magazine 10th annual photo contest. Some beautiful images to look at... Be sure to browse around their website for more great news stories in photgraphs...

Best video channels for the amateur photographer

MakeUseOf is not a photography website, but they do have some good photography resources from time to time. In this article, they have a list of YouTube channels that consistently produce photography content aimed at teaching and helping the amateur photogrpaher. Check out their list right here...

Project 365: Week 55 Pick

Jeffreys Bay - South Africa

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Joe McNally in SA

This is really cool if you have some spare cash lying around... Joe McNally is an incredible photographer who has been shooting for National Geographic since 1987. (He photographed a story for the latest National Geographic on the shelves). His specialty is portraits and the use of off-camera flashes. He's a true lighting master! He will be in South Africa giving workshops in Cape Town and Jhb which will be hosted by ORMS. Check it out here if you interested...

Lighting Diagram Creator

 

Want to create cool lighting diagrams like the one above to share with friends or to save your own lighting setups? "Lighting Diagram Creator" is a website that lets you do just that. You can create your diagram on their website and then export it as an image to keep. Its free to use for non-commercial purposes. It comes in two flavors. Creator and Creator V3 Beta which is optimized to work on tablets.

Dodge and Burn for Portraits

 

The dodge and Burn tools are very versatile and can be used on just about every photo you process. In this video tutorial Elena Jasic shows you how to use the Dodge and Burn tool to take your portrait to the next level...

Project 365: Week 54 Pick

The WCC Weekly Roundup

HDR Photography- Free PDF Book

I've mentioned a lot of PDF guides by MakeUseOf. They write some very good guides although not always about photography. This one however is about photography... HDR photography. The guide covers everything from what HDR photography is, why you want to do it, what equipment is needed, how to do it as well as free software options that you can use to process the images. At the end there are also more links and resources to further help you with this technique. I know its not everyone's cup of tea but if you want to give it a try, this is as good a place as any to get going... Be sure to check out some more of their great guides.

Two Inspiring Macro Porjects

Here's two inspiring projects to try out with Macro photography. They similar in style but the second one looks a little bit more difficult...

The first one is from FStoppers and involves shooting colourful water droplets through a piece of glass, and making a pattern show in the droplets from an object behind the glass. Can make some nice abstract images.   

The second one is a very similar concept but it requires shooting falling water droplets wich can be very tricky. But I'm sure you'll agree the results are very cool. This one is by DIY Photography...

Projecy 365: Week 53 Pick

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Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts

I was asked again about a Photoshop keyboard shortcut cheatsheet... I've blogged about this one before, but its one I've had on my desk for the past two years... Here is the download link again... Have you found a better one? Please leave a comment with a link to it.

Portrait Cropping Guide

Here's another helpful cheatsheet... We all know that rules are made to be broken, but they also made to be followed. This helpful infographic produced by Digital Camera World, can be printed out and kept for your next portrait editing session. It suggests where the best places to crop a portrait are (green) and also those places that should be a no no (red).

Pump up the ISO... or not

Sometimes people tell you to use the ISO on your camera the same way that you would use the Aperture or Shutter Speed as if ISO was some magic bullet. While its true that today's digital cameras cope with high ISO settings amazingly, with nature and science there is always a trade off. Do you know what the trade off for your camera is and how far you can push the ISO while still getting acceptable images? In this article by Light Stalking, they explore what these trade off's are and give you some suggestions on when to "pump the ISO". Check it out and maybe try perform the tests yourself...