Camera Dojo

Building a Home Studio Part 3

February 17, 2008 – 10:50 pm | 7 Comments

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The home studio has been making amazing progress lately and we did some major work on it today to get it ready for it’s first test shoot. The final width comes in at twelve feet and the shooting area is fifteen feet from the main shooting wall. The back wall was painted with gloss white for high key background that will mostly be used during product shots.

Building a Home Studio Part 2

February 10, 2008 – 4:03 pm | 4 Comments

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The transformation of the garage is nearing completion and the L7 Studio is coming together nicely. Unfortunately its not going to be as nice as this shot of 8443 Warner, but hay, someday right? So where are we and what have we had to do so far? Besides tons of trash, lots of craiglist sales, and multiple car loads of stuff to Goodwill, there is only one pile of trash left.

Building a Home Studio Part 1

February 3, 2008 – 2:00 pm | 3 Comments

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Long time readers will note that I have been using a room in the house as my photo studio, alas I feel I have outgrown my humble beginnings, but what to do? My wife won’t let me kick any of the kids out of their bedrooms and she won’t let me take over the larger living room. This left two options, 1) Rent a space somewhere, 2) Build a new studio in the garage.

On Location: Miami

January 22, 2008 – 10:02 am |

I am out in Miami this week for a trade show but I am going to be out and about getting some great shots and writing up some articles about taking outdoor shots around the beach area. Just wanted to let you know we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth and I will try to post some great shots from the area this week.

JPG Magazine

January 20, 2008 – 9:39 pm | 2 Comments

If you haven’t been visiting JPG Magazine than get over there and check it out. JPG Magazine is all user contributed content based on different themes each month and then readers vote on which images shoud be included in the magazine. So while you are over there, be sure and vote for me!

Radiopopper production update

January 11, 2008 – 1:05 pm |

So here they are – a first glimpse of the P1 production units. Pictured are the v1.0 preproduction prototypes. These are functional units from the first short run batch. They were manufactured with micro sized internal antennas. These micro antennas, though highly and specially tuned for this application, failed to provide the even signal pattern they were looking for. The pictured units have been refitted with connectors for external antennas. The unit pictured displays the antenna to be used on final production units.

Learning to use your histogram

January 5, 2008 – 3:00 pm | 5 Comments

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One of the most useful and yet least understood tools in your digital arsenal is your camera’s histogram. Learning how to properly use and understand your camera’s histogram is the easiest way to vastly improve the amount of properly exposed photographs you take.

Assignment #5 – Winter in your hometown

January 1, 2008 – 4:05 pm |

f you haven’t visited the L7Foto Flickr Group, we post regular assignments to help people have inspiration for taking different types of pictures. This new assignment is for you to go out and take a picture where you live that shows something unique or special about your city and shows what winter in your city is like.

Using a quick checklist

December 27, 2007 – 6:14 am | 4 Comments

f you haven’t visited the L7Foto Flickr Group, we post regular assignments to help people have inspiration for taking different types of pictures. This new assignment is for you to go out and take a picture where you live that shows something unique or special about your city and shows what winter in your city is like.

Free Lightroom Presets for Christmas

December 23, 2007 – 10:00 pm | 9 Comments

Just in time for Christmas we have put out our first set of develop presets for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the first set, Lightroom Essentials, is FREE and is designed to help make working with large batches of images easier.

Westcott Spiderlite TD5 Review

December 22, 2007 – 9:00 am | 7 Comments

We are certainly fans of constant lights for beginners with their “what you see is what you get” approach and some of our favorite lights are our Photo Basics kit which we use all the time for different projects. The main problem with constant lights is the heat generated by the bulbs. On a recent product shoot we added up 3000w of lights running which brought up the temperature in the room VERY quickly and I swear I ended up with a mild sunburn by the end.

Welcome PPS’ers!

December 10, 2007 – 6:14 pm |

Gavin over at The Pro Photo Show put up a nice link to our recent article about shooting in manual mode. If you haven’t heard of Gavin’s site or his podcast, I encourage you to subscribe to it. It is on my list of “must listen to podcasts every week. Please go see what’s going on over there!

DSLR Myths – Cold Weather is Bad for Your DLSR

December 5, 2007 – 3:36 am | 6 Comments

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Here is another in our Mythbusting series. Today we answer the question “is using your camera in cold weather bad for your camera?” This origin of this myth is from anecdotal evidence of people having camera failures and other strange things being attributed to being used in the cold. Is this real, imagined, or a coincidence? Let’s take a look inside this myth and find out what’s really going on.

Common DSLR Myths – Always Use The Lowest ISO

December 1, 2007 – 6:00 am | 17 Comments

In the first of our Mythbusting series we are going to look at a common myth that you should always use the lowest ISO number possible to get the best results This is based on the knowledge that the higher the ISO number you use, the more noise (digital artifacts) will be created in your image While this is certainly true, what we are going to examine in this article is wether or not you should always shoot in the lowest ISO number your camera can handle in order to get the best images Will this myth be confirmed or busted?

DSLR Remote Pro Review

November 23, 2007 – 7:00 pm | 6 Comments

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Not everyone will ever have the need to shoot tethered to a computer but if you do, it can really come in handy. Whether it is for quickly getting your shots to your computer, using the computer to control the camera’s settings remotely, or to easily send the image to a monitor for other people to review live, shooting tethered is sometimes the only way to do what you want.

Phottix Wireless Remote Control Review

November 1, 2007 – 10:58 am | 18 Comments

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For most general purpose photography you probably won’t ever need a remote control. However, if you are doing product shots, macro shots, and especially long exposure shots, using a remote control can help avoid the camera shake of pressing the shutter on the camera. There are both cheap and pricey wired remotes but Phottix decided to go one better and make their remote wireless. Continue reading to find out all the details.

Preparing for a wedding shoot

October 21, 2007 – 8:24 am | 3 Comments

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This weekend I am shooting a small wedding in Anaheim in conjunction with Esquire Photography, and with 5 days to go before the shoot I thought it would be good to go through all the preparation that goes into a shoot like this. A wedding is very different than any other shoot as there are no re-takes, no reschedules, and you can’t make any mistakes or miss any of the important shots. So how do you prepare for a wedding shoot? Simply put, planning, planning, planning!

Phottix Battery Grip for Canon EOS 350D/400D/XT/XTi

September 28, 2007 – 9:55 pm |

Phottix Battery Grip for the Canon EOS 350D/400D/XT/XTi

We recently got hold of the Phottix Battery Grip with built-in rechargeable battery to test out on our Canon Rebel XTI. I have to admit… this is a pretty cool item for the price, and its incredibly convenient. If you shoot your Digital Rebel a lot, this is one of those “must have” items, for the price.