f/Stop Brothers Blog

Okay, so as you fellows who came from my photostream on Flickr, this blog entry is about “driving stick” and the Lightroom 3 Beta that was just released today.

Driving Stick in Photography: Now I am not about to bore you with how to drive a manual transmission vehicle, although I will point out that it is not that hard, and you should definitely learn if you don’t know how. I am using this photograph as a kind of pun to talk about shooting with manual settings. Most of you know that your camera has 5 basic settings (aperture priority, shutter priority, manual mode, program mode, automatic), and I wanted to discuss the advantages of shooting in one of the first three modes.

• First off, you have an excellent amount of control by using one of those modes. If you want to make sure you always get an awesome bokeh in the background, go to aperture priority and just set to the desired aperture and the camera will figure out the shutter speed you need. If you are shooting a sports event and know you are going to need to be shooting at fast shutter speeds, you can set the desired shutter speed and the camera will figure out the rest.
• Second, the camera does not know what you want. By using one of these priority settings, you tell the camera exactly what you want, and it does its best to give you the desired outcome. What is excellent is the fact that you don’t need an SLR to have this control. All cameras have exposure compensation, and some aperture and shutter speed controls, they are just harder to find (consult manual for more info).
• Lastly, it helps develop your eye better, it makes you as a photographer step back, take a deep breath and think before you shoot, which is something I find to be very important. If you take the time to think, you reduce the amount of time you are going to spend working on a photograph.

Something most people think, and are quite wrong about, is that a camera makes the photographer. I know I bring this up a lot, but this time it really ties in with what I am saying here. With that last point, what people, photographers and viewers alike, like to think is that a photograph starts with the camera. An amazing shot that you look at (at least 80% of the time) was a shot that was very well thought out before the photographer even brought the camera to the subject. I will admit that I don’t always do this, but I find that when I go out with a plan and idea, that my shots come out 10x better than when I just go out to take a picture. Remember MAKE photographs.

Lightroom 3 Beta: Okay fellow photographers. Adobe just released the Lightroom 3 Beta. So NOW is the time to try out Lightroom. Downloading this beta is free and has all the Lightroom features. My Lightroom 2 trial was about to end, so this came out at a perfect time for me. Also goes to show that you should always try before you buy. Had I gone out and bought Lightroom 2, I would have been kicking myself when Lightroom 3 came out. Now I could spend my time here talking about all the new features, but I am going to direct you to this article by Scott Kelby at his Photoshop Insider Blog. He covers everything.

My favorite feature has to be the Flickr Export button integrated write into Lightroom 3 just drag and drop, then click publish and VIOLA! Can you find the feature (click photo to view large):

And as always,