All Day I Dream About Photography

Sensor dust is probably one of the worst nightmares of DSLR owners. Manufactures are trying hard to solve this problem with the introduction of “auto sensor cleaning” features in the newest bodies like the Canon EOS 40D or 450D.
Sensor dust will show in pictures as dark spots that will appear constantly at the same place and will be more pronounced at small apertures.

As of today there is no “dust free” solution for DSLR cameras yet, the sensor will accumulate dust over time and you can either learn to live with it or clean it regularly, however some precautions could considerably reduce this problem.

By definition a silhouette picture is an image where a dark foreground is outlined against a lighter background.
This type of photography is usually achieved by placing your subject in a bright scene and let your camera meter for the background e.g. A person at sunset. The resulting image will be a black, usually without details, focal point that is outlined in a well exposed scene.

For your inspiration and pleasure here is a collection of 13 of the best silhouette pictures that can be found at flickr under the Creative Common License.

This is a guest post written by Bud Kunzeli, Bud lives in Alaska and have been shooting Northen lights for years. He was kind enough to write this essay highlighting the most important aspect of Aurora Photography. Bud’s work can be viewed at http://www.pbase.com/santa

There are very few people who have more opportunity to view Northern Lights than those of us living in Central and Northern Alaska. I shoot the lights. A lot. I shoot for 6 hours or more some nights. Some nights they are out 5 minutes. Other nights, 5 hours. Sometimes it’s chilly.

I have previously categorized the Neutral Density filter as a “must have filter for any landscape photographer lover. And the reason was that it is one of the rare filters which effect cannot be reproduced in the digital darkroom.

Polarizers would be the other filters fitting that description.

What does a Polarizer do?

Photo by BlueJeff
Earlier this month I have described the Neutral Density Filters as being a must have tool for any landscape photographer, and I was not surprised at all when I got comments that if Neutral Density Filters are important for landscape photography Graduated ND filters should be even more important.
So why didn’t I ever invested in one ?