The aim is to avoid “…I should have…” or “I wish I had…” moments.

1. Dark Faces

This happens when the light source eg. the sun is behind your subject. This kind of mistake happens all the time even to someone who has taken a lot of photographs (less frequent though).

Example:

One way to fix this is by using a flash or a reflector or set the camera to centre weight metering.

The rule of thumb: “If the shadow leans towards you, use your flash or a reflector or set to centre-weight metering”

2. Missing Feet

So you’re on a trip and pretty excited with the things surrounds you. You take a snap of your trip group and by the time you came home you noticed something isn’t right… Their feet were cropped out!!

Example:

Maybe not everyone noticed this, but having the feet cropped out is a very common annoying mistake and many times a photo that should be great in the living room is lost.

3. Slanted Horizon

Sunset on the sea (or a storm cloud in this example) is always a great view to snap. However we have to take care that we don’t tilt our camera a tad bit. The horizon is very sensitive to angle and can be very annoying when slanted. Look at the picture below:

Slanted horizon gives an unsteady feeling, to address this, turn on your guide lines in the camera viewfinder.

4. Forgotten Manual Focus

The title speaks for itself. There was one time when I got a batch of blurred image because I had forgotten to turn my auto focus back on. The LCD preview will not do any justice since most image looks clear in there, however once viewed on your computer screen, great disappointment awaits.

5. Lazy to Take Another Shot

If you feel your shot is not up to scratch, shoot again. Trust me, there are many things that photoshop cannot fix; and you only know this after you got home!

That’s a starter list, there are many more common mistakes that we do, however above are the ones I felt most frequently happen.

Unfortunately this wide diversity has driven us into getting to the area of photography that we didn’t want and when we don’t do what we like, we will not do very well. The main thing about getting good at photography and other business is to focus on your strength and develop on it. This is something that I’m learning as well.

The following video is an old video which many might have seen. It is showing the core values and mindset that has gotten Apple Computers out of their near bankrupt situation into a world leader in the IT industry as well as multimedia. After all, we especially photographers will know that Apple computers are great for photo editing and multimedia.

I wanted to show this video since though not directly related to photography, it shows a lot about focus, working with competitors and most importantly: Knowing Your Strength. Too much ego and wanting to solely defeat your competitors will do no good to yourself, I can say that this applies to your personal business as well not only for large corporations.

If you can’t see the video below, it means youtube is down…

I hope this video inspires you as it has inspire me!

Personally I’m quite pleased with the materials covered here and I am also pleased to hear the audiences find that the workshop was useful (from the conversation with different people). In the beginning I was quite worried about the turnout rate: I kept thinking whether this lecture theater gonna end up empty.

The turnout rate turns out to be great!! The theater was quite crowded and people were listening intently to the presentations.

As Joe and Jon moves towards the meat of the presentation, I could see that people are getting more and more interested. This workshop’s materials were very different from the standard job seeking advices. It wasn’t just about resume and cover letter, it was about our attitude and habit. It was about improving ourselves to overcome fear in trying something new, learn top make mistake and learn to accept or hear bad responses.

I believe this kind of workshop can alleviate Golden Key RMIT into a more professional level and help giving back to its members as well as the student community.

This was a great presentation and in the future, this kind of workshop is not to be missed. I’m planning to hold another professional workshop in the future, the topic will depends on the interest of the community.

More Pictures

Photography Takeaway

Right, you might think that this kind of workshop have nothing to do with photography? Well there are a few things that we can takeaway from attending this kind of workshop (and taking photos):

1. You learn how to build up your skills to get a good job in photography
2. You get to practice your indoor photography skills. The images in this post are taken without flash, the requirement is to use a fast lens and high ISO. The fastest lens that I have is my trusty Tamron f/2.8, it does the job wonderfully. Open up the aperture to the max and ISO as high as possible, you’ll get a sharp shot.
3. If you don’t have a fast lens, then bring a powerful flash such as Nikon SB-600 or Nikon SB-800

More workshop images can be seen at http://www.goldenkey-rmit.org.

BenchmarkEdu can be found in: http://benchmarkedu.blogspot.com/

The Melbourne Motor Show, always a good place to admire cool and interesting cars…and of course, taking photographs of them.

One of the thing that interests me a lot is that many of the concept cars in there are hybrid cars. I guess most of the car manufacturers are going green due to the global movement towards “less carbon emission”… anyway, this is a photography blog so I’m not gonna to the whole environmental discussion

A spark of different addition is the participation of Bolwell, the Australian “Ferrari”. Nice looking car with a smaller engine than most of the exotic cars.

Other sport cars includes the new Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Ford and of course other familiar players like Ferrari.

Star of the Show

Located in a modest corner of the exhibition without is the promoted star of the show, the Bugatti Veyron. This fastest car in the world stopped only for 3 days, which no doubt attracted some of the crowd to visit the exhibition sooner. Deviating into photography topic a bit, notice that I take a picture of the information board in order to tell the story through the picture.

The Veyron is not the only star as far as I can see. I think the car on the left, the Lexus LS600hs is much more interesting. Its ability to automate parking procedure is quite an advancement in the car industry. Notice on the left that the lady didn’t even touch the steering wheel while the car is parking. I was at the right place and time to take a quick snap when the demonstration happened :D.

The Other…

The motorbike on the left is considered the “other”, I have no other words. Standing tall like a monster truck this motorbike is the biggest motorbike in the world. Apparently this motorbike is being used in destruction shows, where it flattened different normal cars.

Interesting addition to the show. Anyway, it was pretty hard to get a whole shot of this thing due to its size although I was using an 17mm lens.

It was great going to the car show, it is very interesting to see the technologies out there.

Photography Take Away

By going to shows like this one, there are a couple points that we can learn from photography stand point.

1. Be on the lookout for interesting demonstration.
2. Be patient when photographing, there are hundreds of people in the arena and they will most likely walk in front of you.
3. Take your time, don’t be hasty, there are plenty to look at. Refrain from going home in the first 30-60 minutes. This is important as demonstrations are done on particular times only.
4. Look at the exhibition booklet in order to properly understand the arena.

So what can we expect from this lens?

First thing, this is a 1:1 Macro lens, meaning that it is capable of creating 1:1 image reproduction of the actual object; although if the “limit switch” (not shown in this picture) is turned off, you can get much closer than 1:1 scale. I have been testing this lens for a while and quite please with the resulting images, the depth of field is great and the sharpness of the resulting image is very pleasing. On the right is an example of a necklace pendant taken using this lens under studio lights.

More on the specs…

One of the most important spec is the focal length. This camera came with a fixed focal length at 90mm, meaning there’s no zoom in and out. Some might disagree however I think when I’m photographing outdoor with this lens for non product object, such as a person, it forces me to be more creative and to make the most out of the available space at the time of the shoot. So with this I can also say that this lens is not just for close-ups, instead can be a great companion for a portrait shoot.

Another interesting aspect of this lens is that availability of a manual aperture ring, a feature that is not very common in the era of digital, in particular with less-expensive lens like this one. Of course with the digital SLR camera the ring is not being used very much however with my F-801s film that does not support electronic aperture ring, the manual ring is a handy addition.

Lastly and handy

The last prominent and most handy feature of this lens is the AF (Auto Focus) and M (Manual Focus) switch, in order to switch to and fro between those two, all I have to do is just pulling or pushing the focusing ring. Notice that you can see a blue “M” and white “AF” writing on the lens, that’s where the focusing ring would “clicks” in. So there’s no more fiddling around with the small on camera body AF/MF switch. This is especially great when taking picture and the auto-focus won’t focus properly.

So why is there any catch with the half price of Nikkor?

Alhough this lens is one of the sturdy lens, compared to the Nikkor it feels more plasticky and in addition the focussing speed is slower than the nikkor lens. However eventhough I knew these things existed, they didn’t threw me off my decision to get this lens. As long as it focuses well, takes 1:1 macro reproduction, able to productng clear and high quality image, its all good. The sturdiness at this point is enough for me, after all, I don’t intent to throw my lens to the floor.

All in all this is a great lens!

I have to say that I’m very glad that I get this one, and it’ll be useful for years to come So if you’re getting a macro lens, consider this one!

This group was created to be the central meeting place for all who are interested in Photography, both from the technical side and the business side of it. Join up and exchange photographic information with other. Learning together and exchanging information will be much better and more fun than trying to learn it all by yourselves.

To view and join the group, click here: (Learn Photography Melbourne), if you have a Facebook account, you can login and join the group, otherwise you need to create a Facebook account first.

Without further ado, click away and start discussing photography techniques, events, gadgets and more!.

In this post I’ll be talking about my recent visit to Bali, since there’s quite a bit to talk about, I have separated the story into 3 parts. Along the way I’ll be mentioning bit by bit here and there different photography explanation. As usual, all images are click-able for larger sample.

One of the thing that intrigues me most when I first arrived is their markets, which is one of the main tourist attraction around there thanks to the large amount of affordable “Bali culture” souvenirs.

Market mixed varieties

That picture above is one of the main markets around, called Sukawati Art Market. This market is visited by tourists from around the world, it almost seems that there are more tourist than locals in the area. I think it was truly one of the remarkable experience to be able to see so much merchandise. Here’s a tip that I kept remembering (and forgetting sometimes), every time we visit a crowded place like this, never forget to take picture of the place and crowd.

Sukawati Art Market is not the only markets out there being visited by many, this is one of the other markets that I have visited, quite an interesting structure I must say, the whole area was packed with different kinds of merchandise.

Crowds and Photos

Let’s just say that with all the excitement of this merchandise, it’s quite hard to stay focus and remembering to take a photo. The thing that captures my eye to take the picture on the right is the fact they are hanging display clothes on the ceiling of their extended roof. It gives the impression of a pattern, almost like the clothes are standing on top of the customers. Well, anyway, there’s always so many things to capture in this kind of places.

More on crowds…

Here are some other pictures depicting the crowds:

Colors of the market

The other aspect that interests me was the colors. There’s so many interesting colors in the market. Take a look at the vibrant colors that I took at the market.

The bags were taken in a different market. In many situation, especially when the situation is crowded and full of different things, there’s alwas interesting colors to look at and photographed.

Cultures and tradition

It was interesting to see that local practices are still being done; as seen in the picture, the young woman was giving her offerings. Apparently it was being done in a regular manner, a pity that I didn’t have the chance to find out what the offering was about and why it has to be constantly renewed.

Another apparent cultural merchandise in Bali Markets are masks , so many different kinds are sold all over Bali, not only in markets but also department stores. Well, we’ve just had a little taste of Bali market places and its beauty. Next time I’ll talk more about different places to look at and as usual accompanied with quality shots.

Don’t forget to check my tutorials through the links on your right hand side

Many photography technique will be posted in this blog starting from the essential basics into the must have advance techniques. Various branches of photography will be explored from macro and close-up, portrait photography, studio photography and so on.

To ensure that we have a quality learning experiences, all the examples images will be taken personally and professionally. We will learn together step by step. I believe the saying that we must bite only what we can however we have to keep on biting.

With the right technique, time and ideas we will be able to create a masterpiece.

This blog will be regularly especially the tutorial, at least once a month. So stay tuned !