I’m pretty much addicted to photography. Methods, gear, news, you name it. It really is kinda scary. To keep my addiction in check when I’m not shooting or shopping, I need a steady flow of photo content to keep the shakes and withdrawl symptoms from popping up so I put together a list of what i consider to be some of the best photo-related content out there. Read on for more photo link porn than you can shake a stick at including 25 blogs, 20 AMAZING photographers, and some other fun stuff that will make those days you feel stuck at your desk wishing you were shooting go a bit smoother…
You may have noticed CameraPorn is looking a little different. Been a long time coming, but some spring cleaning was in order for us. I’ve redesigned the entire theme to be a bit easier on the eyes and I hope you guys like it! A couple of my favorite features: Header texture taken directly from the Canon 1Ds Mk III along with ’subscribe’ button in that style as well, the new ‘get social’ area in the sidebar…. Feel free to friend us on any of those links, AND what I hope to be a general improvement in overall readability and usability. It’s still new so there could be soe bugs here and there. If you see anything weird, or have any comments at all, let us know!!!
Was reorganizing some of my storage last night and came across this sunset shot from a trip to Grand Cayman a while back and decided to revisit it and focus on some of the new retouching methods I’ve learned since then. I still clearly remember the day as one of the best sunsets I’ve seen, because the sky looked like it was on fire. Caribbean sunsets really are the best. Here’s a brief step-by-step on how I did it:
Lightroom Adjustments
Straighten horizon
Reduce the ‘Blacks’ slider to eliminate any black clipping in the histogram.
Increase the ‘Recovery’ slider to recover some lost detail in the highlights, eliminating as much white clipping as possible.
Adjust white balance
Export to Photoshop
Photoshop CS3 Adjustments
Create a ‘Curves’ adjustment layer to increase overall contrast.
Create another ‘Curves’ adjustment layer only affecting the sky to add a bit more contrast to the clouds.
Added a ‘Photo Filter’ adjustment layer, with a warming filter, to warm up the scene a bit.
Dodged and burned a bit in the clouds and the suns rays to bring them out a bit more.
Flatten image, convert to LAB color.
Use the ‘Apply Image’ to give the color a bit more punch. Settings: Soft Light blending, ‘B’ channel. (The ‘B’ channel in LAB mode controls the yellow to blue spectrum)
Convert back to RGB
Duplicate background layer, use High-Pass Filter for sharpening (4px). For those not familiar with the high pass method, Leggnet has a great write-up.
From there I set the high-pass layer to soft light, flattened the image, save and brought back to Lightroom and VOILA.
Sorry I didn’t get the chance to do screenshot throughout the process, was kinda late last night when I did it and I was jamming to get through it. As always, if you have any questions, hit me up in the comments. Oh and if you like it, don’t forget to add to your faves on flickr
Though this would generally just warrant a mini-porn post, the sheer magnitude of this lens porn is astounding. Ya see, Canon is celebrating their 40 Millionth EF lens in production. Along with the press release, Canon included this drool inducing image of the entire EF lens line at high resolution. Try not to drool all over your keyboard folks, I know I did. Press release after the jump…
After a recent discussion with a fellow photographer who is just beginning to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I was inspired to do a quick run-through of my process. I use Lightroom as my organizational tool as well as for most post processing and have since its initial beta. Its hands-down my favorite photography related application. It contains nearly all the tools I need to get my images where they need to be in a very intuitive interface, making the sometimes arduous task of organizing and retouching much simpler.
The following is Part 1 in a 2 parter about my entire Lightroom workflow. I’m using Lightroom 2 Beta, but everything in this post applies to the 1.x version as well, so no worries. Full workflow for organization and tagging after the jump…
Changing it up a bit today with some mouth-watering, lip-smacking goodness… food porn. Food is undoubtedly one of the most challenging things to shoot and something I’ve yet to fully tackle, but at times you will be presented with food that is so damn attractive that the shots will be great, even if you’re like me and have no idea what you’re doing. More photos, tips, and some food photo links after the jump…
Being that I’ve been digging up some old stuff, I’m finally getting around to making a post I’ve been meaning to get done for a while. Most of our readers know we are into concert photography here at CameraPorn, and this post is shares my most memorable experience in that realm. Last summer I had all-access to shoot The Wailers.. yes those Wailers, at a performance at the House of Blues in Hollywood. Photos and tips after the jump…
The CameraPorn crew will be in Austin attending South By Southwest Interactive for our day jobs, working for the most awesome company in the world. If you’re attending drop us a line in the comments, maybe we’ll do an impromptu photowalk. Also, don’t miss the (mt) closing party on tuesday night. Details at sxsw.com.
Came across this sweet flickr widget today via kuanhoong.com linked in a post from Thomas Hawk. Its called slideoo and you can get your own here. Takes about 30 seconds.
Canon 30D with BG-E2 Battery grip and Canon 28mm f/1.8 - from the first-ever CameraPorn gear shoot.
Being that chl and I have been extremely busy lately and unable to bring you too many new and exciting posts and with the 1-year anniversary of cameraporn.net rapidly approaching, I felt it appropriate to bring back some old cameraporn for you guys to chew on. Full list after the jump…
Just read a totally heartbreaking story from our friend Matt Mullenweg… my ultimate camera nightmare. On a recent trip from Philadelphia to San Francisco, a US Airways scumbag baggage handler stole his Nikon D3, Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, Leica M8, Leica 50mm f/1.0 Noctilux and various cards, cases, etc. from his checked baggage. Thats just about $20k worth of gear. Matt, my heart goes out to ya… I can’t imagine the pain you must be feeling about it… it would kill me. Read his story here and read my post about gear safety while travelling here.
Canons wonderful spring rebates are back and valid from May 18th until July 19th and are instant.. no mailing stupid rebate forms. Woohoo! Here they are:
The Online Photographer put together a great piece on using an external hard drive to speed up Photoshop performance.. basically utilizing it the external as your scratch disk. I’ll definitely be trying this. To see how you can turbocharge your Photoshop, click here.
From OnTakingPictures via Thomas Hawk, photographer Bill Wadman goes into why he would take a quality lens and cheap camera over expensive camera and cheapie lens in any situation. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve had this conversation with people when they ask me for advice on what camera or lens to buy.
He is pretty much spot on with everything he is saying and this quote about says it all: “I saw a girl with a high-end Gitzo tripod, 5D body, and some crappy consumer level zoom lens on the front. Honestly, I almost pushed her over the edge.” …as you should have! Check it out here.
