Photo Art from Science

If you have a lens that generates that dreaded hotspot in the middle of your photos when you try infrared photography, you may want to try this trick.  LightRoom offers the “radial filter”, which you can use to make that hotspot disappear.

Most modern lenses are quite p...

If you have to deal in using long exposures or image stacking, here’s a gizmo you might be interested in. The Flashpoint Wave Commander can control taking a long series of photographs. You get to specify how long to wait before taking the shots, the shot duration, how...

There’s been a lot of talk about using crop sensor cameras for subjects that need that “effective focal length” increase, for distant subjects like birds. For example, a 600mm lens has an effective focal length of (600 X 1.5) or 900mm. This may be close to the truth if...

Competitor #1: Sony XQD

I tried to look up the D850 camera shot buffer numbers on the internet. All over the map. Either terrible or stunning, depending on who you ask. Nikon claims it should have a 51 shot buffer with the settings I shoot with.

I felt compelled to condu...

Sigma lets you program their “global vision” series of lenses with their USB dock. This includes the Sport, Art, and Contemporary lenses. One of the things you can program is which autofocus algorithm to use. You get three algorithms to choose from: “Fast AF Priority”,...

Sigma TC-1401 Teleconverter on their 70-200 f/2.8 Sport lens

You can see how tiny the Sigma TC-1401 teleconverter is. It’s only compatible with a few Sigma lenses, so be careful to do some research first to see if it will work for you. It won’t work on Nikkor lenses. Si...

70-200 and Nikon D850, mounted on Arca-Swiss foot

The 70-200mm f/2.8 is one of the primary lenses that most professionals and serious amateurs have in their lens arsenals. The Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM Sport lens is Sigma's second major version of this lens, and th...

Many people have a fundamental confusion about Nikon memory banks on their “pro” model cameras.  Nikon keeps the distinction as clear as mud.

The “Photo shooting menu bank” is found in the “Photo Shooting Menu” (the little camera icon). You can assign up to four of thes...

Did you ever wonder how they decided upon camera lens f-stop numbering?  Are there any other numbering schemes that could be useful?  And did you know that the ‘F’ stands for “focal ratio”, which is “the ratio of the system's focal length to the diameter of the en...

The more you understand about how stuff works, the more amazing it is. I had heard long ago that lenses with optical stabilization use “gyros”, but I never gave it much thought.  I had heard of “gyroscopes”, but spinning wheels aren’t what we’re talking about. The name...