After shooting the Kansas City Chiefs game against the San Diego Chargers last weekend, another photographer and I were discussing the differences between luck and skill. Those are two things every good photographer has experience with.

Continue reading "Luck or Skill?" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:35 AM | Permalink

You know by now I'm a big fan of using strobes. Good light is so important to good pictures that I love being able to create and/or add it whenever I want. And I've always been a fan of softboxes as a way of controlling and directing that light. Now there's a new softbox that I just can't say enough good things about. But I'll try :)

Continue reading "Great New Softbox" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 04:12 PM | Permalink

Being a newspaper photographer for over twenty years has taken its toll on my neck and shoulders. I've grown to hate the weight of cameras around my neck, and am tired of trying to keep them from falling off my shoulders. One company looks like it has a good solution for me.

Continue reading "A Better Camera Strap?" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:23 AM | Permalink

I've been a big fan of off-camera flash since I started using a Vivitar 283 and 15-ft sync cord in the mid-80s. Since then I've added many more strobes and some radio triggers/receivers to my lighting kits. The last few years, though, I've done most of my lighting with wireless flash built into my cameras and strobes.

Continue reading "Loving Wireless Flash" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 04:40 PM | Permalink

My daughter Rachel and I are spending this week in Rocky Mountain National Park. We're camping and have a number of hikes planned, including Long's Peak, if possible. Se we're traveling light.

Continue reading "Minimalist Approach" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 07:06 PM | Permalink

For years I've struggled with whether to carry a macro (closeup) lens with me on trips. I love what I can do with one, but it's another piece of glass to carry. And if I'm not sure I'll need one, I often leave it behind. Now I've finally got a solution.

Continue reading "Extension Tubes" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:00 AM | Permalink

I'm just back from leading a photo trip on the Oregon coast for American Photo as part of their Mentor Series program. As is usual on a workshop like this, I took along a few of my favorite accessories, which I often call toys, to add some variety.

Continue reading "Ode to Toys" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:31 AM | Permalink

This weekend my daughter was part of a massive recital by her dance studio. No question I'm going to shoot pictures. So the question is really, "what gear should I take?" I've got some of the best cameras and lenses made. Guess what I took?

Continue reading "It's not what you've got, but how you use it" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 04:02 PM | Permalink

Nikon recently released a new digital SLR, the D5000, and I just got my hands on one. It's an entry/mid-level DSLR (12MP) with a twist. Literally. It's the first Nikon DSLR with an articulated display. That means the LCD pulls out from the body so you can see what you're framing without having the viewfinder at your eye. Cool.

Continue reading "A Twisted View" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:26 PM | Permalink

As you know from visiting camera stores, there are an endless variety of accessories. Some of the best, though, you can build yourself.

Continue reading "DIY Photo Gear" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:42 AM | Permalink

I've gotten my hands on a Nikon D3X, at 24MP the highest resolution digital SLR currently available. And that many pixels changes how you can use this camera.

Continue reading "Pixels to Spare" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:41 AM | Permalink

Last week I attended PMA 2009 in Las Vegas, the Photo Marketing Association's annual tradeshow. All the big (and many of the small) companies whose business involves photography have booths there, and in the past it was one of the places they'd make their big announcements. These days they tend to announce products as soon as they're available, so there are fewer big stories. What I enjoy seeing, though, are the small, often innovative things that come out.

Continue reading "PMA 2009" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 02:20 PM | Permalink

One of the great things about photography is its variety and how it can grow with you. And that growth often comes at a price, in new or different gear. A while back I upgraded my tripods, and now it was time to do the same for heads and plates.

Continue reading "Gear Upgrades" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:46 AM | Permalink

Today's entry will be a small one, to fit the subject. I'm a big fan of compact cameras, often referred to as point-and-shoots. It's not that they're all I ever want to shoot with, but you can't beat their size for what they can do. That means I can have a camera (and a real one, NOT a toy built into my phone) with me almost all the time.

Continue reading "In Praise of Point-and-Shoots" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 03:00 PM | Permalink

I've had a few conversations with photographers recently about lenses not performing up to expectations concerning sharpness of photos. In the past I've always looked to the age of a lens and the design (consumer-grade or pro?). Now, though, I'm starting to think about our definition of "sharp."

Continue reading "Lenses and Sharpness" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:18 AM | Permalink

This past weekend I headed out to Lawrence, Kansas to cover the University of Kansas men's basketball game against the University of Tennessee. It's become fairly common at sporting events for photographers to set up remote cameras to get more angles on the action, and that's what I decided to do this time.

Continue reading "Cover Two Angles at Once" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 01:51 PM | Permalink

At the end of each year I look back at what I've done photographically and come up with a wish list of gear that would help me in the coming year. Then I do what any self-respecting photographer would do - I don't hope someone else will get it for me, I just buy it myself!

Continue reading "Happy New Year to Me!" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:18 AM | Permalink

I spent Sunday freezing on the sidelines of the Chiefs/Chargers game, so when I wanted to have some photo fun this week, going out in the 8-degree weather didn't appeal to me. Instead I turned my thoughts inside and decided to do some light painting.

Continue reading "Weather's bad, so... Light Paint!" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:20 PM | Permalink

The more choices we have, the harder it can be. Shoot JPEG or RAW? Upgrade Photoshop now or wait? Spend more on a faster lens or save $$? My favorite choice right now is between full-frame or cropped-frame cameras, because that choice gives me more flexibility in my photography.

Continue reading "Choice is Good" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:42 AM | Permalink

This past week I received an email from someone looking for help in decoding the AF settings on their camera. This is perhaps the most common, hardest to figure out group of settings on today's digital SLRs.

Continue reading "AF Settings Confusion" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 07:57 AM | Permalink

There are a lot of rules in photography having to do with composition, exposure, focus and such. My favorite is that you shouldn't shoot in the middle of the day, when the light is bad because the sun is overhead. Rules schmules.

Continue reading "Noon Time Sun" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 04:39 PM | Permalink

We're back from the trip to Turkey, and what a wonderful trip it was. Turkey now tops my list of great overseas photo trips.

Continue reading "Turkey's Great" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 01:30 PM | Permalink

About twenty years ago I put together my first portable light kit. It was pretty basic - one stand, one flash and a cord to connect the flash to the camera. Not long after that I added a second stand and light, a slave to fire it, and eventually a radio remote (so people would stop tripping over my flash cord). For the past fifteen years it's been pretty much the same, and it was time to overhaul it.

Continue reading "Portable Light Kit" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 03:05 PM | Permalink

Over the years I've learned that sometimes you just need to spend more money than you'd like to get the gear you need. That's always been easier for the big stuff - cameras, lenses and strobes - than for the little stuff. I'm finally investing in the little stuff, and it's paying off.

Continue reading "Just Bite the Bullet" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:27 AM | Permalink

I admit it - I can be lazy. I do a lot of travel, and while I know I should take a tripod, I often don't. I was just up in Seattle attending a conference at Microsoft, and I got a good reminder of the value of packing a tripod.

Continue reading "To Tripod or Not?" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:36 AM | Permalink

Over the years I've had to shoot pictures in every kind of weather. Hot, cold, snowing, blowing, hail, sleet and rain. I don't mind any of them, except for rain. I hate working in rain. But if you don't go out in the rain to shoot pictures, then you're missing out on some good photos. I ran into this last weekend while teaching an American Photo Mentor Trek in Vermont, and we had some rain on Saturday.

Continue reading "Working in Rain" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 05:28 PM | Permalink

Every year, the US Navy Blue Angels perform at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It also happens to be the home office of Blue Pixel and my home for over 20 years. But this year, two very different shoots were on my calendar for the same day. The Blue Angels during the day, outside along the Severn River, and an indoor big band concert at the local high school, featuring my son and a bunch of his friends.

Continue reading "Two Extremes" »

Posted by Kevin T. Gilbert at 12:06 PM | Permalink

If you're a digital photographer, you've probably got lots of batteries. And hopefully, you're using rechargeables. The problem then becomes one of keeping track of them, and figuring out which ones are good and which aren't. No sense in charging all the batteries after every shoot simply because one or two might be done.

Continue reading "Batteries R Me" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:21 AM | Permalink

This past weekend I taught a workshop in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and thought I'd have some free time to go out and shoot. With that in mind, I brought my infrared camera along to play.

Continue reading "IR in FL" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:54 AM | Permalink

Over the last few months I've gotten numerous phone calls and emails from friends asking if they should upgrade from their Nikon D200 to the new D300. Just got two more, which made me think it would be a good blog entry.

Continue reading "Decisions, Decisions..." »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:16 PM | Permalink

Back in the old days (you know, when we were all shooting film) there was a time when I started doing fashion shoots for the newspaper I worked at. We were too cheap to hire models, so it always came down to the writer finding a friend to "model" for us. I remember how hard it was to get good photos..

Continue reading "In Praise of Models" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:05 AM | Permalink

By now everyone's heard about Nikon's two new cameras, the D3 and D300. And you've probably heard they handle high-ISO noise better than in the past. That's an understatement.

Continue reading "A Whole New Wonderful World" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:57 AM | Permalink

For any photographer who loves to travel, going on an African photo safari must be near the top of their wish list. I've been lucky enough to do that twice now, leading trips to Tanzania in 2006 and the other one a few weeks ago. Each was great in its own way.

Continue reading "African Photo Safari" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:13 AM | Permalink

Sometimes you get amazingly lucky, and then sometimes you don't. Kevin Gilbert and I just finished leading a photo trek of Greece for American Photo. We had a lot of fun with a great group of people, and everyone headed home with some new photos and new ideas for their photography. We started the trip in Athens, with an afternoon tour of the town and the Acropolis, who's most famous feature is the Parthenon, visible from much of Athens.

Continue reading "Parthenon at Night" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:08 AM | Permalink

I spend a lot of time teaching workshops, and that lets me see how people handle all the new digital photography tools and technology. This past weekend I helped a few friends with a couple days of shooting and editing, and was reminded again how far we've come in this business.

Continue reading "Up to Speed FAST" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:02 AM | Permalink

I got into photography at 14 as a freshman in high school. That meant that all of the gear I bought I got used, and some of it was quite beat up, as that fit the price range I could afford. I still love finding a good used deal, and luckily, I can pay a bit more now than I could then.

Continue reading "Adding to the Collection" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:27 PM | Permalink

Last week I was teaching a workshop in Colorado Springs, Colorado. One morning a few of us went to Garden of the Gods, a spectacular place to shoot photos. While walking around the rock formations, a woman came up and asked for some help. I thought her question would make a great blog entry.

Continue reading "Is your Viewfinder in Focus?" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:36 AM | Permalink

Last week Nick Didlick and I were teaching a workshop in southern California. We took the group out for a couple of shoots, going to San Juan Capistrano (the famous old Mission) and Huntington Beach. At the first location the focus was on architecture and plants, at the beach it was people. And once again I marveled at how easy it is to use reflectors to light people.

Continue reading "The Joy of Reflectors" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Over the years I've always had a camera or two I could take places where it might get beat up. Mountain climbing, whitewater rafting, winter camping and biking aren't exactly camera-friendly. Once I moved to digital, though, that became a tougher spot to fill. After all, digital cameras are anything but inexpensive, and not exactly rugged. Recently, though, I've had my hands on a little digital point-and-shoot that's almost indestructible.

Continue reading "One Tough Little Camera" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 05:27 PM | Permalink

A few years ago I spent some time in Singapore teaching digital photography to a group of newspaper photographers. On my final night there, they took me out to a dinner of "spare parts." Trust me, you don't want to know what it was. If you've been doing photography for very long, you've probably collected various spare parts over the years, and sometime they come in handy for building new tools.

Continue reading "Spare Parts" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:05 AM | Permalink

I spend a lot of time these days teaching photography. And at almost every workshop I teach, at least one person comes up to me and asks, "How can I turn photography into a career?" I always give them some suggestions, but I also ask them to think long and hard about whether they truly want to do that. They may find that photography's more rewarding as a hobby.

Continue reading "Photography for Fun" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 09:46 PM | Permalink

Every now and then I try out a new gizmo that so surprises or impresses me that I've just GOT to write about it. This time it's the Nikon TC-20 E II teleconverter, which I'd played with a few years ago and promptly forgot about..

Continue reading "New Toy -Teleconverter" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 03:01 PM | Permalink

Ever since I first read about infrared photography, many decades ago in high school, I've been intrigued by the idea. The images produced by it are otherworldly and I wanted to try my hand at it. Unfortunately, my attempts back then always ended in failure, not in small part due to the difficulty of using and processing infrared film. Thankfully, times have changed, and digital's taken film out of the equation.

Continue reading "Digital Infrared" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 06:40 PM | Permalink

Recently I received an email from someone who was part of a workshop I taught, and thought it might make a good blog entry: "I attended your two workshops in Berkeley last week, and didn't get a chance to ask my specific question. I'm leaving for an Antarctic peninsula cruise this coming week, and any suggestions for specific settings (e.g. White Balance) to try under those unusual lighting conditions?"

Continue reading "Arctic Suggestions" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:49 AM | Permalink

After traveling to 53 countries as a professional photographer, I decided to really live like the everyday traveler and head off on a trip to Morocco with just a Nikon D40, an 18-200 mm lens, and a 2 gig Lexar SD card..

Continue reading "Traveling Light" »

Posted by Kevin T. Gilbert at 06:10 PM | Permalink

I was working in my studio last week (translation - the basement) photographing some products I was going to use in a presentation. Two keys to any good photo are light and background. I often use a black backdrop as it highlights the product. And I learned long ago that with lighting, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) was a good rule for me to follow. Good light doesn't necessarily mean lots of lights. This time, though, I needed just a bit more.

Continue reading "Reflectors" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 11:49 AM | Permalink

I'm just back from leading a photo trek to Maui for American Photo (www.mentorseries.com). I do about four trips a year like this, and we had just over thirty people joining us. The second day we spent driving and shooting along the road to Hana, and after dinner that night most of us headed to the beach for a little light painting.

Continue reading "Light Painting" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:26 AM | Permalink

Last year while shooting winter photos in Yosemite National Park, Nick Didlick (a friend and Blue Pixel Associate) came up with a unique (and low-cost) way of shooting time exposures. I was reminded of that recently when I needed to do the same thing, and didn't have a cable release.

Continue reading "Pebble Release" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:01 PM | Permalink

When it comes to photography, people always want to talk cameras and lenses. Yes, they're important (and I like to talk about them too), but one tool that doesn't get enough chat time is tripods.

Continue reading "Tool Time - Tripods" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 06:29 AM | Permalink

A couple of weeks ago I covered a NASCAR race here in Kansas City, at Kansas Speedway. Whether I'm shooting NASCAR, NFL or the family vacation, some planning ahead of time makes the job much easier.

Continue reading "Planning Makes the Job Easier" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Danny Moloshok has been covering Rock Star: Supernova the entire season. He and Jeff Bottari covered the finale this week and wrote about their experience.

Continue reading "Rock Star: Supernova" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 12:53 AM | Permalink

I came to a sudden realization last weekend. I've turned into a light snob. I' won't settle for light that's just "okay" when shooting pictures.

Continue reading "I'm a Light Snob" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 08:09 AM | Permalink

I just returned from a raft trip to Alaska. We had a great time, but one of the big surprises for me was what camera I chose to shoot many of the photos with.

Continue reading "Right Camera for the Right Job" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 05:09 PM | Permalink

Sometimes you'll find a picture that's just about perfect, but the light's not quite what you want. If you're lucky, you'll be able add that little bit of light yourself.

Continue reading "Add a Little Light" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 10:47 AM | Permalink

Twenty years ago this Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I were married. To celebrate, we made reservations to spend a little time at Big Cedar Lodge in the Ozarks, one of the premier resorts in the area. As an anniversary trip, I swore to leave computer, computer books, Photoshop books and all things digital (except a camera, of course!) at home.

Continue reading "Fireworks Fun" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 01:53 PM | Permalink

Well, we made it back from Africa, safe and sound. We had a great trip, and aside from a few bumps along the way, I think we’d all be eager to go again.

The trip was 11 days, but with travel we really had 9 days in Tanzania. Most of that time was spent on what’s called a safari drive (driving through Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater areas), with a couple of days for seeing some of the towns and local culture.

Here’s what we learned...

Continue reading "We made it back from Africa" »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 07:43 PM | Permalink

Okay, I admit that getting to travel around the world leading photo workshops is pretty cool. I really enjoy spending a weekend or more helping a bunch of nice people learn to shoot better pictures, and quite honestly, they help me find good pictures too.

The downside to doing all this is the packing and travel. Over the years I’ve learned some tricks to make that easier, and I’m still learning them.

Continue reading "A Lesson In Packing " »

Posted by Reed Hoffmann at 07:39 AM | Permalink