Technical Photography Sites

Cameralabs

Petapixel

Photographers Websites

Julie Blackmon

Edward Burtinsky

Andreas Gurksy

Rania Matar

Abelardo Morell

Laura McPhee

Black and White Digital Printing

Some good information about black and white digital printing

https://photographylife.com/a-simple-way-to-improve-your-black-and-white-prints-on-any-printer 

http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/about/interviews/digital-photo-pro-black-and-white-printing-2007/

https://www.ldproducts.com/blog/a-guide-to-printing-black-and-white-photos-at-home/

Lightroom Editing

I like Photoshop. I use it for all of my editing that requires photo compositing. Photo compositing is taking two or more photographs and combining them into a new single photograph. Otherwise I use Lightroom. My editing is pretty basic most of the time.

In the Develop module I work with 5 sliders and occasionally 7 sliders.

For most of my photographs I set

Clarity to +20

Dehaze to +15

Vibrance to +20

Highlights to push to the left to darken the sky when needed

Shadows I push to the right to lightened excessively dark shadows

Whites I only use when I have pushed Highlights to -100 and the sky is still too light

Blacks I only use when I have pushed Shadows to +100 and the shadows are still too dark

Backing Up Photographs

“I’ve seen it all,” says the award-winning National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale, about backing up her photos. “I’ve had hard drives fail throughout my career. For example, back when I first started as a photographer, I had a very nice hard drive system in my home, and the whole thing failed.” In retrospect, Ms. Vitale says, she would have definitely set the system up differently.

“I lost some historic moments from the first part of my career,” she says, “and they’re gone forever.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/smarter-living/backing-up-your-photos.html?rref=collection%2Fspotlightcollection%2Fsmarter-living&action=click&contentCollection=topics&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection

 

Everyone who uses a computer needs a dependable way to back up its data. After carefully comparing 19 services and testing six, we believe that Backblaze (currently $50 per year per computer) is the best online backup service for most people, as it offers a great combination of useful features, unlimited storage, and excellent performance at an attractive price—the proverbial cost of a latte per month. Backblaze offers fast, reliable backups, as well as the simplest setup process I’ve seen and a number of nice touches.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-online-backup-service/

How to convert a group of raw photos to jpeg

insert your device with your pictures 
copy your pictures to a folder on the desktop 

Open Photoshop 

Go To File > Scripts > Image Processor 

in section 1: 
        Select Folder... > select the folder that contains the raw images 
            if you have sub-folders, tick the Include All sub-folders box

in section 2: select where to save the converted photos 
        Either in the same folder as the originals 
        Or in a different folder 

in section 3: 
       select the file format to convert the images to: 
                     JPEG 
                     PSD 
                     TIFF 
       and set the file format specific options 

in section 4: 
     make sure the "Run Actions" box is not ticked 

click "Run" up to the left of section 1

copy the folder containing the jpegs back to your device or upload straight to flickr

this information courtesy of Samuel Toups

Sony Cameras

Sony has been challenging Canon and Nikon as a major manufacturer of high quality cameras beginning with the NEX series of mirrorless cameras. With the A7R II they are challenging Canon and Nikon’s best cameras.

https://luminous-landscape.com/sony-a7rii-review-and-hands-on-report/

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Alpha_A7r_II/

Getting GPS Coordinates

Have you ever taken a photograph and then later been annoyed by not knowing where you took it. If you have an Android or iPhone there is an easy solution to this. Take a second photograph with your phone and embedded within that file are the GPS coordinates. GPS is not dependent on the Location setting so this can be used even while traveling without being charged for data. Some cameras are GPS enabled, but this is not always reliable. One of my cameras is a Nikon AW110 which takes good photographs, but the GPS doesn’t always work. With my iPhone I never have this problem. I rely on it for all of my photographs.