Have Some App Fun This Weekend!

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Rick Sammon's 24/7 Photo Buffet

My flagship comprehensive how-to app: Rick Sammon's 24/7 Photo Buffet - iPhone and iPad. It's basically an interactive, how-to e-book that you can keep with you 24/7.

24/7 features more than 100 tips, lots on flash photography and lighting.
This app features my best tips for making pictures . . . indoors, outdoors, in bright light and in low light, with a flash and with a diffuser and reflector.

24/7 includes tips on creating . . . creative Speedlite photographs.
 People, wildlife, landscape, city scape photography are covered.

Rick Sammon's iHDR  
My newest how-to app for the iPad is now available: Rick Sammon's iHDR.

This app (formerly called Rick Sammon's HDR Portfolio) is packed with HDR photos (my latest from around the world), info and movies. It's a great way to learn and experience HDR.

The app has the same great content as HDR Portfolio, but with an added Favorites section. So, if you already have the app, you don't need to download this version.

It's called iHDR because the app is all about how you can create cool HDR images using your imagination – combined with HDR photography innovations.

Click here to download and to start the HDR fun.


Rick Sammon's Underwater Wonders


Calling all moms and dads, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters - and friends and neighbors who have or know youngsters. Underwater Wonders, my first iPad app for kids (as well as scuba divers), is now available.

Underwater Wonders is not a photography how-to app/app book, like most of my other apps. Rather, it's an app/app book that falls into the Nature, Wildlife and Marine Conservation categories.

Here is a nice review of the app.

I took most of the photographs in the app while I was president and chief underwater photographer (1980 to 1995) of the marine conservation organization CEDAM International, an organization dedicated to Conservation, Education, Diving and Marine-research.

Underwater Wonders, designed for kids and for adults who are kids are heart, features underwater photographs of my favorite marine animals. The photographs are accompanied by fascinating and fun fish facts, as well as some of my personal anecdotes.

 Rick Sammon's Light It!


Light It! and Light It Light!: My basic lighting apps – iPhone and iPad.

Click here to see the into movie to Light It! 

Cool new feature: You Light It! Photo Club. This club showcases your best photographs, along with the photographs of other talented photographers, based on the tips from this app. Simply click here to join the fun . .  and to enter the monthly photo contest. The prize for the contest:  1/2 hour portfolio review with yours truly via Skype or iChat. 


Butterfly Wonders

 Butterfly Wonders: Beautiful butterflies and section on close-up photography –  iPad only. Cool section on how-to take close-up pictures!



 Life Lessons We Can Learn From Mother Nature


 Life Lessons We Can Learn From Mother Nature: My favorite images with inspirational quotes – iPadonly.


 Skip Marini Golf Lessons

In Skip Marini Golf Lessons, I become the student – learning the best golf tips from the best pro in Westchester, NY – iPad and iPhone.

Friday's Fab Photographer: Douglas Knisely

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Today's Friday's Fab Photographer is: Douglas Knisely.

Take it away, Doug.

I was delighted and honored when Rick offered to feature me on his blog.  While assembling a new portfolio on 500px.com recently, I was thinking a lot about images that had a huge emotional impact on me when I first saw the subject, light, and composition -- scenes that literally made my knees shake and my heart race from the adrenaline rush to execute quickly and proficiently in order to capture the moment before it vanished.  Fortunately, I usually fall into a zone and operate almost on auto-pilot, making fewer mistakes than when I shoot deliberately. What a rush!

Nothing could exemplify that emotional rush better than this scene of a man in the window of a market district neighborhood in one of the few remaining old neighborhoods in Shanghai.  Interestingly, the man seemed to be fully aware that I was shooting and had probably been watching us conspicuous boisterous Americans coming down the street.  Yet he remained with me as I recorded several images.  This is the composition that I saw, and with a little perspective adjustment and a lot of careful work to deal with the extremely dynamic range, it worked out to my delight.


While taking a morning stroll near a Cancun beach, I came upon a model shoot.  Having taken only a Canon G9 P&S along on that trip, my knee-shaking near-panic attack was caused because getting in range quickly enough without arousing attention to catch that amazing scene and nail the details was going to be daunting.  As when shooting with camera phones, another current passion, I have always been a huge believer in going for the image no matter what gear is at hand, even if it means looking like a doofus.  I ended up with several favorite keepers from that trip, two of which I have printed large on canvas!


Ahhh, those glorious S-curves, with graffiti and fascinating lighting as a bonus!  There wasn't a bit of doubt about the desired composition, nor the nature of the HDR that it would take to execute, but how to get contorted over a fence on tripod for the long HDR series while dodging the trams that periodically emerged from the left side of this tunnel?  Adrenaline came to the rescue once more, although the tram drivers' adrenaline was probably also running high as I swung back out of the way each time!


Even though these scenes are vanishing at an alarming rate in modern urban China, they are still plentiful.  But finding the right light, subject, simplicity, composition, and moment still requires a convergence of a lot of variables.  There wasn't any doubt about this moment when the light, the steam waft, and the subject converged, and it was gone in an instant.  Waiting around and even going back two other days failed to produced anything that worked anywhere nearly as well as this, despite my attempt to will it into existence so many times before and since.


In some spare time after a meeting, I was wandering around with a new 8mm fisheye lens on a crop-factor camera -- far from my usual kit.  I nearly lost it when I spotted these aligned outriggers from across the street by those trees and just knew this image had to be in there somewhere.  Right light; right lens; right subject.  That's a rush!

Clearly I'm addicted to the rush of finding these magic moments, and for me, that's what photography is all about.  Sometimes it can feel discouraging, like it will never happen again, but searching for images for this post and finding far too many candidates reminded me that the magic will come if you just keep an open eye and keep shooting.

Thanks, Rick, for all the encouragement and comments.

Twitter @dknisely

Thursday's Travelogue: Mt. Rainier National Park

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Photograph by Rick Sammon
This is part of a series I run here on my blog: Thursday's Travelogue. This week: Mt. Rainier National Park.

Juan Pons and I are running a photo tour/workshop to the park next month. We have one spot open. Click here for info:

Photo tips:
• Bring wide-angle, telephoto and macro lenses.
• Pack a polarizing filter.
• Be prepared to shoot HDR. For discounts on HDR plug-ins, click here.
• Shoot a series of images for panos. Great pano opportunities.
• Tote a tripod.
• As simple as it sounds, shoot horizontal and vertical photos of the same scene. Frame for a cover.
• Work with reflections.
• Pre prepared to photograph small waterfalls - pack an ND filter.
• Also pack a split ND filter for landscapes.
• Always look up, back and up - for added photo opportunities.
• Get to the park before dawn to capture the beautiful dawn light.
• Stay until after sunset, when you capture the afterglow of sunset.
• Remove all filters when shooting into the sun.
• Explore the area surrounding the park. You'll find other great photos opportunities. See image below.
• Bring a flashlight for early morning shoots. Head mounted flashlights are best for photographers.

Head-mounted flashlights:
Streamlight 61407 Enduro Head-Mounted Flashlight with Visor Clip and Elastic Strap, Blaze Camo
and
SpareHand Head Shot Flashlight with Head Band

Photograph by Rick Sammon
Travel tips:
• No gas in the park. Gas up!
• Pack a map for your park visit.
• If you will be leading a photo tour, you'll need a permit.
• Not too many hotels/motels near the park. Do a search on-line and book early.
• You can camp in the park, but you need a permit.
• You'll probably be coming from Seattle. Keep your camera handy. It's a beautiful drive.
• Dress in layers and bring gloves. It's cool in the morning but it warms up - at least in September when we are going :-)
• Hiking boots are a must.
• Plan your shoots in advance - so you are on site in plenty of time to catch the light.
• Check out the Mt. Rainier National Park site for detailed info about the park.


Photograph by Rick Sammon. We may eat or shoot HDR here. It's a possibility.
Explore the light,
Rick

P.S. Here are two bonus tips by Juan:

Photograph by Juan Pons
Get closer. Sometimes getting closer than you originally intended can create a completely different but very interesting and engaging image. While at Mt. Rainier National Park I noticed these awesome looking plants that reminded me of the "Truffula Trees" from the famous Dr. Seus story "The Lorax". I was looking for a way to capture both the detail as well as number of these you would encounter in the fields. So in order to do that I used my widest lens the 10-22 mm Canon zoom lens set at the 10mm and got in VERY close to one of the Western Pasqueflower seedpod while carefully framing my background to include items of interest. The front of my lens was probably about 4-5 inches away from the seedpod on the left, and I was lying down on the ground on my side. A little uncomfortable, yes, but this allowed me to capture the exquisite detail of this seedpod while also including the environment.

Photograph by Juan Pons
Think outside of the box. We've all heard the saying "Dead Center is Deadly," and for the most part that is correct. But sometimes rules are meant to be broken. In this case I placed Mt. Rainier dead center mostly because I thought it was such as strong element that it deserved to be dead center. However I made sure to balance the image by having other strong elements in my image to keep the viewer interested. It is important to know your basic compositional rules, but don't be a slave to them break them form time to time to add more impact and interest to your images.


Rick and I look forward to the workshop. We may even recored a segment for our Digital Photo Experience podcast. 

Changing Lanes: Bob DeLellis

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Photograph © Bob DeLellis
From time to time I'll run a feature here on my blog: Changing Lanes. It's about folks who have "changed lanes" in their life . . . as many of us do at one point or another.

The basic concept is to inspire those who have changed lanes to keep on changing when times get tough. Been there, done that. The other idea is to inspire those who want to change lanes to drive toward that goal.

This week I am proud to feature Bob DeLellis, a student who attended my recent Brooks Institute seminar.

Photograph © Bob DeLellis

Here is part of Bob's changing lanes story: I moved to CA in 1980 to be a "rich and famous rockstar" and in 1981 played in RATT opening for Motley Crue on the Hollywood Strip. It's been a long story to get here, but kind of interesting to go from musician, to CPA, to CPA for musicians, to playing guitar for my musician client, and now to photography.    

As the Buddhist say: Change is Good.
Bob: Before and after "changing lanes."
Here is a link some of Bob's work. And here is a link to his facebook page.




Thank you Bob for sharing your story - of success. We gotta jam someday!

If any reader has a "Changing Lanes" story, shoot me an email.

Explore the light,
Rick

P.S. I changed lanes, too.... from being a musician at Woodstock (although I still play every day) to being the editor of a photo magazine to being in advertising/PR to being photographer. 


Me: fro, white shirt sitting on hood. Yikes! My poor mother back in 1969.


A Digital SLR Image Sensor Cleaning Nightmare

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Photograph @ Rick Sammon
Cleaning the image sensor in your digital SLR is easy. Many products are available to help you do it, including:

Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly:
Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly 724 Brite Sensor Brush

Sensor Swabs:
Sensor Swab Type 2 (Box of 12)

Eclipse Cleaning System
Eclipse Cleaning System Solution

Blower Brush
Giottos AA1900 Rocket Air Blaster Large (Black)


Built-in sensor cleaning systems also help.


Because dust spots show up mostly in the sky, it's important to keep your sensor clean especially when the sky is in your photograph.


Well my friends, here is an image cleaning nightmare. Originally, I was going to title this post: Nice Guys Finish Last.

Four years ago, I was on a trip and one of the participants asked me to clean the sensor in her digital SLR. I said sure. I used my trusty liquid/swab cleaning system, which I had used many times before with excellent results.

Well my friends, I actually made it worse. I was shocked. I wondered why.

Here's why (or Now You Tell Me!): The day before, the same photographer asked another person on the trip to clean the sensor. In the cleaning process, the person cleaning the sensor blew on the sensor - after eating a bag of pretzels. When I used the swab on the sensor (actually the low-pass filter that is placed over the sensor), I moved microscopic grains of salt across the sensor and created noticeable streaks.

As you may imagine, I don't clean other photographer's sensors any longer.

Just a word to the wise . . .

Explore the light,
Rick