Let me introduce you to my other Flickr account: JoseMeetsPeople! As you may noticed, my main Flickr account is mostly about landscape photography. In this new gallery I will show you mostly black and white pictures of people, but some other experimental work. Here are some examples:

Photo by José Brito ©2009 All rights reserved

Photo by José Brito ©2009 All rights reserved

Photo by José Brito ©2009 All rights reserved

More to come in flickr.com/josemeetspeople!

Just allow me to ask you something: there are people visiting this blog, but I don’t know who they – that means you – are (or if they are human or just Google bots). So don’t be shy and drop me a line, a message or a comment, anything! Just something to keep the spirits up! If you’d like, tell me what should I feature on this blog, or just share your thoughts on photography. Your feedback would be highly appreciated!

I’ll see you later!

It’s always nice to see our work getting some visibility and Peter Carey was kind enough to feature my work in his blog: “The Carey Adventures”. Some of my photos will be featured all week long in the “Photo of the Day” section, and there is also this small interview.

I must send a public thanks to Peter, for spending some of his free time to feature the work of someone he doesn’t even know or never heard of. That really means something, so once again: thanks, Peter!

I recommend you to drop by “The Carey Adventures” and read about Peter’s journeys. They’re really inspiring, I wish to do something like that… someday!

Autofocus switches

“Oh noes! The autofocus on my super-expensive lens has stopped working! I’m in uncontrollable panic!”

What if one day, the autofocus on your camera/lens suddenly stops working for no apparent reason? You had your camera safe inside your bag, it didn’t fall, it didn’t get wet, but the autofocus just doesn’t work. You panic, you start to think about the time that your gear will be in repair, and the amount of cash you’ll pay for the repair service.

What to do?

First of all, don’t panic. I learned from experience (very recently) that maybe it’s nothing to worry about. In my case, I didn’t panic, but that’s because I’m pretty good at it: not going into panic.

Second, here are a few things to check before rushing into your dealer to send your camera/lens for repair.

Manual focus is on

The little bastard

Yes, this may sound ridiculous, but most of us had this “problem”. Most of the modern lenses have a switch to change focus mode (see image at the beginning of this article). If your autofocus stops working, check if this switch is in autofocus mode.

If you have a Nikon SLR camera, also check the small switch by the lens mount that allows to change between manual and auto focus. This can be very easily triggered by accident, without noticing. It is known that this happened to many keen photographers, like Ken “The Master” Rockwell (check “Focus Malfunctions” here).

Lens or camera contacts are dirty

Contacts on a Nikon lens

You can notice this problem if your camera works fine with one lens, but the autofocus is slow (i.e. “hunts” a lot) or doesn’t work at all with a different one. If this happens, probably the lens contacts are dirty. Make sure that you clean both the lens and the camera contacts.

But be careful with what you use to clean. Use a small (dry) brush or, just place the lens on the camera, unlock the lens mount and move the lens from side to side, while still on the lens mount. This method is easier and faster, but not recommended since you’re not actually “cleaning”. Although the dust is no longer in the contacts, it’s still in the camera, so when you have the chance, do a proper cleaning.

After you’ve done this, check again if the autofocus is working.

Is it working?

If it is, then congratulations! You’ve mended it with your own hands!

If you checked all these issues and the autofocus is still not working, then expect some bad news. You probably have a “real” problem either with your camera or your lens, so check with your retailer to figure out what’s wrong.

That’s it! Feel free to share your experience with these kind of problems.

I decided to give away the icons I use here in Photography n’ Stuff. It’s the first set of icons designed completely by me, so feel free to point out any suggestions.

For now: take them, they’re yours!

Download Photography n’ Stuff Icons

The basic concept of a ND graduated filter

If you don’t know what ND graduated (NDG) filters are, the picture on the left should give you the basic concept: NDG filters are used to balance the light difference between the sky and the land. They are essentially used in landscape photography, but you can use them in many other themes. That’s what photography is all about: creativity and endless possibilities.

If you can’t understand my crappy drawing, there is a lot more information over the Internet about these kind of filters. You can start by (sarcasm warning) the most credible source of information ever: Wikipedia (note: at the time I’m writing this, it actually is a pretty good article).

Some people say that today with digital photography and Photoshop, you can get the same results without having to use NDG filters. This is mostly true, but post-processing is time consuming. I used to spend a lot of time processing my photos, merging different exposures of the same scene. This was a bit boring and sometimes frustrating.

A few months ago, I got a set of Hitech ND graduated filters, which are made by Formatt. They are a bit more expensive than Cokin’s filters, but their quality is much better (less color cast, made of better materials).

What changed: for better

Since I can see the final result in the field, I can shoot a scene more quickly and waste less time with bracketing settings or taking different exposures of the background, midground and foreground. And by spending less time composing a scene, means that I can take more photos.

If you are a landscape photographer, you know that the “magic light” (around sunrise or sunset) does not last forever and it’s not waiting for you to take the perfect shot, so you’ll have to make the most out of that moment. By using filters, you will get what you want more quickly, which means you will have more time to walk around and try different things.

I also spend less time post-processing the photos, and I use less adjustment layers resulting in a “more realistic” image.

What changed: the downside

There are also some inconveniences when using NDG filters. The first one: you will have to spend money. This can be the hardest part, but here’s my advice: if you are really into landscape photography, you won’t regret it. It’s an investment you make to improve the quality of your photography.

Also, filters are fragile. Be very careful handling them, they can scratch easily, and if made of glass (the more expensive ones) can even break. It’s very important to take care of your material, so if you handle your filters with care and clean it often, they will last for years.

You will also have more gear to carry. And usually this means that sometimes you will end up pondering whether to carry it or not! It happened to me. :)

Final conclusions

If you are a Photoshop guru and don’t mind spending hours in front of the computer processing your photos, maybe you won’t need to buy filters. You can get the same results, but that means you will have to get proper exposures in the field. If you don’t, you cannot go back!

Based on my personal experience, NDG filters are worth the investment. It really improved the way I shoot in the field and I got more and better results. I feel I can shoot a lot more during the “magic light” hours, and do a lot less post-processing (resulting in more natural looking images) while spending a lot less time in it.

To help you make up your mind, I recommend you to read this article by Andy Mumford, to learn more about NDG filters. In ADIDAP there’s also an article that tells you the reasons not to buy NDG filters.

That’s it! I hope my advice was useful to you. Cheers!

Photo by José Brito ©2009 All rights reserved

Last week, we’ve had some very uncommon snowy days in Portugal. Snow falled in many cities in the coast (!), which is a very rare event in our small country.

However at least once a year snow falls in Serra da Freita, so it’s a chance to take some different photos. This time, with snow all over the country, Freita was no exception. I really had to grab this opportunity, because the last time we had snow I took crappy shots (it was freezing and fog was very dense).

I guess this time it was worth it! I’ll be posting the photos in my Flickr gallery the next few days.

And since we’re talking about snow, I will try to prepare a post about photographing in the Winter, with some tips not only about photography and your equipment, but also about other very important things like clothing and food. See you soon!

This is the very first post of this blog, Photography n’ Stuff. I’m not going into much detail here, if you’d like to know more about me and why I created this blog, you can read more in the About page.

But, for now, just a few facts and statistics about this blog (the boring stuff):

• Time spent to complete this blog: about 10 days, ~4 hours per day;
• Time passed between having the idea of making this blog, and actually start working on it: about 10 months;
• Cost (so far): ~35€ for domain registration and hosting service;
• Number of visitors (so far): one (me);
• Subjects that will be mentioned: essentially photography, but also graphic design and programming (but just a bit, because it’s a very geek thing).

That’s it! I’ll see you soon!