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!

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.

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!