Over a month ago I set sail on an adventure, the purchase of my first Windows computer…ever. As the current owner of nine Mac computers and as an Apple diehard, I never considered a machine other than one running either the Mac OS or a distro of Linux. My first post on the purchase of this Windows laptop created quite …

A couple weeks ago Brian Auer at Epic Edits Weblog mentioned a project he was putting together and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since, for a number of reasons. The short story is this: the project encourages readers to either buy or use an existing $50 film camera, then write a review on the camera and submit a …

I do believe in luck…but I also believe that we largely make our own luck. You might get a great shot because you were lucky, standing in the right place at the right time to capture a moment. But some force put you in that place at that moment. Something also provoked your finger to press the shutter button, so …

Can a photographer find happiness switching from Apple’s Mac OS X to Windows Vista? This photographer is going to find out in a controlled experiment. Yes, at Daylight Photo we still have our eight Mac machines up and running and that’s not going to change, at least not in the short term. But when it came time to buy a …

Where do you find inspiration?
Photographers often find inspiration by studying the work of other photographers. I certainly do. For both professionals and amateurs there are amazing resources like the contest sections at PDNonline. With something like 3 million photos uploaded to Flickr every day there’s certainly no lack of photographic diversity and inspiration there. The internet is an incredible resource …

Do you buy used photo and camera gear on eBay?
With talk of starting a new photo project in August (some great suggestions in Friday’s comments) I’ve been thinking about what equipment to use for the project. For myself, I’m thinking film…35mm, 120 or 4″x5″? Hmmm, is there some new (used) camera that would totally spark my imagination? Camera hunting is …

I’d also be interested to hear how you got the effect in your Forgotten America photos… – Matthew Botos

This one’s for you, Matthew (and everyone else, of course). I’d like to talk about how the Forgotten America series was created by using this image as an example.
This is a scene in northwestern Ohio, right near the Indiana border, …

Process your own black and white film
Today’s video is something really different, we’ll take a break from lighting this week and get back at it next Monday. It’s fun to change things up, it keeps things interesting and it seemed like this video could fill a need.
There are a few different reasons you might want to shoot with film. …

I’m a huge fan of the 50mm lens and can say that it’s probably the one lens I would recommend to every DSLR photographer, regardless of what you shoot. Maybe not as the first lens to go into your bag but definitely high up on the list.
Why is that? The reasons are many:

First off, a 50mm f1.8 lens is probably …

Have you ever been in a creative rut? The ideas just aren’t coming to you and when they are, the results are disappointing? I’m sure we’ve all been there. This is the story of how I dealt with one particular creative drought.
A couple of years ago my photo studio was doing very well but I was just “going through the …