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So I decided to join the PhotoChallenge group on Flickr. The group basically chooses a subject each month and you basically would upload a photo everyday sticking to the subject.
The idea of these challenges is to make you get better at taking photographs. This is my first entry into May’s challenge. The theme will be different objects and it will get changed each week. This week is beverages and I’ve decided to stick with tea this week.
One of the areas I’m not that good at and definitely need improvement is in low light environments.
-LM
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My parents arrived last night from their trip to Panama, which unfortunately I was unable to go, and along with the UV Filter I had asked them to buy for me they brought me a new Nikkor 70-300mm G lens.
To test the range of this lens I went over to the terrace in my house and took this shot of the seesaw in the children’s playground across the street. This shot was taken with the focal length of 300mm and my tripod since the lens doesn’t have the VR, camera shake reduction technology from Nikon, that my 18-55mm has. I attempted to take some shots with the lens by simply holding the camera but they didn’t come out since my hand is a bit shaky and despite my tries at stabilizing the camera it would still blur the shot.
Since I don’t have a remote control for the camera then I set the timer to 5s to take the steady shot and this works so I’ll be sticking to it until I can buy the control.
I have also taken and posted on Flickr a couple of shots from the playground, using my 18-55mm lens, that I took today. All the images have been retouched in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and using Kubota’s actions as well as other presets that I got for Adobe Lightroom.
-LM
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I attempted to shoot a good long exposure of the moon last night since it looked pretty good but since I was attempting to do it from inside the house the window caused for the shot to not have enough detail and come out messed up.
I pointed the camera to the horizon and took a long exposure shot using my tripod and the camera timer set to 5seconds to avoid camera shake.
Afterwards I used Adobe Lightroom to process the RAW file and to create a PSD file that I would use in Adobe Photoshop CS3 to add a couple of effects to the foto using the actions that I recently obtained.
-LM
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I’ve been recently going to a lot of photography related blog in look for knowledge and also for inspiration to take more and better photos. I started over at the Digital Photography School, which has been a great resource, and have worked from there to look for other blogs.
One of the blogs I’ve found is from Melissa Jill, who is a professional photographer, and saw that she has a 101 to-do list and I wanted to take that idea and create my own…so now you’ll see on the top that there is a new page which contains this list…I tried to complete it in one sitting but I couldn’t think of anything else right now so it will be left as a work in progress and will keep adding things as they come to my mind.
I will try my best to complete the list though it’s not a short term plan…and will be posting for every completed to-do item 
-LM
The camera doesn’t make the photographer
There is one thing that some people think and that is that the more expensive the camera the better the photos that person takes and this is not the case since the camera is only a tool that, like every other tool, needs to be used correctly to achieve the desired results. I must agree that the better the tool the better the result and taking photos with a camera phone, for example, is not something you would compare with those photos taken with a Nikon D3.
There is one phrase that I’ve heard and and probably have mentioned it here a couple of times and that is that the camera doesn’t make the photographer. Given the right usage of the tool you can actually achieve great photos or snapshots and many professional photographers as well as hobbyist and enthusiasts have shown this to be true in numerous blogs and contests that have been carried out.
One of these photographers is Jeff Ascough where he takes a Sony Ericsson K800i and goes out to take some photos then takes them into the Digital Darkroom and touches them up to make them look better, you can see them on his post Camera Phones.
I’ve agreed with this phrase and these photographers since most of my great shots have been taken with my point-and-shoot camera.
-LM