I used my 55-200mm VR lens for this shot, which I took from the ground in front of my building. I still use the 18-55mm lens which came with the D40x most of the time, since it can focus much closer than the 55-200mm and has a more useful focal range. I would probably use the 50mm prime a lot more if it could do auto focus on my camera.

Choose a focal length to shoot at this weekend (or for at least one day) and don’t allow yourself to shoot at any other focal length.

• If you have a prime lens it’ll be easy - fit it to your camera and don’t take if off.
• If you have a DSLR with a zoom lens just choose one end of the focal range and resist the temptation to zoom.
• If you have a point and shoot camera with a zoom - again, just choose one end of the range and stick to that.

When choosing which focal length you go with - try to pick something you don’t normally shoot a lot at. For example if you tend to shoot fully zoomed in - try shooting with a wider angle. If you normally shoot with wide angles challenge yourself at the other end of the spectrum.

I’ll attempt to use only my 50mm/f1.8 prime lens, which also means I won’t be able to use auto focus.

However, there are some instances where you have to use manual focus. With my D40X, any non AF-S lens, which lacks the internal AF motor, can only do manual focus (although the focus indicator will light up when it thinks the subject is in focus). I have a love/hate relationship with my 50mm/f1.8 lens for that reason - it’s the sharpest lens I own with the largest aperture that can produce a wonderfully narrow depth of field, yet I still find the manual focus difficult to use.

For certain subjects, like this spider web I photographed this morning, auto focus won’t work, since it will try to focus on a higher contrast object behind the spider web rather than the web itself. I took about 10 shots to get 3 that were perfectly in focus.

For this one I cheated a bit by spraying the web with a fine mist of water to make it stand out more.

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SmugMug has several pros & cons in comparison with Flickr. SmugMug lets you create really beautiful galleries where you can customize both the color theme and the photo layout. The default layout shows thumbnails on the left side with a large view of a single photo on the right. You can even let your visitors choose which layout they want to use.

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SmugMug does have some significant weaknesses, though. On Flickr, all of your photos appear in your photo stream and it can also be included in multiple sets or group pools. SmugMug doesn’t have a photo stream; it has albums and every photo can appear in only one album. Flickr also feels more like a community.

For general use, I prefer Flickr, but for a professional, SmugMug seems like a nicer way to show off your best photos.

Check out my SmugMug gallery at mike3k.smugmug.com, and as always my Flickr photo stream is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_c/

Here’s my first official copyright marked picture, which I took today. This baby bird is nesting outside my neighbor’s window.

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Black Star Rising tells why you should add your name and copyright notice when posting a photo, which is the reason I wrote this. I noticed that almost all of the pictures by the professionals from last week’s photowalk have a copyright notice, so I wanted to make it easier to do with Aperture.

One way to do it is to edit in Photoshop and add a text layer. As an alternative, I started to write an Aperture editing plugin that can add text to a photo. I hope to have it ready for public release next week.

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(original article: Politics, Theory, & Photography)

I’m not leaving Flickr, but with the co-founders leaving Yahoo, I want to be prepared just in case it goes away. I really hope Flickr survives, since it’s one of my favorite sites. I’ll most likely keep both services.

I really like SmugMug, although it still feels a bit alien. It doesn’t seem to have Flickr’s community-oriented features, but the galleries look gorgeous. Unlike Flickr, SmugMug lets you change the theme & layout of your galleries instead of always displaying your photos on a solid white page.

You can visit my SmugMug homepage at mike3k.smugmug.com/.

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