Andrew Macpherson

So it’s all about getting ‘Tack Sharp’ in the important areas of your photos.   It’s also about keeping the ISO low to avoid nose, ruling out the very fast shutter speeds.  Beginning to sound expensive…

Scott Kelby (in D-Town TV) suggests using Image Stabilisation (well Vibration Reduction as he’s a Nikon shooter) at exposures longer than 1/600 of a second when not on a tripod, and ‘fast glass.’ Now that’s really expensive.

Then I saw Joe McNally explain that he had a natural advantage because he’s left-eyed, and could brace his camera on his shoulder.  Hmm something wrong here — when I tried it there was a good 3cm gap between the bottom of my EOS 5D II and my shoulder.

Now Joe is perfectly normally proportioned, so I’m missing something…  Ah yes the vertical format battery grip!  Still I wasn’t going to shell out £230 at Warehouse Express for passive wires, switches, contacts and plastic moulding.  Fortunately E-Bay to the rescue, and a dealer (ukpartsdeal) had an after market model for £40, while other dealers seemed to have the identical unit for up to £90, with the majority at £50.

With this in place I can now stabilise the camera on my shoulder. Thanks Joe! good tip.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been learning on-line from hundreds of free podcasts, and related video blogs.  I would particularly like to thank:

• Photoshop User Tv
• D-Town TV now that it’s not just Nikon
• Photoshop Killer Tips

All of which are available as free podcasts which you can subscribe through the  iTunes store, or follow the links above.  These ones are also all manifestations of the American National Association of Photoshop Professionals.  The obvious way to say thank you is to buy some of the related books, and to buy a year’s membership of NAPP (even if it is horrifically expensive in Europe)  I have done that, but publicly I’m saying “Thank You!” here too.