Favorite Photography Tools

People have been asking me a lot lately about how I process my photos. "How did you do that?" is something I hear a lot. Well, I decided I'd share some of my favorite photography tools with you.

My camera gear:
Canon 40D

My favorite landscape lens:
Canon 10-22

Software I use:
I wish I could say I was a CS3 user, but I only use Photoshope Elements. It seems to do what I need it to do.

I almost always shoot in RAW and bring that into Adobe Lightroom, THE best RAW processing software out there in my opinion.

The best Photoshop plug in by FAR!!!
Neat Image........it is noise reduction software that really takes your photos up a notch in quality.
http://www.neatimage.com/

I also have a plugin from Tiffen called... DFX
It's a digital filter software package with lots of cool and practical filters. Just like you'd screw on to your camera... only in post-processing form. It's a great value if you like to use filters.

A lot of my photos are made using HDR software called Photomatix.
This software is awesome and quite fun. The basic premise of HDR is that you take 3 RAW shots using different exposures......one at -2.....one at 0.....and one at 2 (you can use your own favorite exposure settings).
If you have an SLR camera, you can set it to auto bracket these 3 shots. If you don't know what auto bracketing is, pull out your manual and read up on it. It's really quite easy.
Photomatix will take those three differentyly exposed shots, and combine all the best elements of each into a beautiful image. Of course you have to mess with the controls in Photomatix and actually take good shots for it to shine, but it's worth a free download for you to experiment with.

That's about it. Hope you have fun trying all these tools out, and hope your photography brings lots of happiness to your life.

Postcard Wedding

I had the priviledge of shooting a wedding recently. The bride...well you take a look. She was stunning! The wedding was at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego and the day was perfect. It was a 5pm wedding, so after the ceremony we wanted to take some shots as the sun was setting. The sky was amazing that day....puffy clouds and blue sky. It was a super fun day with lots of great photo opps. Nicole, the bride, smiled all day. Both she and Duane, her husband had a blast that day...me too!