I want to hear from you!  2012 is just around the corner and I want to make it a great year of photography tutorials.  What do you want?  What can't you get from other sources?  Do you like the current format of a Photography Quick Tip video on Tuesday and another tutorial on Thursday?  More Flash?  More Lightroom?  Mix in some Photoshop?  What else? 

After the break you will see all the discussions and requests from the Facebook Discussions page (which was removed by Facebook.com), thankfully a #Cazillion saved it for me!

Topic: Black and White

Melissa Wrzesniewsky
Greg... it would be great if you could do a video or two about shooting in black and white, versus color. I am taking a darkroom course, and am finding it so hard to see the world in black and white. Because I am a color photographer mainly, and use color in my work to lead the viewers eye through the image, it's hard to know what to look for to make a good b&w composition. Thanks!

Topic: Matting your photos for digital release?

Jay Stover
Was wondering what everyone else does out there. When a client buys a dvd of all the photos, do you take the time and place them on mats to prevent the client from cropping off parts of the photo while printing or do you just place the photos as shot on the disc and hope they know what they are doing?

Carsten Saager
How would you prevent that they crop away the mat?

Besides, either you don't give out high-quality files or you refrain from annoying your customers.

A friend received once the shoots in a PDF file, she cropped screenshots(!) to have images to email them to distant friends - of course they looked like crap. Good luck for the photographer that nobody inquired his name.

Topic: lightroom for beginners
Tony Al
I would love to see Lightroom videos, but maybe some for us lightroom beginners, this probably may sound dull to you.. but Im guessing there are plenty lightroom beginners out there too (I hope)

I hope i did right posting here.

Im glad Greg you decided this, thank you.

Trinka Hofmann Lumley
Yes I agree with Tony. I would like to see more Lightroom videos.

Richard Guadagno
Lightroom would be a great help.
Alex Boochun
I AGREE im new to this thanks alot and looking foward

Erin Ryan
I'd love to see alot of this sort of stuff!! I do find LR a little confusing sometimes. I've learned some good tips from you already Greg, but i'd love MORE!!!

Curtis Scott
LR is good would like to see how the file management should work as I do not think I have got that operating the best way possible.

Gary Thursby
I would love to see some lightroom video's ass well! Hey I have an idea Greg! We could all try and learn Gimp together! Its a photography editing program that is free much like mozillo firefox! Then no one would have to worry about purchasing expensive software and put that money toward better glass! It would be an adventure and challenge. I perfectly understand that everyone has to pay the bills Greg so let me know how to contribute and I will big G!

Patricia Griffin Thursby
Dad had his own dark room and did the slides many years ago. You could do it I am sure.

Gary Thursby
Yeah I know he did but not sure how to use chemicals to devlop slides or negatives. That's why I always farmed that part out to the lab in LA.

Gary Thursby
Yes I agree Aaron. It would be very helpful to know how to control contrast and tone and how to saturate just one color like what Greg did with the sky only. Its almost like painting except electronically! Really really cool. I am a total newb to any editing software so these video are great for me too.

Stephen Rooke
checkout slr lounge on YouTube, they've got a brilliant series on lr

Gary Thursby
Thanks Stephen!

Topic: traveling with a tripod

Ari Strauss
I am going to be in Aspen, CO for a work conference and would like to get up early one morning to photograph a sunrise. Has anyone flown with their tripod? Is it relatively safe to throw it down below with checked baggage or should I try to carry it on board with me? Alternatively, does anyone know of a camera equipment rental shop in Aspen where I could just rent a tripod?

Topic: Nikon SB-700 tutorial !

Roni Rk
Nikon SB-700 tutorial,

love ya !

Russell Durrant
Yes I was looking forward to the SB-700 video you were going to do in your flash series on Jared's site.

Stephen Kane
Me to sb 700 vid soon plz

Topic: Flash used outside
Houston Pittman
Can you show a video on using flash to remove shadows from faces on outdoor portraits shots? If not done correct I find the flash can be very harsh to the portraits. If using the 70-200mm what would be a good set up for the flash unit?

Topic: Video Idea: Camera Metering

Cody Williams
Hi Greg, Could you please do an in-depth video on camera metering, how to use i, what modes are useful for what and that kind of thing please.
Cody

John M. Duffy
I would enjoy this as well. I am confused about metering on my D90.

1. How do I lock in metering on an area (especially when the area I want to meter is not my focus point)? Is there a way to lock metering before I recompose?

2. Also what are some examples of when I would use Spot vs. Matrix vs. Average Metering?

Ljubisa Nikolic
second that!

Gary Thursby
Third!

Chris Richard
i'm having trouble with this too. i've tried spot and matrix metering in different situations where i adjusted the shutter speed until it indicated a correct exposure in the viewfinder, and still ended up with super underexposed images. so, fourthed:)

Gary Thursby
I watched big G's video on histograms. What I am going to do is shoot manually and try to achieve a histogram like how he showed. If the meter tells me I have a correct exposure in manual but the histogram is not to the right (like how Big G explained) then I will open up a stop or take away a stop depending on if the image is under or over exposed. By the way does anyone use the sunny f16 rule anymore?

Chris Richard
his video was informative, and i understand pushing the histogram to the right by adjusting the exposure, but you don't always get a chance to take a second shot:)

David Winder
I would like something that explains how to 'expose for the highlights' or 'expose for the shadows'. Or is that too basic ? :)

Topic: Advanced Focusing....

Chogyal Judah Dhandup
I think if u cud do a video about focusing auto or manual of a moving,still,night or wateva focusing is there,i wanted to know how to get a crisp sharp focus like a pro...Any veiws on this??
 
David Winder
Yeah I would like that too.

Topic: First Wedding

Luis Serrano
My cousin asked to shoot her wedding....I am new to photography....I own a Nikon D3100....am renting a Nikon 70-200 f2.8....any advise on the setting I should be using....
about 4 months ago · Report

Highlander Torres
http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikondigitallearningcenter/discuss/72157625791683555/
about 4 months ago · Report

Topic: user settings D7000

Harold Demaine
Hi Greg,

Would you have any advices with regards to the user menus? what would be the best setting?
Thx

Topic: histogram

Ayyom Khalid
please teach us how to use histogram..

Cazillo
Histogram video is live! Photography Histograms

Mike Quest
I would like more info on the Histogram. What is the camera doing? All the details.

Post deleted
about 5 months ago

Johannes Winger-Lang
I agree! Would be cool to finally see that video.

David Pedersen
I agree! More histogram!

Mun How Yan
Histrogram for beginners. (:
Julian Markwort
+1

Luka Jerebic
+1

Paul Sesink Clee
+1

Carsten Saager
Explain UniWB, "normal" histograms can be misleading

Rem Sorillo
yeahh,, the technicality of it

Daniel Droll
i agree

Roma Amor Agtarap
+1

Cazillo
Histogram video is live! http://ow.ly/4Yjt1

Topic: Outdoor portraits using natural light, no flash

Eugene Abromowitz
Natural light portraits using no flash. A lot of people don't have SB-900 or studio equipment so it would be great if you could teach us how to best utilize natural light.

Topic: AF microadjustment

Kenton Chow'nard
How about showing how to probably micro-adjust your lenses. Most of the new bodies are able to do this now, so you can do it at home, instead of sending them in to Canon or Nikon, but there isn't a whole lot of info out there, how to probably do this.

Topic: Through the ViewFinder

Harun Talas
Hi Greg and his readers.
I would love to see some videos of you how you take your photos but through the ViewFinder. You could show us how you focus at the eye and still have the right composition you wanted. I have a Canon T1i and it has a 9 points AF system. I cant get the focus at the eyes without changing my composing which i wanted at first.

Topic: Studio Photography,lighting techniques and lighting setups,

Stefan Jönsson
i would love to see some studio tutorials, with different lighting techniques, lighting setups.

Dave Kramer
And use of triggers - managing multiple flashes and power levels of the lights.

Harun Talas
yeah me too. techniques like cross lighting for example and how/when to use a grid or gel

Topic: ISO on different camera's

Warren Ackary
Hi Greg.. can you do something explaining the ISO ratings on say smaller end beginner camera's to semi pro and why the difference is so great please?
To be honest I thought with the new beginner cameras out now new, the companies would have more than say for example 3200-H1, H2 etc

Topic: Stock Photography Basics - Lighting Help!

Matthew Rowe McIvor
Hi Greg! (were with ya to the end)

I'm trying to get into stock photography as a hobby/side source of income but I cant seem to get a good enough handful of images to get approved because I'm a crap photographer lol

I have more than enough gear to get the job done, just not enough skill yet to do it.
Main question at the moment: using a little light box, how can i photograph a small object and have the background absolutely white?

Russell Durrant
To shoot against a white background you need 1-2 stops more light on the white background then on your subject to get the background to be white, otherwisse it can be a dirty white or even grey. If your product is sitting on the white paper then this is difficault. You can do it in photoshop though. In Photoshop duplicate you image and with the top layer selected bring up curves (ctrl + M). Using the white point eye dropper (the eye dropper to the far right) click on the background of your image. This will turn the background white but it will also more then likely make the product too bright. Using the magic Wond tool click on the background of your image to select the background. Go to the Select Menu and click on Inverse to invert the serlection. Now with the alt key held down click on the Layer Mask icon to make a layer mask, This will mask out the Curves adjustment on the product. If there are any highlights on your product that are blown out from the curves adjustment you can paint them out with the paint brush using black, make sure the layer mask is selected. If your prduct is too bright after the Curves adjustment but not too much so you can sometimes get away with adding some black via a Levels adjustment. Hope this helps.

Matthew Rowe McIvor
Thanks! ill definitely give that a try...

Topic: Composition & Assignments.

Russell Durrant
Hi Greg,

I would like to see some video's dealing with composition, why this is good composition and this is bad etc. Also I think it would be good if you gave us some assignments to do, like you were probably given at photography school.

Cheers Greg and good luck with the new venture.

Topic: Landscape photography

Khalifah Alfadhli
Hi Greg

I just bought a super wide angle to use it in my summer trip overseas, and I noticed it handles differently (harder to frame). I never did landscape before.
Any tips?

Gary Thursby
Get very close to foreground interest because the wide angle lens pushes the background way back in the frame.

Khalifah Alfadhli
Thanks Gary

Topic: Weekly Home Work

Steve Brown
How about a weekly or monthly home work project for beginners to learn some of the basic techniques of shooting

Mike Quest
Sounds like a good idea.

Topic: Upgrade?

James Thomson
Hi,

I currently have the D3100 with the kit lens. I'm pretty sure I am going to get the 35mm f1.8 at some point this year.

I was wondering if I would gain anything from swapping the kit lens for either the Nikon 18-70 or the 18-105?

At the moment I don't really have a certain style as I have only had the camera for a month.

Thanks

James


Sergej Radovic
The D3100 comes with a 18-55 lens right? If that is the case you will not gain a lot from swapping it with these other lenses since they are in the same category. 18-70 and 18-105 are kit lenses just like the 18-55, but are usually sold with other cameras like the D70, D90, D7000, D60... The quality of the image is pretty much the same. The only difference is that lenses with the range like those two are quite useful since they will cover almost all the lens needs of amateur and semi - professional photographers. The biggest backside to these kit lenses is that they are not very light absorbent (aperture wise) and the have a lot of fringing, but note that this applies to almost all kit lenses and low quality lenses.

Concerning the 35mm f1.8, you should consider if that is a lens you actually need. This lens is still within the category of cheap low quality DX format lenses and although it has a nice aperture range it will most likely produce similar quality images to your kit lens. The only difference would be that the kit lens has a range of magnification levels which are, as I said, useful for people starting out with D-SLR photography. Maybe it would be wiser to save up money for a more serious wide lens which will ensure sharp and frindge-less photographs!
Hope this helps! :)


James Thomson
Yes that helps a lot. Thank you.

What sort of lens should I save up to buy?

Sergej Radovic
For example this ( http://www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Product/Camera-Lenses/1998/AF-Zoom-NIKKOR-18-35mm-f%252F3.5-4.5D-IF-ED.html ) 18-35 mm f/3.5 is a great lens with the downside being its cost. It is a good quality Nikkor FX format lens. This means that it can be used on full sensor cameras also. While on a DX sensor it will perform marvelously since only the middle part, which is the best quality part of the projection, will be caught by the sensor. If you plan to do photography seriously later on than this is the right purchase.

If you are not ready to spend that much money on a zoom lens then you can also consider a fixed size lens like this one ( http://www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Product/Camera-Lenses/1902/AF-NIKKOR-50mm-f%252F1.4D.html#tab-ProductDetail.ProductTabs.TechSpecs ). This lens is also a FX format lens and it is also a good quality one. The major difference or, perhaps, disadvantage to the zoom lens is that it is not versatile and can sometimes leave you wanting for a bit more magnification which the zoom could provide. Nevertheless, it is a great lens for street photographs, portraits, landscape and pretty much any other kind of photography which is shot in existing light.

The best thing about these lenses is that after buy one of them, chances are, that you will never need a new one (quality wise) even if you buy a new and better camera!

Cheers!


James Thomson
Thank you once again. I am going to America next month so I will wait till I get there before I buy any lenses as they are much cheaper. I think its definitely right to but something decent now; buy one, buy right, is what I always say.

Topic: What file types to use

Calvin Chung
I think a good topic would be to discuss what file format to use and when.

Example: jpeg, gif, tiff etc.

From what i know jpeg is best for pics posted online but hear its not the best format when you want to print something out. Id like to hear more about this if you have the time.

Thanks so much!

Team Cazillo

P.S. I think you should come out with some apparel soon so I can show my support =)

Anders Rønning Petersen
Never use gif. (only 256 colours)
Low-compression jpg for most uses
TIFF (lossless) for print (as long as your printing guy knows how to use it, and you have your ICC colour profiles checked)

Also: google.
http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/graphicformats/f/summary.htm

Calvin Chung
Thank you very much Anders. That was very helpful =)

Gary Thursby
I agree with this as well. My d300s shoots tiff files but no one ever talks about them! Why in the heck are they so freakin large! 22mb for one shot?

Anders Rønning Petersen
22mb is perfectly normal for an uncompressed format...

Gary Thursby
Dang!

Sergej Radovic
Formats like TIFF, NEF, RAW and etc take up lots of space because they have little compression or no compression at all. Formats like JPG, JPEG and other are full color formats ICC and RGB color profiles which are compressed in order to take up less space. The best thing to do is to shoot using these uncompressed formats and later if it is more convenient you can change them into lower quality formats. When printing it is advisable to keep the files in TIFF formats, but this is only if you are doing professional work. If you just need good quality prints for your personal use, saving your file in the Photoshop format (PSD) will be just fine. This is also quite handy if you are doing work with multiple layers and wish to keep them for further editing. JPG files do not have the option for saving layers after editing (they just merge them). In the end it all depends on the quality of the images that you need.
Hope this helps :)

Calvin Chung
Thanks for taking the time to explain that out; it was very helpful. Also, nice profile pic!

Sergej Radovic
No problem. I'm glad you like it!

Gary Thursby
Yes thank you very much Sergej!

Topic: Lenses

Warren Ackary
Greg do you think you can do a basic tutorial suggesting about whay lenses you would reccommend for people to use in various situations, both low & high budget.

Topic: Shooting into the sun to get sun flare

Alexi Nastase
What is the best method of acheiving sun flare such as shooting through tree branches etc.

Alexandar Milovanovic
That would be nice to see how to do it, it can really change an image look, especially a portrait

Sergej Radovic
The easiest way to achieve this is to shoot using a high magnification tele or zoom lens. You need to make sure that you take off the lens shade since this is used to prevent lens flare. ( this is a lens shade http://tinyurl.com/5suz894 ) Usually the bigger the magnification of the lens, the bigger amount of lens flare you will get and that is the reason why big lenses have bigger shades. When it comes to shooting the image with flare, you need to have the sun at a certain angle to your lens. This angle depends on many things, like the size of the lens, the type, the time of day and etc. Although making lens flare with smaller lenses is harder, it is not impossible! You just need to try out different angles to the sun until you find the one that makes that flare you are looking for. Another thing you can do is use a tool within photoshop to create artificial lens flare : filter>render>lens flare. This is quite useful when you are unable to achieve this effect naturally, but you should be careful since sometimes it can look very fake and artificial! I hope this helps! :)

Alexandar Milovanovic
Thanks, very useful. Welcome to the forum. :)

Topic: More BTS-videos

Andreas Måneskiöld
Behind the Scenes of actual On Location and Studio-shoots of people.

Topic: Sun

Pujit Shingala
how to get clear sun in the pic!! I have done it with under exposed images but not very helpful as it will affect sky and landscapes. I would like to see whole video tutorial on shooting/editing pictures of sun/sunlight from the morning, afternoon and evening. It sounds crazy but i need to learn it.

Marco Bellocchio
I agree.....you cannot imagine how difficult this could be,when light blasting everywhere and all the images are overexposed and washout.
this could be a great theme for a video tutorial

Topic: Cleaning lenses, filters, camera body

Shah Ra
Hey Greg,

How would you clean your lenses? (Both sides, as in, the side with the filters end and the other side that goes into the camera, does that make sense?)

And same thing with the filters, do i need to bother with any special lense cleaning solutions or can I simply use some good quality H2O?

As for the camera body, how would you go around cleaning that, for instance especially after you've been to the beach with sand occasionally blowing towards your camera?

Topic: Outdoor Portraits, Setups / Poses / Lighting


Jay Stover
Outdoor Portraits, Setups / Poses / Lighting

Donovan Marceau Photography
I agree. Posing , and outdoor lighting is certainly something I'd like to see discussed!

Chris Malmstrom
Agreed

Chris Young
and me to ...

Chris Young
and me to

Totie Villanueva
me three...

Thomas Haneborg
me 4!

Pujit Shingala
four + one!!

Mike Ramsay
4+2 :)