Of course, most of us associate that expression with the precise moment we first took firm command of our bicycle.

flickr image by rob_from_ca

Ahhh…the freedom. That expression, however, is something you never will — or want to — hear from a photographer, unless, in the remote chance, he or she is doing some risky work that requires remote firing.

Today, I volunteered to take some group shots for my office. As I returned to my office, I hastily put my D300 down on my desk. Little did I realize that it was resting precariously on top of an uneven notepad.

Bonk!

Ouch!

When I was a kid, there nothing more exciting than taking things apart to see the inner workings of electronic gadgets, not to mention trying to see if I could restore them to working order. As an adult, seeing the gears, chips, and other innards of a lens is not my idea of fun. Granted, this is not one of my better lenses, but it’s a tried-and-true walk-around lens. Add to that, as I’m starting out in the business, little can I afford to break my equipment.

In spite of the heartache, I’ve quickly culled two lessons from this mishap.

1. Slow down – There was no reason why I put the camera down so quickly, other than I was trying to get back into the flow of work. A few extra moments to put  my camera back in my backpack would have cost far less in time than the $250+ it’ will take to replace or upgrade this lens.
2. Insurance – This is an area that I’ve read about, particularly as I’ve been building up my equipment list. So often the focus is on lost or stolen gear, not drops. I suspect that many of my colleagues have suffered the gut wrenching drop of a camera, lens, strobe or computer.

I want to give a special thanks to a number of fellow photographers on Twitter who expressed concern and offered advice (get insurance!).

What’s the most unfortunate mishap, bungle, or break you’ve experienced with your gear?

broken, drop, lens, misery, Nikon

If you aren’t aware, I love tilt shift photography (or selective focus)–when done well. When not done well, it pretty much looks like a blurry picture.  Though tilt shift photography hasn’t received the same amount of attention and uptake by photographers and the general public as HDR (high dynamic resolution), I find that tilt shift produces a interesting and unique perspective. I look at the work with the fascination of a little kid.

In a nutshell, tilt shift photography is a technique where special lenses are used to overcome the restrictions normal lenses have when it comes to depth of field and perspective. To achieve the tilt shift effect, the lens rotates against the image plane (tilt) and also moves along the image plane (shift). Through application of the Scheimpflug principle, the photographer can take an image with a very shallow depth of field using tilt and a larger aperture. Here is an example of a tilt shift lens.

Recently, I’ve noticed the use of tilt shift in an Allstate Insurance commercial as well as a scene in the movie A Serious Man.

Just today, a fellow photographer shared this great tilt shift video by Sam O’Hare on Twitter.

So, what’s shooting technique or style piques your interest?

lenses, techniques, titl shift