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August 21, 2013 by PhotoKen

Bird Photograph: World Photography Day

I decided to send a bird action shot for my 2013 World Photography Day submission.

I learned a couple of key tips for bird photography while trying to capture a photo of nesting swallows on our property. After many failed shots (trying to capture them in flight) I had 2 realizations:

I needed a predictable angle and position to capture – ‘side on’ aiming at the nest with a Telephoto let me pre-focus on where the swallow was going to be.
Setting an ISO of 1600 gave me a shutter speed of 1/8000th sec – which was crucial to freeze the motion of the super fast swallow

It took a dozen shots but I nailed a capture that I was fairly happy with…. actually this was part of a sequence which was awesome. I’ll post that next time.

Please show your support by ‘favoriting’ (is that a word?) my shot at: http://www.worldphotoday.org/gallery/2013/3265.php

(To ‘favorite’ my shot you need to Register and Login to World Photography Day then you will see a link “Add to favorites” next to my name and the heart count – if that is too much – you could just share the photo using one of the sharing icons on the right of the photo.Thanks!)

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August 5, 2013 by PhotoKen

Over 85% of beginners are not getting the photo knowledge they need

85 percent of beginner photographers are not finding the answers

Over 85% of Beginners are having trouble finding the answers to their Photography issues

I have been running a survey and was very interested to find that most beginners are NOT finding the answers to their photography questions. These are questions about the basics like exposure, composition, moving off AUTO, Focus, Depth of Field, what settings to use, shutter speed and generally capturing light the way they want.

This is astounding considering the amount of information on the internet. With all the Youtube videos, photography blogs, photography courses and training you would think it would be easy to get the information needed. The essentials needed to get better photos.

Over 85% found it difficult to find the right information and a whopping 39.6% found it VERY DIFFICULT.

I think what we are dealing with is INFORMATION OVERLOAD. New DSLR owners are lost in the forest of information – and they can’t see the forest for all the trees in the way. Clearly, it’s not a small problem.

In my opinion – beginners need to take a systematic photography course consisting of lessons that will build up their understanding in a predictable way. Otherwise they will be floundering around in confusion with all these concepts bouncing around in their head.

The reason I created my EasyDSLR Digital Photography Course was to cut through all this confusion and lay out the information in a systematic, structured way. My course is not a random sequence of photography concept videos – it’s a result of months of planning to optimize the understanding of photography basics. I also came up with a MAP or Overview – THE PHOTO TRIANGLE – to give a bird’s eye view of how all the essential photo concepts are connected.

Whether someone takes my course (of course, that would be nice) or another photography training course is not the point – the point is make a commitment to learn the basics in a structured way. Then moving off the AUTO mode will be easy and your photos will improve dramatically.

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June 26, 2013 by PhotoKen

Adobe Lightroom 4 Tutorial: Dull to DRAMATIC

This Adobe Lightroom Tutorial shows you how to Rescue a Dull photo and transform it into a DRAMATIC image using Adobe Lightroom 4. Most of what I have learned comes from Phil Steele’s amazing “Lightroom Made Easy!” Course – click on the course name to get 30% off Phil’s course for a limited time.

Lightroom can save you hours – if not days – of sorting, retouching and photo editing time. I use Lightroom at least 80% of the time and occasionally go to Adobe Photoshop for some trickier edits.

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June 24, 2013 by PhotoKen

Udemy lists Ken Schultz as Top Photography earner

Top Udemy earners in specific categories

Venturebeat.com just ran an article on Udemy and the Top earners – Venturebeat article link.

I was happy and honored to be listed as the Top Photography earner. I have had a lot of students join my EasyDSLR Digital Photography courses (Beginners and Advanced) on the Udemy platform. I appreciate all the support from my subscribers.

If you are interested in taking my Course on Udemy you can get 40% off…

just use the Coupon Code fan40 for either my Beginners or Advanced course below:

EasyDSLR Beginners Course

EasyDSLR Advanced Course

I have made 200 of these Coupons for each course … in other words NOT unlimited.

Cheers

Ken