Rajib Mukherjee, Author at Phowd

7 Tips to Shooting Great Portrait Photographs

Portrait photography is like a bread and butter thing for professional photographers. No matter which other genre their passion might be so far as photography is concerned, they ought to be able to shoot portrait photos for a living. For many it is the only way to make some decent amount of money doing photography as a professional. Read more...

Understanding the Basics of a Good Exposure

Exposure is the key concept that governs all forms of photography where light in some form or the other is used. Regardless of the camera, lens or other gear you may have, or post processing skills you may possess, if you are unfamiliar with the concepts of exposure and are incapable of getting a good exposure 9 out of 10 times, in camera, you will never be a good photographer. Even if your concept is a good one, a poor exposure is going to ruin the image. Read more...

Street photography has been defined by different photographers in their own distinct ways, often reflecting their unique viewpoints and somewhat revealing the inspiration behind their work. Instead of going into that list of definitions we shall be delving into the world of street photography itself. In the process we shall strive to become better at capturing stunning images from the streets.

It is a bizarre and a serene world coexisting at the same time. Streets I mean. Somehow, on one hand, street photography manages to capture that seemingly endless flow of humanity, capturing its pulse and the progress of humanity over decades and documenting it for future generations. On the other hand it also captures the emotions that revolves around us, the upheavals, the destructions, the grief and the momentous joy that punctuates our lives. Look at street photographs from different decades of the past century and you would immediately be transported back into time, experiencing what people of that particular time in history had experienced, sharing their emotions. Street photography is a very powerful genre of photography. In some form street photography is an offshoot of journalistic photography. It records the actual, un-fabricated truth and leaves the part of judgment to the viewer. Read more...

Image Stabilization: Why It Matters, Types and How to Use

In the overall history of camera technology image stabilization is a rather recent development. Image stabilized lenses did not appear up until 1995 when Canon introduced the EF 75-300mm f/4 – 5.6 IS - the first image stabilized lens. IS or Image Stabilization is the acronym that Canon uses to refer to this technology. The technology was actually first seen on a previous lens, also made by Canon, the EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM. This lens however did not reach the market up until 1999 which made the 75-300mm the first commercially produced image stabilized lens the world has seen.

Nikon calls this technology VR or Vibration Reduction. Other manufacturers use different other acronyms to label this technology. However, at the end of the day, they all mean the exact same thing. Though, in this case it is fair to say that all technologies are not the same. In fact all lenses are not optically stabilized either. There are some manufacturers who prefer to stabilize the sensor inside the camera rather than the lens! This happened because when image stabilization was developed digital sensors were not around and it would have meant either moving the physical film or the sensor. Canon and Nikon devised it was much easier to move the focusing elements inside the lens than moving the actual film.

Okay. Now we need to have a deeper understanding of how image stabilization works and why most professional and serious enthusiasts prefer to pay more for image stabilized lenses. Read more...

Photoshop is an amazing tool. For some it is the only post processing tool that they would ever need. From color correction, to changing skin tones, removing blemishes, increasing sharpness and removing stuffs from the picture that you didn’t want in the first place, Photoshop has a wide range of applications for both photographers and photo editors. But these are just some of the clichéd uses of this amazing software. Beyond that Photoshop has much wider applications, some of which may even be on the borderline of what is called as ‘illegal’ in terms of photographic authenticity.

Reason 1 – Liberate the Photographer in You

As much as you love to shoot, post processing photographs often demand hours of backbreaking work. A lot of you would always complain that you shudder at the thought of having to post process your work after every shoot. Not that you don’t want to or you don’t know how, but being photographers first and photo editors second you feel that your time is unnecessarily held up doing things that can be easily handled by somebody else. The primary need to outsource your photo editing chores, thus, comes from the need to liberate photographers like you from the editing desk.