Traffic trails are simply a way of blurring moving traffic with a long exposure. This can be done both during the day and at night, but the effect is far more dramatic at night when car lights paint the scene as they move across the frame. If you’ve never tried it but want to give it a go, or if you have tried it before but without much luck, then this step by step tutorial will hopefully see you getting shots with the wow factor.
Many people mistakenly think the photography industry is about photography. The photography industry is, however, about business. The actual photography plays second fiddle in an orchestra which is becoming increasingly large, out of sync and unrehearsed. You can use this disorder to your advantage though, as it makes it easier to step aside from the cacophony and seek more focused attention away from centre stage.
Mountains are a major attraction for photographers. We usually tend to shoot them from below, using their profile against the sky as the appeal of the image, but shooting from the top often provides a much more dramatic image.
Sigma have recently released a brand new 14-24mm f/2.8 lens to their Art series of professional grade optics. When I saw this announcement I was a little surprised as their existing 12-24mm f/4 Art is only a couple of years old, and this new lens seems to compete with the existing one. Okay, so the older lens has 2mm more range on the wider end, and the new lens has an extra stop of aperture range, but other than that, they seem to be pretty much the same on paper. The only other thing which caught my eye was the claim that the new 14-24mm boasted “zero distortion”.
In 2016 we started keeping a diary of the quality of light here on Skye. The purpose is to build up a picture over a few years to see what time of year typically has the best conditions for photography.
It’s not difficult to know when the best weather of the year is, but good weather and good light for photography are rarely the same same thing. Clear blue skies and sunshine is great to be outdoors in, but pretty useless for photography, so the two are completely different. As far as we are aware, a diary of light hasn’t been done before on Skye, so this project will hopefully shed some light (see what we did there?!) on any patterns which emerge.
