It’s Monday. Monday. How About Some Link Love?

Well, I’m still sort of recovering from the big photowalk weekend – and we’ve got a big trip to Menards planned for today – so here’s a little link love for a Monday:

¶ The folks at Digital Photography School – always a paragon of good linkage – have produced a couple good stories in the last few weeks. For example, if you liked Tim Sheet’s CIPB entry on shooting wide, follow up with some more tips on shooting wide from this article by Joe Decker. It’s sure to give you a few more ideas.

¶ DPS has also extended their Digital Photography 101 Series to Chapter 8 – all about the light meter. We blogged about the earlier chapters of the series before – but if you just check out this latest installment, there are links to all previous stories. It’s really a superb introduction to all things camera – with just enough detail to really acquaint you with the info you need to know.

¶ There are seven – count ’em – seven links in this article on Open Courseware Collections for Digital Photographers. In other words – seven places to check out for free photography education articles on a wide range of known and unknown subjects. Worth a look.

¶ Okay – let’s get this out in the open. I’m a twitter user (@escapesphoto). I’m a twitter user that isn’t entirely sure that twitter is going to help me in the long run. But I’m willing to tough it out for a bit. If you’re curious about how to use twitter as a photographer, check out the last DPS link of the day – aptly titled How Twitter Can Make You A Better Photographer. Maybe.

¶ We haven’t felt the David duChemin love here for a bit. David – who’s first book “Within the Frame” has turned into a big hit, is hard at work on his second book – about making a life and a living in photography. He’s always got something interesting to say – and he always seems to say it pretty well. He had a nice little rant on sensors the other day – but he followed it up with something that I’ve always tried to articulate well myself – and have often fallen short on. He talks about the infamous “crop factor” in APS-H and APS-C sensors (the kind most of us shoot on – the smaller sensors of the prosumer and consumer lines in Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax, etc.). There’s this notion that if you put a 50mm lens on a cropped sensor, you’re really turning it into a 75mm lens. Well no – no you’re not. It’s still a 50mm lens and it’s going to get you the same magnification on a cropped sensor as it will on a full-frame sensor. The resultant image on a cropped sensor however will be… well… cropped. And that “crop”, if you will, will look like it was taken with a 75mm lens – froma 50mm distance. Oh geez – it can be hard to articulate – and the more I try to articulate the worse it gets. Check out David’s approach to explaining cropped sensors and focal length – he does better then I do. And then reading the dozens of comments in David’s article, I came across a link back to Cambridge Color. If you aren’t in fear for a small brain explosion, take a run over there and check out the fabulously detailed post about sensors and crop circles, er size – it’s pretty complete.

¶ Scott Bourne, who along with Rick Sammon, produces the photo blog called Photofocus has two great “Seven Tips” articles. The first is on Using TTL flash – it’s enough to whet your whistle with ideas – and it covers two of the most important out there – getting your flash off camera and using flash and exposure compensation to make an image sing. It your whistle is wet enough – come down and take the flash class at the Peoria Art Guild later this year (shameless self-promotion). The second is all about asking the right (seven) questions when it comes to buying a new lens. A good primer on what to think about when you feel the urge to splurge – on some new glass. This isn’t what lens to buy – but the questions to ask yourself so you can narrow in on what you really need.

¶ Speaking of David’s and love – what about David Hobby aka Strobist? He had a great article awhile back on shooting food with yet another $10 macro box. We use these $10 boxes in the flash photography class at the Guild – they really work. Check out his modifications for shooting small objects – like say tomatoes (or jewelry) – in his insightful article.

¶ Jim Talkington, who used to blog over at ProPhotoLife, has a series of videos on YouTube about doing things in the studio – that perfectly translate over to the small studio that you and I are more accustomed to working in. A number of these vids are on simple studio lighting – but all of them are useful. Enjoy.

¶ I’ve been seeing references to “Showit” on various blogs for a few weeks now. You might be interested in the totally free aspect they’re offering if you want to get a small photo project on the web with a really slick interface. Go get a taste.