torbensphotos blog

Sharp Photos

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:25:21 +0000

This is not a good way to hold your camera, when taking photos, you will most likely get blurry photos

How to avoid blurry photos!

This one I observe very often.

Ever wondered why your photos are not completely sharp? Well one of the answers to that question might be, that you where holding the camera like show in this photo.

Think about how little stability you give your hands out there in front of the body – hardly any and that means that a slight shake is going to give you blurry photo’s.

Now take a look at the next photo, here we see how the photographer is holding the camera close to the body/face, and very importantly the elbows are locked into place, touching the sides of the chest, also one foot is one step ahead of the other and they are about a good shoulders with apart.

This on the other hand is a much better way to hold your camera in a steady position and at the same time very comfortable.

So next time you want to grab a snapshot, think about this:

Hold the camera close to your body – consider using the view finder for better stability
Keep one foot in front of your body and keep most of your weight on that
Have your feet a good shoulders width apart

So remember these points when you are composing an image, I will be talking more about composing the image in a later blog post.

Tips and Tricks

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:41:58 +0000

Introduction to digital photography tips and tricks

I will be starting out with some photo tips this week.

The way that I want to give you this information is on a casual basis.

I am thinking back to situations, either that I have experienced my self or what I witness on a daily basis. Then I will try to describe the situation to you and how you as the photographer can correct the issue and thereby improve the quality of your photos with just a little investment in time and effort.

So keep reading and I hope that you will enjoy it and be happy with your future photo’s.

www.torbensphotos.com gallery page

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:53:43 +0000

Options on a gallery page

Let’s take a look at what options you have inside a gallery.

First of all, the way that you get to ‘PhotoRank/Help’ and ‘Photo Sizes’ is by hovering your mouse over the upper right side of the image.

Buy – here you can choose to buy either the photo you are watching right now or the whole gallery, buy means either print, download or merchandise (t-shirt, mug etc.).
View Cart – like a normal shopping cart on the web, after you have put either prints, merchandise and/or downloads in it, this is where you check-out and pay.
Share – gives you the following options:
1. Sharing on social networks like Facebook and Twitter
2. Send links on social bookmarking sites like Digg This, Stumbleupon and many more
3. e-mail a link
4. Get a link to use in your blog etc.
Slideshow – watch a cool full screen slideshow of the gallery
PhotoRank/help – Please rank the photo, if you like it or not, you can also get to the official SmugMug help site this way.
Photo Sizes – hit one of the sizes and it shows you the photo in a light box in that particular size

As you can see, lots of options and I will go in to detail with every single option in some upcoming posts, so remember to bookmark this site, sign up for the RSS feed or remember to return soon.

Until next time enjoy my photos on www.torbensphotos.com

torbensphotos.com homepage

admin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:25:22 +0000

Help to the homepage

Very short introduction to the menu bar:

Skiing – you will find only photos and video taken with and of my clients
Diving- photos is from my PADI Courses, Instructor Development courses, Underwater life, Around Crystal Dive and the life on our dive boats
My Places – where I spend most of my time, so general photos and not including clients and/or students
Portfolio – my best shots from all of the worlds – yet to be uploaded

Lets talk about the numbers on the photo above:

Please follow me on Twitter, because here you will get more or less daily updates about when I upload new photos or what else I happening either regarding my diving courses or how the snow conditions is like in the Arlberg region and where it might be good to ski etc. I recommend to sign up for a RSS feed, just click the icon in the top of your browser and copy that link to your preferred RSS reader.
Guestbook & Contact – please take your time and write a couple of lines in my guestbook it will help me to know what you and other people are thinking about my photo site and also about my skills as a photographer. Obviously you will also find a contact form here, one of many ways to get in touch with me.
About me – don’t know much about who ‘Torben Gregersen’ is then have a look here and read about my diving and skiing career, want to know more about why I take photos, go to the ‘about’ page on my blog.
Find – this is a very interesting page with lots of different ways to find photos on torbensphotos.com, I will take more about this menu tab in a later blog post, until then a look inside and play around with it.
Search – another way of finding photos, mainly it works with keywords, that could be ‘skiing’, so type in a word and it will open up a new tab/window with all of those photos that have that particular keywords attached to it.

At the bottom of the home page, you have 2 options:

E-mail me – this link you will find at the bottom of all of the pages, so it is very easy for you to get in contact with me.
Help – click this link and you will get the official and full help section from SmugMug, it might be a bit overwhelming which is why I’m writing these small bits to keep it more simple.

That’s it for now, stay tuned and more will follow shortly.

About Help to ‘torbensphotos.com’

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:18:07 +0000

Okay, let me start by giving you an overview of what you can get out of www.torbensphotos.com, that is to say beside looking at the photos.

Here is a list of the most interesting things:

Be social – share a photo or more on facebook, twitter, friendfeed and tumblr or you can bookmark it on various social bookmark pages
Watch a slide show
Watch photos in different sizes
Search for photos after: keywords, dates or popularity
Map – view a map of the world and see where there are photos
Google Earth – if a photo is geo tagged, you can see exactly where that photo was taken – very cool
Print or download a photo
Give thumbs up/down
Comment on a single photo or the whole gallery

So in each of the up comming blogs I will dig more into the points above, trying to make it as structured as possible, so it will be easy to find what you are after.

Koh Tao – Sunset

admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:03:46 +0000

I was just sitting at my desk actually working on some photos, when I turned my head around and saw this magnificent sunset over my shoulder.

Nikon D80, Lens Nikon AF-S 18-200VR, 1/40 f:18, ev -1 2/3 in Aperture priority and manual focus, iso 100 - photo taken using a tripod

Time is critical when you live in the tropics, as the sun sets within minutes, so very quickly I got my tripod out and mounted the camera, as I’ve taken a lot of sunsets photos from this location, I knew more or less straight away which settings to apply on the camera, as you can see from the caption I put on some exposure compensation to add that extra amount of darkness to the photo, which gives the scene a bit more contrast.

Important, when you are using a tripod with a digital SLR and a vibration reduction lens is to turn off the vibration reduction, otherwise you might get slight blurry images, also I use a remote control, but if you don’t have that, then a short time on the self timer would do the same job. I find I get better photos, when I put the lens into manual focus, and just set it to the out most ‘infinity’ as the sun is quit far away, and that is in this case where I want the sharpest point in the photo.

You may argue about having the sun in the dead center of the photo, but for sunsets I find this often gives me the nicest photos, because besides from the sky above, there is not much more, where I would like to draw attention to.

More sunset photos from Koh Tao on www.torbensphotos.com/my-places/koh-tao/sunsets/

Welcome

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:33:46 +0000

First Post!

If you are reading this, it will be the first post on this blog, which is mainly about help to www.torbensphotos.com and I will be giving out plenty of tips and tricks to the casual photographer, so if your in that group stay connected and more will follow. If you are having photos on my photo site and want to get the most out of them, I will start posting help shortly and about every week extent that help or give links to other resources.

If you are the ‘casual photographer’ also I will once or twice per week write a post, so the best way for you is to subscribe to my RSS service, which you will find right under this post.

Please feel free to contact me, the contact page will be up and running tomorrow:-)

I would very much like some comments on my posts, so don’t feel ashamed write what ever you feel.