Photocritic photography blog

I get a lot of people sending me images with ‘mysterious’ problems, and I figured it was only fair if I run a series of articles about how you can alleviate these problems. The most frequent problem is actually a lens-flare related problem, and there seems to be some confusion as to what lens flare actually is.

I suppose the first thing we should discuss is just what lens flare actually is. Most commonly seen in photographs, lens flare can appear as bright circles, smears of light or glimmering lines.

On some occasions, it can even appear as a thin film over the entire picture that makes the image itself lighter. Read the rest of the article »

I know I keep going on about this, but there’s no denying that photography can be an insanely expensive hobby: Especially if you’re curious about why people start shelling out thousands and thousands of dollars/pounds/euros on glass with a little red L on it… Once you’ve shot a couple of hundred photos with professional equipment, it’s too easy to reach for your credit card and let ‘er rip: The sheer sharpness of the photos and the vastly superior results than you get from average-grade consumer lenses is staggering.

The solution, many people find, is renting camera equipment for a weekend or so. But how do you go about choosing what you rent? And what are the benefits of renting over buying? What are the downsides?

My good friend Andrew over at Golden God has taken a closer look, exploring the topic in greater detail in this guest writer article. Read the rest of the article »

Lens hoods are great devices - basically, they allow you to shoot more directly into the sun (i.e at a more acute angle compared to the sunrays) without getting the dreaded solar flares.

Unfortunately, lens hoods can be silly expensive. But, as you all know when I make a statement like that, there is a cheaper way of doing things - in fact, a much cheaper way! Read the rest of the article »