Pierre Steenberg

Just add water ...

February 23, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Water is usually very photogenic. Just add water to your image (in good light, of course) and you usually have a better picture for it. Rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, oceans, name it, water adds interest to just about any scene. Yes, any scene, it does not have to be a great landscape. The following picture was taken where it was growing in the fie...

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6 Must Have Photography Apps

February 16, 2014 • Leave a Comment

6 Must Have Photography Apps I have done many searches on Google and in App Stores for "Photography Apps". The results often disappoint because they show image editing and related apps. What I need are apps that help me prepare for shots. Over the last few years I have accumulated a collection of apps that really help me a lot. I hope they help yo...

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Taking Pictures versus Making Pictures

February 09, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Taking Pictures versus Making Pictures Non-photographers take pictures. Photographers make pictures. I have heard many non-photographers comment that "that was a lucky shot." It is thought that somehow the photographer just happened to get the lucky shot because everything just happened to fall right into place at the very moment when he / she hap...

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Train your companions

February 02, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Train your companions When shooting animals on safari you cannot use a tripod. There are some gear you can fasten to the roll bars of the vehicle instead. Such expense was too great for me given that this was a once off trip. I have found that a bag of rice or beans actually works best to stabilize your gear. It helps to absorb some of the vibrati...

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Wait ...

January 26, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Wait... Yosemite is an exciting place to photograph. During one long weekend stay the weather was horrible. It was raining and raining, gray and drab. By the third day I was getting frustrated. It was my last day there and I did not really have anything to show for my labor. My family was not too excited to be stuck in the car for yet another day.

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To use Filters or not to

January 19, 2014 • Leave a Comment

To use filters or not to Every photography sales person wants to sell you filters because they generally have high profit margins. They always seem to ask: don't you want to protect your $1,000.00 lens? Or they may say: it is much cheaper to damage a $25.00 protective filter (UV filter) than the front lens element of your $1,000.00 lens. May I ple...

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It is not all about gear

January 12, 2014 • Leave a Comment

It is not all about gear In the film days a cheap camera and a very expensive camera produced the same quality image because the image quality was determined by the film in use and not the camera. This is no longer true in the digital world because the camera's sensor is the "film" and it does contribute to image quality. So many mistakenly think...

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It is all about the light

January 04, 2014 • 2 Comments

It is all about the light Many people think that creating great images is about shooting in exotic locations. Photography is not so much about what you shoot but rather about light. The word photography comes from two Greek words: photo and grapho. Photo means light. Grapho means to write (or by extension to draw). Photography is thus writing or d...

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