Camera Stupid

Making Photography Simple

How to Post Process Landscape Photos in Photoshop to Make them Pop

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Digital cameras have come along way. Recent models are able to capture stunning detail, high dynamic range, and brilliant colors. But with all of their improvements, digital cameras still can not quite duplicate images the same way our eye sees them. Especially when shooting in RAW, the image straight out of your camera can look flat or dull. This post will demonstrate some of the methods I use to post process landscape photos in photoshop to make them “pop” or give them a little extra “wow” factor.

RAW File

Before: RAW File

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8 Tips for Photographing Lightning at Night with a DSLR

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This post is about my recommendations for how to photograph lightning at night with a DSLR.

Lightning storm

An amazing coastal storm presented the perfect opportunity to capture lightning on the last day of my recent trip to Manila, Philippines.

I remember a few occasions back when I was in high school that some friends and I would chase a storm and attempt to capture lightning shots with a 35mm Pentax film camera. It was rare that we’d capture even one good frame and we wouldn’t even know how the shots were turning out until the film was processed. [Read more…]

How to photograph a Chocolate Cake

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Chocolate Cake

A couple of years ago I had the incredible opportunity to work with professional food photography studio Welsh Studios out of Boise Idaho. The client was Idahoan Foods and we were filming a series of behind the scenes videos of the 4 day photo shoot in Teton Springs. I had never shot food before and it was fascinating watching the food stylist prepare, prod, sculpt, scrape, trim, shave, and sprits the various dishes into photogenic masterpieces. Food styling is an art and a science and it was clear we were working with a seasoned professional.  [Read more…]

Building an Aerial Video Drone Fleet

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My online video course about Aerial Videography and Photography is now live!  Check it out!

This post is about building an aerial video drone fleet. This September the company I work for is putting on a large convention in Vienna Austria. Leading up to the kickoff of the event, we are planing a massive road rally with four starting points in major European cities. If all goes as planned, hundreds of company branded cars will converge on Vienna originating from Venice, Prague, Munich, and Budapest. 

I’ve been tasked with coordinating four production teams to capture the journey from each of the four origin points. After showing our chairman aerial video and photos that I was able to capture while in the Maldives, it was easy to get approval to put together no less than four Phantom 2 + Gopro Hero 3+  Aerial video/photo systems.

Quadcopter Quadruplets

Wether you are building a production fleet or just want to get started with a solid aerial photo and video quadcopter, here are all the parts I recommend. 

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How to Light and Photograph Large Groups of People with Speedlights

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This post is about how to photograph large groups of people on location with speedlights.

Disclaimer: This was my first attempt to light and photograph a large group of people. The final photo is not perfect, but I learned a ton, and that’s really what this website is all about. I hope this post will help if you ever have to take a large group photo and I hope you can learn from my mistakes!

Photographing a Group with Speedlights

Getting everyone in the right spot is half the battle when taking a large group photo. The other half of the battle is keeping the umbrella stands from blowing over!

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