I think one of the most asked gear questions I get is which lens to buy.
Let’s first make one thing clear, I love that people mail me questions and I always answer them (and will continue doing that of course), some of those questions however trigger me into writing a blog post about them, and without a doubt this is one of them.
Every year we do a small blog post about what to get or give for the holidays.
Because we are based in the Netherlands we have two holidays to give presents, first Sinterklaas and later Christmas, so I’m always a bit earlier that the other sites with this blog post, although I saw that Scott Kelby also had his list ready, well many products are double (must be good products I guess :-)).
So here is my must have list for this December.
Must be the weirdest title I ever used for an article.
You can fill in the blanks yourself, but let me start by doing one that I wrote this article about.
All people that don’t meter are stupid……
And before you explode and start mailing me, please read on.
Every week I get a few mails from people that have seen me using a meter and they are always in 2 camps. 1 group will try to convince me that they love the work I do but advise me to stop using a meter, the other group wonder why there are so many people out there on the web, on youtube, on training sites etc. who still struggle without a meter.
It’s no secret that I love to use my meter, in every workshop there is some attention to the meter and how to proper use the tool. And there we go already please do remember that the meter is just a tool. In the end it all boils down that we tell a story with our images, move people with our images or/and make something interesting for other people to enjoy, endure or love. That’s photography. Using a meter is just a tool to get to that end result.
First things first
Don’t read this as if I say that you shouldn’t use a meter, no way.
I strongly (and really read STRONGLY) believe that if you’re into photography, and you don’t even have to be a pro, you will have to use a meter to get accurate and constant results. I really don’t care if people say that they get great results without meter, my answer to them is “you will get there quicker and probably even get better results when you DO use a meter”. But in the end, and please do remember this…. you can make shitty images with a meter and great work without. But let’s look at some things I want to clarify.
One of the things that is often overlooked in a photoshoot is styling.
One can argue that styling is often expensive and that a good stylist is hard to find, however I disagree. Yes a good stylist is very hard to find, however why not at least try it yourself. Daily I get images from photographers asking me how I like their images, and some images are indeed nice or even cool, often however they are in my opinion “not as good as they could have been” due to a lack in styling. Or in other words, great lighting on a great location but the model is standing there in just jeans and a top…. in this blog post a few pointers to do the styling yourself or with your model without much budget.
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