Photography is Magic – Class 3 Notes

As we wander down the road with this digital photography class, I’m taking fairly detailed notes and expanding on things that don’t get fully covered in the class. I’m also including some of the strange asides because I think they’re interesting.

I’m not sure how useful or interesting this will be absent being there but I figure it is unlikely to hurt anything.

Off Camera Flash

If any of you are interested in taking your lighting game to the next level, The Strobist (dated as the site is) is remains a pretty impressive resource. They also have a solid Strobist Flickr group that’s active, are on Twitter, and has some great videos on Lynda.com (free for VCU students). His lighting 101 section is solid and will lead you to stuff like an ideal lighting starter kit or 50 DIY lighting projects.

I’m also a fan of their lighting diagrams and the extra descriptions that tend to accompany the submissions to their Flickr group. It’s like extra exif for lighting.

Memory Cards

There were some questions about memory cards. This page breaks down probably more than you’ll want to know about various flash memory types and how they work mechanically. If you’re really more interested in figuring out the kind of card you need to buy, I found the section “So how fast a card do we actually need?” section here is as straightforward as it’s likely to get. If you’re not shooting long bursts in raw regularly or doing DSLR video work, you can buy less expensive (slower) cards without hassle.

Truth, lies, and photographs

If you’re at all interested in manipulated images, I highly recommend Altered Images and it covers the National Geographic pyramid controversy nicely.

If you’re looking to go a bit more into strange things like this, I thought this Instagram “Influencer” who was using stock photos (and stealing other people’s work) was an interesting extension. I’m not going to dive into whether monkeys are photographers with rights to their art but you can.