Welcome to the newest section of our blog, No Fear Photography! We’re here to help photographers learn to make the most of their cameras, to take creative control, to explore, and capture amazing images all along the way.
A Bit about Bokeh, Background Blur and Selective Focus
The holiday season is a great time to make photos with gorgeously softened backgrounds and shallow depth of field for painterly, creative, and festive results. Indoors and out, the Christmas trees bedecked with tiny lights, Menorahs, and decidedly secular seasonal displays that brighten the world each December present the perfect opportunity to experiment, explore and create. While we’ll obviously be featuring a number of Sigma lenses in this how-to, much of the information here is universal.
Treat Yourself to Cool Halloween Shots With These Tricks and Tips
Halloween can be an amazing time to make all sorts of cool photos. Between the Jack O’Lanterns, people of all ages in silly or scary costumes, and haunted houses, there’s something great to shoot pretty much everywhere you turn.It’s also a great time of year to throw so many of the hard and fast guidelines of photography aside and have some fun by breaking some rules, and employing some cool photo tricks to make Halloween photos that’ll turn some heads. In this blog posting, we’re going to have some fun and give you some ideas on how to capture the spirit of the season.
Fireworks and Bright Lights in the Night For the Fourth of July and Beyond by Jack Howard
The fourth of July means many things, and for photographers, one of the most exciting and challenging aspects of this holiday is capturing amazing photos of fireworks. The bright lights in the night paint the sky with multi-colored flames in a way that can be spectacular to witness and capture with your camera. And while it may seem that fireworks–and articles about how to capture fireworks with your DSLR–only appear for a few nights in early July, there are actually tons of nights from coast to coast all summer long when the skies are illuminated with fireworks.
Beachscapes
Spots where sand, sea, and sky come together offer certain challenges to photographers, but the results can be so amazingly rewarding. Conditions can change quickly as the sun hides behind a cloud, and conditions most certainly change slowly as the tides sink and rise and the sun and moon dance across the sky. The same patch of sea may be mirror calm and reflecting golden light, or it may be a churn of furious waves. Fogs, mists, and wind-whipped sand can make for gorgeous images even as they fool camera meters. There’s a world of possibilities waiting to be captured along these edges, whenever you visit, and with whatever Sigma lens you’ve got in your bag.
Understanding Optical Stabilization
Many lenses in the Sigma line feature Optical Stabilization, which is a great feature for helping photographers nail sharp shots when camera shake may be an issue.