Matt McGuire Photography » Photography Tips

Save $5 on a SmugMug.com Account

Matt McGuire — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:28:16 +0000

I am using SmugMug.com to host all of my photos. I have a personal account as well as a professional account. SmugMug is awesome. There are tons of features and depending on what you need they have accounts ranging from a standard account for $39.95/year up to a professional account for $149.95/year.

Even if you are not a pro, I highly recommend SumgMug. Your photos are safe. They are stored in several different location across the US. They allow you unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. They have several tools that make it easy to share photos on social networking site or via email. SmugMug customer service is second to none.

Now the best part, use my email address and they will take $5 off your first year’s fee. When signing up just the email address matt@mattmcguire.com and they will apply the discount.

Indoor Sports Photography

Matt McGuire — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:33:44 +0000

Indoor sport photography is tough arena to master. I was at an indoor soccer game yesterday taking pictures for a local team. I decided to experiment with different lenses. While there were quite a few differences between lenses my main desire was to test each lenses difference in aperture.

Aperture is sometimes called Fstop or depth of field (DOF). Aperture is basically how wide open your shutter will go. I have lenses from 1.8 to 5.6. It was very interesting to see the differences. With my 1.8 lens I could have the sutter speed pretty fast. As soon as I put on my 3.5 lens everything was black. I had to slow down the shutter speed a lot to even get somewhat light picture.

I am still saving for the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, which will make a great indoor (and outdoor) sport lens. If you are going for indoor sports shot don’t plan on using a lens with a smaller aperture than 2.8. Anything larger and your photos will be blurry or very dark.

How to take better pictures

Matt McGuire — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:09:36 +0000

So you want to improve your photography skills and you are wondering how to do it? There is no get rich quick scheme for taking better photos. Sure better equipment will probably get you a better photo, but that is only part of the equation. A skilled photographer can produce much better photos on marginal equipment than a beginner on professional grade equipment.

If you just starting out my fist recommendation is just to take a lot of photos. Take photos of everything you can. Play with your camera’s setting and see what the photos look like. If you are shooting with a digital camera all of this practice is free. Review other people’s photos.

See what you like and what you don’t like in their photos. Pay attention to the angle they shot at and what type of light is used. If possible check out each photo and look at the aperture they used, level of zoom, shutter speed, and ISO they shot the picture at. Even if these settings don’t make sense to you at first get in the habit of reviewing them if you can.

There is a wealth of information on the internet about photography. Read, read, read. Find sites where you can read simple tutorials and where they explain all of the terminology. The more you read the more you will get familiar with the words photographers use.

And probably most importantly is have fun. You will learn so much faster if you are having fun and doing something you are passionate about.