by Jim McGee I've been getting more serious about photography so I'm upgrading my camera and I want to upgrade to some better lenses. The reason I'm writing is that I'm not sure what zoom to buy. I looked at the 80-200mm f2.8 and the 70-300mm f4-5.6. The 70-300mm is a ...

by Chuck McKern In Understanding & Using Black & White Infrared Film I covered the quirks and characteristics of shooting with black & white infrared film. With the basics out of the way lets take a look at what we can do with color infrared film. If you haven't read the article ...

by Chuck McKern At least once a month I get an email from someone asking about sending their camera to a service center for cleaning. This can be more expensive than people realize. Most service centers define a cleaning as a "Clean, Lube, and Adjust". This involves dismantling the camera and ...

by Chuck McKern You can shoot some incredible and dramatic photographs using infrared film. So why don't more photographers use it? Because infrared is difficult. It's difficult getting the film, difficult shooting with it, and difficult processing it. But a proper understanding of infrared film and how to handle it simplifies its use ...

by Mitch Moraski The latest figures show that 89% of all households have some form of photographic product in their home. My mom is 84, and she still takes pictures! Today both digital and film processing and printing are more available than ever. Department stores, grocery stores, and drug stores all ...

by Jim McGee When we covered the myriad of new product announcements at this year's PMA the big news was that Fujifilm was releasing a new version of Velvia. The venerable Velvia 50 would now have a faster sibling Velvia 100F. The fact that Astia was being updated with the same technology ...

by Jim McGee Wouldn't it be great if you could have a camera the size of a point and shoot that had fast sharp interchangeable lenses, autofocus, fast shutter speeds, an accurate meter, and the ability to work in any mode from full auto to full manual? You could slip it ...

by Jim McGee There are photographers who speak of Zeiss lenses in hushed, reverent tones. They earned their reputation at a time when most mass produced lenses could not be manufactured to this level of quality. Computer aided design and manufacturing have helped the rest of the world catch up but ...

by The Staff at Vivid Light The 420EX is Canon's basic, no frills, mid-line E-TTL flash. With street prices ranging from $180 to $220 it's around $150 less than Canon's top of the line 550EX unit and it works equally well as a shoe mounted flash or as a wireless slave ...

by Chuck McKern When I first heard about Nikon Infrared flash system, I was a little concerned about how it would perform. I've been a Nikon user for many years and have been amazed at the evolution of their TTL system and how accurate it has become. I've been equally impressed ...