While we’ll never condone the wanton destruction of a lens (especially one of ours), sometimes a little home reverse engineering can do wonders–or at least make for a fun weekend project. This is exactly what photographer Jay Cassario did over at Lightshop. He took a $120 lens and converted into a tilt-shift, saving himself about $1,000. Of course, he could have just rented a tilt-shift lens from us but that is not the point! Read all about Jay’s  (more…)

Welcome to Cool Stuff, a weekly feature where we post our favorite links from the past week, including our favorite articles and how-tos, videos, images and more.

• This one falls into the “Ooops, how’d I miss that?” category. Canon is presenting a series on time-lapse photography with none other than Vincent Laforet. Part 2 is now out, and is embedded here for your viewing pleasure. (more…)

Adventure photo journalist Jay Goodrich highlights how he overcomes diffraction issues with today’s digital cameras and lenses by stacking multiple focal point images in Adobe Photoshop CS6 via Adobe Lightroom 4. Focus stacking, also known as focal plane merging or focus blending, is the process of combining multiple images taken at different focus distances. This is how many photographers are able to get entire subjects in focus even if the depth of field if very shallow. It is very popular in macro photography but it can also be very helpful for landscape photographers.  Watch the tutorial below to see how Goodrich is able to get his entire scene in focus when normally he’d be experiencing blur due to diffraction, which often occurs in lenses after a certain f/stop is reached. (more…)

Save 25% off your order on these items when you use the code “BLDOW” at checkout.

Lytro Light Field Camera

Litepanels 1×1 Daylight Flood and Spotlight Kit w/ Stands

Nikon 85mm f/1.4G AF-S

Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM

Remember, if you place your order this week by 11:59 PST, Sunday, April 28th, 2013 you can always schedule your rental anytime this year and STILL get the 25% off on your item!

Happy shooting, everyone!

Nikon D4

Not so long ago, I did a post about Canon’s new “Big Guns”, the 600mm f/4 II and the 1Dx. We’re now waiting for Nikon’s newest super-tele, the 800mm f/5.6, to ship, but I thought I’d take the newest flagship camera from Nikon out for a spin with the venerable 600mm f/4 that they’ve had out for a while.

Nikon 600mm f/4

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Seán Duggan is a fine art photographer, author, educator and an Adobe Certified Photoshop Expert with extensive experience in both the traditional and digital darkroom. His Lightroom Viewfinders series provides photographers with the tools they need to effectively take Lightroom on the road with them during their photographic travels. In episode 2, Duggan goes over the basics of finding your missing Lightroom files and why Lightroom loses track of them in the first place. (more…)

Happy Tax Day, everyone!

Okay, so Tax Day isn’t a very celebratory affair but if you are thinking about filing for your photography business in the future, here are 5 great articles to help get you started. (more…)