Lens Adapter
Photography is an interesting past time for many but is a means of living to some. In both cases however, they have a lot to learn about photography. Learning to focus, getting the right angles and using the right are just some of the few things a professional photographer should know. While wedding photographers maybe fluent with taking photos of people in crowds, bringing out the colors in the flowers and the dresses, a nature photographer would needs skills in taking pictures at great distances as well as focusing on miniscule objects.
To help them achieve the best image quality, photographers use a wide range of lenses. Some are capable of giving sharp images of distant views, like landscapes, whereas some can focus on tiny objects such as a caterpillar chewing on a leaf. Lenses, however, can be very expensive and the photographer will need to handle them very carefully. Some lenses can even be more expensive than the camera itself.
Photographers, therefore, fit their lenses with filters to protect them. The filters prevent dust collecting on the lens and damaging it. Lenses are very sensitive and even a single dust particle can scratch it beyond repair. A lens filter prevents this by sealing up the lens. However, sometimes the lens filter and the lens may be of different sizes. In this case, it is not possible to attach them securely. To help fit the lens filter, a lens adapter can be used. A lens adapter is designed to fit both the lens filter and the lens so that they can be attached together.
Lens adapters are a useful tool as in many cases it is difficult to find a lens filter to exactly fit over a lens. The lens filter is important not only to protect the lens from dust, but also to filter out light such as UV light. This only makes the lens adapter more important. In many cases, a photographer may want to use a lens that is a different brand than that of the camera. Such lenses very rarely are a perfect fit. A lens adapter is the perfect solution to attach a lens filter of a different brand to the original lens.
While a lens adapter may not be the cheapest accessory to replace in case of damage, it is very much cheaper compared to lenses. However, it is a good idea to be careful with your lens adapters as well.
Cleaning Camera Lenses
Camera lens cleaning can become one of the most complicated tasks for a beginner photographer. The common method of wiping it off from a cloth not only damages the lens but it leaves more prints on the lens than wiping them off. Therefore lens cleaning should be carried out with care knowing that there are different tactics to use on different cameras.
For example, if you own an ordinary digital camera, cleaning the lens all by yourself could become a task next to impossible. If in case you’ve got a professional camera, the task can be even more complicated although doable. When it comes to cleaning lenses there are special products and ways of using them. Therefore, a thorough read through your camera’s manual would be a good place to start off with.
First of all, it is important to get to know the surface coats that have been used on your lens. If you are wondering why such technical details are important, well the simple answer is that you ought to take every precaution to avoid damage to your lens while lens cleaning. These surface coats are in fact, responsible for the lighting arrangements inside the camera such as distributing light, ghosting and aberrations therefore; a slight scratch on the coating while lens cleaning can put you in trouble.
Blower brushes are ideal for lens cleaning as they can easily remove dirt and grid from the lenses without causing much harm. As opposed to the popular way of wiping off finger prints using the first piece of cloth that you could find, it is important to switch to a soft, delicate material such as cotton balls. One issue in using cotton balls for lens cleaning is that some of it tends to leave behind cotton particles on the lens. Therefore, a professionally designed soft cloth is the ideal for lens cleaning, if you can get hold of it.
A common issue in lens cleaning is on how to remove greasy stains. Sometimes, such marks and stains require assistance of a liquid to come out clean. The regularly used eau de colognes can be the worst to start off with as it can damage the coating. Therefore, it is advisable that you settle for professional lens cleaning liquids at any given time, no matter how big or small the stain is! Finally, do not get in to lens cleaning unless it is absolutely necessary because it is a delicate job that carries a lot of risks. Therefore, it needs to be handled with care!
Camera Lens Filters
Lens filters or filters, as they are widely known, are an accessory used in both photography and videography. Lens filters consist of an optical filter, generally made of glass or plastic, with a plastic or metal ring frame. Lens filters are screwed on or clipped on to the lens of a camera.
Lens filters offer a greater amount of flexibility and control for the photographer. This flexibility allows the photographer to make subtle changes to the photograph being taken or at times make the photograph look completely different.
There are several types of lens filters available for photographers. In this article, we will look at some of them.
Clear filters are completely transparent lens filters that do not perform any kind of filtering of light coming into the lens. Its main use is to protect the lens. Ultra Violet filters, also called UV filters, reduces the haziness created by UV light entering the lens. UV filters are also used as protection for the lens. Sky filters are lens filters that are used for color photography. Sky filters, while serving as lens protectors, are used in outdoor photos to reduce blush tones and helps to keep skin tones natural.
Color correction filters are used when the films color temperature does not balance with lighting in the environment. However, with the use of digital cameras, color balancing issues are often adjusted using software once the photo is captured or with the settings of the camera prior to taking the photo. Color subtraction filters, used mostly in the printing industry for color separations, absorb certain colors of light while allowing other colors to pass through.
ND filters, or neutral density filters, eliminates extremely bright images by reducing the amount of light passing through without affecting the color.
A polarizing filter is a type of lens filter that is used both in black and white and color photography. It is considered essential for outdoor photography, where it reduces glare and reflections and can also be used to increase the intensity of the sky.
Diffusion filters are lens filters that give images the soft focus or dreamy haze effect. These lens filters are mostly used for romantic portraits or to create that mysterious look in the photo.
While there are various types of lens filters available in the market offered by different manufacturers, it is important to identify your exact requirement and do sufficient research prior to making a purchase.
Camera Lens Hood
Cameras play an important role in our lives in keeping a record of special memorable moments. Not only that, people has found it a hobby and a habit of collecting some aestheticism off cameras. This is only possible with a camera having professional functionalities and advanced lenses. Hence the use of cameras with sophisticated lenses is often seen these days than in the past.
Lens hood is often used to block the sunlight from troubling the lens and creating undesired effects on the photo. It is more often seen in telephoto lenses since the field of view is very much narrower than in a normal view and hence the effect of sunlight plays a double importance in such camera. The shape of a lens hood could vary according to the preference of the user. It could take a simple conical shape or even a much sophisticated shape to adopt more options to the user.
Nowadays, lens hoods are created with having minimum undesired effects to the camera, such as the weigh, the space taken and etc. With a material so light it could hardly affect the weight of the camera. Also the space taken in today’s lens hoods is very much of a minimal margin as they do properly fit with the lens’ rotating device to adjust the zooming and focus.
Photos taken with a lens hood will generally have better color effects. The flare and the color will be richer than that to a normal camera without a lens hood.
A secondary usage of a lens hood would be to reduce the amount of damage down to the original lens. Since with a lens hood it would be hard to reach the lens, there will be a considerable amount of reduction of damages due to touching by the nails and etc.
With minimizing flare on the lens, these lens hoods are often expensive and usually do not come in a lower quality. But thinking in other ways, your lens in the camera would obviously be more expensive than a lens hood and therefore a protection is required. Also since the quality of the picture taken is upgraded with a use of a lens hood, the advantages are considerably higher than the money you would need to spend to buy a lens hood.
Make a small research online and find the best lens hood for your requirements. After all it could well be the difference of few dollars of valuation to your photo.
Camera Lens Kit
Art today is sold for prices reaching up to millions of dollars. While to some of us the art pieces may not seem expensive, true artists have the ability to see the real value in them. A true artist is able to see the beauty in a piece of art. In the same way photography is an art. Photographers are artists in that they are able to see the beauty in our surroundings and then capture it with a camera.
It is an understood fact that an artist’s job is not only seeing the beauty but in being able to express it on canvas or in any other form. While most may use canvas, there are various other things that are used to paint on. Although teens that go around the neighborhood spraying paint on walls are considered pests, they are truly artists. Some of the graffiti work shows true talent while a large percentage is simply rubbish. Now, we can see that even though these different artists use different things to paint on they all have something in common. All artists use paint.
Photographers too have their own form of paint. The only difference however is that they do not need to mix their paints. Their paints are the camera. In the same way paint on its own is not of much art value a camera on its own cannot produce good photography, even with the best of models. Good photography lies in the hands of the photographer. Photographers have to consider factors like light, contrasts etc. to get the perfect photo.
Like artists require brushes in many sizes to use their paint, a photographer too requires the right lens kit for his camera. A lens kit will provide the photographer with all kinds of lenses to get that perfect photograph. Different lenses in a lens kit can give different focusing and can help in getting the right angle. In taking pictures of landscapes, the lens kit should have lens offering a high zooming capability to capture the right angle of the landscape. However, portraits will require a different lens in the lens kit, one that is able to control light and focus on objects close by.
A Lens kit is a huge advantage to photographers as it prevents them from having to purchase several cameras for different purposes. The right lens can simply be picked out from the lens kit and attached to the camera.
