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How Large Can You Print iPhone Photos? | The Camera Company
By The Camera Company 12 Oct, 2023
Are my iPhone photos good enough quality to print? People ask me all the time how large they can print their iPhone photos. How large you can go depends on a number of factors. The iPhone model that you use, the final resolution after editing and whether the photo is in focus and properly exposed. Also, remember that when you crop a photo it changes the size and therefore the resolution. We suggest you crop your photos with an app that shows the resolution as you crop, so you always know where you stand size-wise. If you come across a photo and you’re not sure what size it is to begin with, the ImageSize app is great for quickly checking size and resolution. Is your photo in focus? You can get an idea whether the image is in focus by zooming in on your photo and look for detail. We would be happy to take a look at your image and give you some advice. The iPhone can take fantastic panorama photos. Viewing your panorama photo on your iPhone doesn't do it justice so why not print a large panoramic print? Order Photo Prints, Canvas Prints, Metal Prints, Fine Art Prints, Photo Gifts and more. Pick up in-store or ship to your home Print your photos directly from your iPhone or iPad. Go to https://cameracompany.com/photo-lab ‍ I’ve created this simple chart for reference.
Rear Curtain Flash Sync Explained | The Camera Company
By Dave Fiala 30 Aug, 2023
Here I go again! I thought I would share some information and tips about another flash mode. This time I want to tell you about Rear Curtain, also known as 2nd Curtain Sync. So for starters here is what it is and how it works. We talk about our camera having a shutter curtain that opens and closes to control how long of an exposure we are going to make. Your DSLR has TWO curtains. The front, or 1st curtain and rear, or 2nd curtain. The reason there are two different names for the two curtains is for the most part because camera manufacturers did not get together and agree on one name to give it. When we press the shutter button we think of the shutter(as one part) opening and closing. The way it works is that when we press the shutter button the 1st or front shutter curtain opens exposing the sensor or film to light. At the end of the exposure, the 2nd or rear curtain moves across the film or sensor plane closing to end the exposure. If we are photographing a car going down the street at night if we are in front curtain sync and we are taking, for example, a one-second exposure. When we press the shutter the first curtain opens and the flash fires. The shutter remains open for the one second and then the rear curtain closes halting the exposure. In rear curtain sync, the front curtain opens. At the end of the one-second, the flash fires, and the rear curtain closes. Thus, with front curtain sync, the flash fires at the beginning of the exposure while in rear curtain sync the flash fires at the end of the exposure.  Here are examples of photos taken with front curtain and rear curtain sync.
Why are my pictures blurry? | The Camera Company
By Dave Fiala 30 Aug, 2023
Why are my pictures blurry? | The Camera Company
Should I get a monopod or tripod? | The Camera Company
By Dave Fiala 30 Aug, 2023
Some people wonder, should I get a monopod or a tripod? What will work best for me? For starters, it depends on what kind of photography you do the most. If the answer is that you do all types of photography the answer might be that you need both! Luckily some tripods have a monopod option built-in but I will touch on that later. First I will tell you that for me, and for the kind of photography that I do, it would be rare to see me taking a picture without a tripod. I shoot a lot of landscapes and buildings so I find that my tripod is invaluable for checking and double-checking what I have in the viewfinder. Is my horizon level is the first question? Have you ever seen a picture that someone took of the ocean or a lake and the horizon is not straight? Have you ever looked out over a body of water and noticed it was tipped. I hope not! I also want to check how trees or buildings are framed in the viewfinder. Using a tripod encourages us to look at our composition more carefully. A tripod forces me to be more deliberate about my composition. When you are shopping for a tripod, there are quite a few things to take into consideration. A tripod is used to provide a safe and stable platform for your camera. In general, heavier is better. If you go for a lightweight tripod you can always use a stone bag to add some pounds. A stone bag is just a bag that you hang from the bottom of the center column that you fill with stones to add some weight. When you are done shooting you dump the bag leaving the stones where you found them and off you go continuing your adventure with your lightweight tripod. The first thing I would consider is height. Look for a tripod that is tall enough so that if you are aiming the camera at a high object, for example, an eagle in a tree or some detail on top of a tall building, you don't need to crouch down to look through your camera. Also on the question of height, one of the accepted facts is that your camera is going to be held more still if it is on a tripod that is tall enough without raising the center column or at least not having to raise it to the maximum height. Tripods that get tall are generally longer when collapsed so they tend to be harder to transport. But, not always. Some tripods have more leg sections than others, and many of these get tall enough and close down compact enough that they are still convenient to carry. Taller tripods also tend to be on the heavier side. But, not always. This brings me to the material used in the construction of the tripod. A carbon fiber tripod that can reach the height you are looking for and have enough leg sections so that it collapses down to a nice size for transport may not be much different in weight than an aluminum tripod that is shorter and does not collapse. But everything comes with a price. True, a carbon fiber tripod with more leg sections is going to cost you more money. The cost-benefit analysis is something that each person has to calculate themselves. One person may be willing to carry more weight than another person. A shorter person may decide they do not need a taller set of legs. Then there is the person that does not care what it is going to cost. My compliments! There are many options when selecting a tripod. The type of leg locks is one option. Some people prefer the clip locks. Some people prefer twist locks. That is a matter of personal choice. I have both types so I suppose I can not be much help with that. You will have to see which one you like. I will say that the clip locks are faster. Occasionally the clip locks may need to have the tension screw adjusted so that they lock properly. The twist locks never need to be adjusted..
By Dave Fiala 30 Aug, 2023
I keep hearing people use the term “Prime Lens.” Just what is a prime lens?  I can explain that! A prime lens is also referred to as a “fixed focal length lens.” The two types of lenses that we encounter are zoom and prime. Zoom lenses are identified by their range of focal lengths. 14-24,24-70, 70-200, 150-600 and so on. There are zoom lenses that have a very wide range of focal lengths like 18-400. In the case of the 18-400 for example by zooming the lens from 18mm to 400mm you can get anything from a wide-angle to a long telephoto shot without you having to move forward or backward. At 18mm you can get a picture of the whole team while standing right in front of them on the sideline. Zoom the lens to 400mmand now you can get the shot of a single player that is out on the field. All without having to walk closer or backing up. Prime lenses are identified by their fixed focal length. There are many, many lengths available but just for some examples 14mm, 24mm, 50mm, 85mm,300mm, and 500mm or longer. When using a prime lens you look in your camera and what you see is what you get. There is no zooming so if you need to get closer you start walking closer. If you want a wider angle you walk in the other direction. When using a prime lens you zoom with your feet. So it sounds like a zoom lens is the way to go, right? Hey buddy! Not so fast. When considering a lens we don’t just think about the focal length or the zoom range. The other consideration is speed. When we are talking lenses the aperture might be just as important as the zoom range or focal length. If you are shooting portraits you may be super interested in getting images with a creamy out of focus background (bokeh). Yea, that is what I want! For that, you are going to need a fast lens. Let me take a minute to explain how this works. The way to get that bokeh everyone keeps talking about is by narrowing the depth of field. Here is what we need to know about that. The larger the aperture (lower f-stop) that we can open our lens, the less the depth of field so we are heading in the right direction if we are trying to get nice bokeh. Let’s say you have a 24-120 zoom and it has an aperture of f4. You also have an 85mm f1.8 prime lens. Better yet let’s say you have an 85 f1.4 (You are innocent when you dream). You can set the 24-120to the 85mm focal length. However, your maximum wide open aperture with the zoom is f4. 85mm at f4 is not going to produce the bokeh we are looking for because at f4 we have too much depth of field. Now we switch lenses to the prime 85mm and we open the aperture to f1.4. Guess what? Super nice bokeh, that very creamy out of focus background that we are going for. If you have a 50mm f1.8 and compare the results you would get from using that at f1.8, you will get a nicer bokeh than you will with the 24-120 at f4. The 85mm f1.4 will give better results than the50mm f1.8 for two reasons. First, the 85mm f1.4 has the wider aperture and we already know that the lower f-stop gives less depth of field. Second, we also know that the longer the lens, the less depth of field at the same aperture. So at f1.8the 85mm has less depth of field than the 50mm. Now open the 85 to 1.4 and you are really in the bokeh business. Of course, when we are going for a nice out-of-focus background the other thing to consider is your distance to your subject and the distance of your subject to the background. This all plays into the final results. There are some pretty fast zooms available like 70-200 f2.8and those are great for wildlife and sports but if we set it at 50mm or 85mm we are still stuck at f2.8 and the 50 1.8 or 85 1.4 will still beat it at bokeh. In general prime lenses will be not only faster, but they will usually give sharper images. Here are two pictures shot with a 50mm f1.4 lens and you can see the effect that the aperture has on the depth of field.
Is it safe to use my camera in the cold?
By Dave Fiala 30 Aug, 2023
As I was getting ready to go out shooting one-day last week, I looked out the window and it was nice and bright and sunny. I loaded my equipment in my car which was sitting in my garage. I drove to the location I had planned for my little outing. ‍ As I began setting up my tripod the wind started to blow. The sun was still bright and the sky was clear. The trees were shading the sun but not blocking the wind. I felt a little numbness in my feet. My teeth started to chatter. I thought, was I having a stroke? My fingers were starting to get numb and my hands were shaking. I am freezing! Then I figured out it is really cold out here! I am kind of clever that way.  I was not prepared for how cold it was. I didn’t check the temperature, I just thought it was so nice and sunny. And it didn’t seem cold at all when I was loading my car in the attached garage. All I had was a light jacket. A few days before I had to move a lot of equipment so I took everything out of my car including this box that I keep in there that has a winter hat, gloves even some hand warmers. I just decided to tough it out and shoot in the cold. I have lived in Wisconsin all of my life so I have endured some seriously cold weather. Over the years I have wondered why my grandparents moved to Wisconsin in the first place. My dad’s side of the family was from Czechoslovakia and I guess they have about the same weather there. On my mom’s side of the family, they were Danish and Norwegian. Ah, Norwegian! Norway has a lot of areas that are tundra and from November to January the sun never rises above the horizon. I suppose Wisconsin seemed almost tropical coming from that. I suppose your idea of cold all depends on where you came from. Years ago I bought this Meade Telescope and it was one of the first ones that had computer-controlled guidance. I was setting it up in the winter and I started to wonder if it was OK to have this instrument out in the cold weather. So I called the company and asked about it. They tell me that cold weather shouldn't be a problem. They use them in the cold all the time when they are testing them and using them at the factory. OK, I said I am just wondering because it was pretty cold last night. Then the guy at Meade asked how cold it was and I told him it was 2 above. Two above what, he asked? Zero, I told him. 2 Above zero, where are you? Wisconsin I told him. Then I asked where he was located? Costa Mesa, California he replies. Now, Costa Mesa never gets any colder than about 40 degrees. In Costa Mesa when it is 40 degrees these guys are wearing long underwear. In Wisconsin, when it is 40 degrees, the UPS guy is in shorts and sweating bullets. So I suppose this is as good a time as any to get the subject of this post which is. Is it safe to use my camera in the cold? The answer for the most part is yes. That being said, the next question is how cold, and for how long? The problems encountered when using cameras in the cold are condensation and battery life. Condensation can form in and on the camera and the front of the lens. So when you are out in the cold you have to watch the front of the lens and make sure that it stays clear of condensation or frost. When I had my telescope out in the winter I would use a hair drier to keep it clear Later I got a heater that wrapped around the hood and that would keep the front element clear. You can buy similar battery-operated heaters that attach to your lens hood. You can also use some of those hand warmers that you put inside your gloves. Just use some double-sided tape or Velcro tape to hold them in place. Just make sure to attach them to the outside of the hood so they don’t interfere with the light coming in. The next problem is battery power. Everyone knows that batteries do not like cold weather. When your car will not turn over, it is usually on the coldest day. This is not because some guy named Murphy thinks it's hilarious for you to be standing out in the cold. It is because the extreme cold is very hard on batteries. For some cameras, you can get a battery pack the plugs into your camera and has a cord the feeds to a battery that you have inside your coat. The battery stays warm and so the camera keeps working. Another option is to simply carry spare batteries inside your coat. This is my method and it works as long as I wear a warm enough coat! When the battery in my camera starts going dead I switch it out with one of the warm ones. Once the battery has warmed up inside my coat it may come back to life and I may be able to put it back in the camera and get some more shots out of it. Buy a spare battery here. But I make sure I have plenty of spare batteries so I can keep shooting and not miss those great shots. I have 3 spare batteries but the number of batteries you are going to carry is up to you. I carry more batteries than I have ever gone through on a shoot. But after all, that is how I planned it! The other things we need to do are make sure we have spare batteries for any remote controls, flashes, and flashlights that we take on our cold weather expeditions. Hand warmers and gloves. I have a couple of pairs of Promaster gloves that we sell in the store and I always leave one pair in my car just in case. It is too easy to think I have everything only to arrive on location and realize I forgot my gloves. Another thing about the extra gloves is if I am shooting with someone else and they forgot their gloves. Then I get to be the good guy and save the day!
What does a lens limit switch do?
By Dave Fiala 30 Aug, 2023
I see that some lenses have a limit switch. What exactly does that do?  This switch is encountered on Macro and some telephoto lenses. These may have two or three distances that you can limit the focus to thereby providing a solution to the camera and lens searching for the focus. For example, when using a macro lens and we are photographing a bug at a close distance sometimes the lens will miss the focus. Without having the limit switch set to close range the lens will run all the way to infinity. Once it reaches the stop at infinity it will start on its way back to the closer distances to try and find the focus. If it misses again the lens will hit the close-range stop and start searching for focus again. If we have the limit switch set for the close distance it will not run all the way out to infinity because we have set the lens not to allow that long travel. The same is true if we are using a macro lens to shoot a head and shoulders portrait. If we are shooting someone at say, 12 feet away and the camera misses focus it might run the focus all the way back to the closest macro distance. Only when it hits the close distance stop of the lens will it start running back out to search for the focus. My Fujinon 80mm macro has a 3 position switch. The distance can be limited to, 0.24 to 0.5 meters or 0.5 meters to infinity, the 3rd setting is Full. Only if set to full will the lens run the full range of travel searching for focus. By setting the limit switch I can save time, battery power, and the aggravation of having the camera and lens searching for focus.
By The Camera Company 30 Aug, 2023
An Interview With Nature Pro Photographer Alyce Bender: Sponsored by Tamron."Alyce started her creative life in 2013 and turned pro in 2019. In those six years, she ran the gamut from landscape to wildlife using a wide variety of Tamron lenses. Her technique involves patience. When she encounters a potential photograph, she pauses and looks for what draws her attention. Only then does select the best lens to capture what she sees. Alyce carries five Tamron lenses in her bag at all times. For landscapes, she generally uses the Tamron 10-24mm lens and the Tamron 18-400mm lens. For wildlife, she favors the Tamron 100-400 lens and the big Tamron 150-600mm zoom lens."
By The Camera Company 30 Aug, 2023
Have you had photos printed and been disappointed because someone or something was cropped out? The problem is that the aspect ratio of your image does not match the aspect ratio of your print size. A typical DSLR or Mirrorless camera has a 3:2 aspect ratio. A typical phone as a 4:3 aspect ratio. You have three options if your image aspect ratio doesn't match your print aspect ratio. Pick another photo size that will match the aspect ratio Crop the image Select "Shrink to Fit" when ordering on or website or on our kiosks This will center your uncropped image on the print with a white border on the sides or top.  Throughout the years, we have expanded and opened other locations. Currently, we have two locations in Madison: one on the Eastside near East Towne Mall, and one on the Westside near West Towne Mall. We have created an online business that ships everywhere in the U.S. We offer complete photo lab services and products as well as a wide variety of classes and photo outings. Ed's son, Tim Erickson, is now part-owner. We look forward to many more years serving the Madison area and beyond.
The Camera Company History
By Ward Lundgren 30 Aug, 2023
The Camera Company Quick History By Ward Lundgren Over a hundred years ago, my grandfather, Arthur Lundgren, decided to open a camera store in Rockford, Illinois, called Lundgren Camera. When he passed away, my father, Gene Lundgren, took over the business. I started working in the Rockford store when I was around 9 years old. I would go on Saturdays and do odd jobs, such as stocking and shipping/receiving. Eventually, I worked my way up to salesman. In 1977, my father Gene was approached by our Pentax rep, Ed Erickson, with an idea to open a camera store in Madison, Wisconsin, with him as a partner. We had been getting customers at Lundgren's in Rockford from Madison, so the idea made sense. Ed and my father asked me if I would move to Madison to help Ed set up the camera store, and I said yes. The Camera Company on the Square was born. Throughout the years, we have expanded and opened other locations. Currently, we have two locations in Madison: one on the Eastside near East Towne Mall, and one on the Westside near West Towne Mall. We have created an online business that ships everywhere in the U.S. We offer complete photo lab services and products as well as a wide variety of classes and photo outings. Ed's son, Tim Erickson, is now part-owner. We look forward to many more years serving the Madison area and beyond.
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