Hi!

Wow - I’m really blown away by the number of responses to the last newsletter. It was great to hear from so many of you, and if you haven’t yet received a reply, don’t worry - I’m in the process of responding to everyone, but it’s taking some time.

Since the response was very positive, we plan to continue this approach for now. On Thursday, you’ll receive our standard newsletter with a rundown of our recent articles. On Saturday, you’ll receive a newsletter like this one, which will include a variety of topics, such as tips for improving your photos, the latest photography gear news, photographers to view for inspiration, recommended products, etc.

So let’s dive right in!

Bi-Weekly Photo Challenge: Impressionist

This fortnight, we invite you to explore the world through the lens of impressionist photography. In this challenge, we encourage you to capture fleeting moments, transforming reality into a canvas of colors and emotions. (You’ll find some great tips to help, here)

Make sure you include the hashtags #dPSWeeklyChallenge and #dPSImpressionist in your post, here in the comments or over on social media. You can tag us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and you can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group

Two simple tips to improve your photos

Today, I have two quick tips to share.

First, when you’re out with your camera, don't just take one shot of each scene and move on - instead, capture each scene from several positions. Get down low, find a vantage point to shoot from above, or take a few steps to the side. It'll increase your chances of capturing a great shot, and it'll also be a great learning experience; you can review the photos later and try to analyze what worked and what didn't about each perspective.

(For help on utilizing different camera angles, see this dPS article!)

Second, always give each photo your best effort. To paraphrase a popular saying: don’t try, do. I sometimes see photographers who approach images haphazardly - they just point the camera, press the shutter, and walk away.

This is a recipe for disappointing shots.

Instead, whenever you can, be thoughtful when capturing each photo. Make sure you use good technique, pay careful attention to your settings, choose your framing very deliberately, and only then capture the image!

Inspiring photographers

This week, I have two more photographers for your viewing pleasure!

First, many of you may be familiar with Vivian Maier, the mid-20th century street photographer who only became famous once her exposed film was auctioned off. Regardless, I encourage you to check out her amazing images, both in color and black and white, of Chicago; they're reproduced beautifully on her official website. You can also learn about her life and the discovery of her photography in the documentary Finding Vivian Maier.

Second, Guy Tal is a contemporary landscape photographer whose work goes against the grain; instead of capturing dramatic sunsets, Tal generally focuses on more intimate scenes, and relies on form and color to generate a sense of mood. You can view his beautiful portfolio here.

An essential (and overlooked) photography accessory

When you’re just starting out, it can be tempting to simply focus on grabbing a nice camera and building up your lens collection - but instead of splurging on additional lenses, I highly recommend investing in a tripod instead.

When I was starting out, I myself purchased new lenses whenever I could, and for the longest time, I never acquired a tripod. Then I finally gave in and made the investment, and it was genuinely transformative.

Why? For one, a tripod allows you to expand your photographic repertoire - you can capture long-exposure landscape photos, long-exposure cityscape images, photos of interiors, photos of the night sky, self-portraits, and more.

But a tripod has another benefit: It forces you to slow down. Because it takes effort to get your tripod into position, you’ll be more thoughtful about your compositions, and the results will speak for themselves.

These days, I use a tripod over 90% of the time even when I have enough light to shoot handheld; I just love the feeling of getting my composition into place, giving myself a moment to breathe, and only then pressing the shutter button.

Of course, tripods aren’t suited to all genres of photography - most outdoor portrait photographers, for instance, work handheld - and it’s not always convenient to carry one around. But a tripod can help more than you realize! If you’re interested in investing in a tripod, we do have this detailed article, which includes a variety of tripods for different budgets and shooting styles.

The Sony a9 III and its global shutter

Next, the news that’s making waves this week: the launch of the Sony a9 III, the latest in Sony’s action photography camera lineup. On the surface, the camera looks impressive but not especially relevant for the average photographer - it boasts 120 FPS continuous shooting, a pre-capture buffer, 8 stops of in-body image stabilization, a high-resolution EVF, and a 24 MP sensor. It also costs a whopping $5998 USD. So it’s perfect for serious action photographers, yes - professional sports photographers, wildlife photographers, and photojournalists - but not your everyday shooter.

However, underneath all the speed is something much more interesting: the Sony a9 III is the first consumer-focused camera to use a global shutter.

Mirrorless cameras generally rely on an electronic shutter in order to offer high burst mode speeds (such as 20, 40, and 120 FPS). They also use an electronic shutter to offer true silent-shooting modes, where there is literally zero noise created by the camera hardware when you press the shutter button.

And while I don’t want to get into the details, electronic shutter technology has thus far been plagued by a problem: rolling shutter distortion. Basically, the electronic shutter cannot expose the entire sensor all at once, but instead does it a line of pixels at a time. The result: when photographing fast-moving objects, there is clear distortion, almost like the object is melting as it moves. (Here’s a video showing what I mean.)

A global shutter, however, avoids this problem completely. Instead of exposing the sensor a line of pixels at a time, it exposes the entire sensor at once. As a result, even the fastest-moving objects are captured naturally.

Of course, the a9 III costs far more than most photographers can afford, but once a global shutter has been released in a Sony camera, I suspect that Nikon and Canon won’t be far behind - and the technology will eventually trickle down into cheaper models.

If you are interested in action photography, the Sony a9 III will likely be available in early 2024 (B&H estimates a February 23rd ship date), and you can currently preorder it here.

Submit your images for critique!

Last week, many of you said that you would find an image critique helpful, so this week, it’s something I’d like to try. If you’re interested in public feedback on your photos, please reply to this email with an image file (ideally around 1000 pixels on the long end). I’ll go through the images that I receive, and I’ll include a handful in next week’s newsletter, along with my thoughts on what I like and what I think could be improved about each image.

And don’t worry - this won’t be a brutal, unpleasantly harsh critique! Instead, it’ll be a learning experience. Just bear in mind that the images will be included in the newsletter, so only submit photos that you don’t mind being publicly shown.

Talk to you next Saturday,

Jaymes Dempsey (and the dPS team)