TL;DR
The tech•photo site is a collection of articles on cameras, lenses, and photographic techniques. It is targeted to the technically-minded photographer with an interest in improving their photography by learning more about the inner workings of their cameras and other gear.
A Different Kind of Resource
In my personal journey through photography, I’ve noticed that most photographers tend to fall into two fairly distinct categories. For lack of better terms, I’ll call them “creatives” and “techies.” It is kind of a left-brain/right-brain thing. The separation is far from black or white, but most people tend to lean heavily to one side or the other.
Creatives
Creatives tend to be the kind of people think about when someone says “artist.” They approach their photography as art, with their talent and insight developed through countless hours of trial and error. Creatives are often enormously talented at creating and capturing emotionally impactful images. They have a keen sense of the visual, and a deep understanding of how to tell a story with a single image.
…and most have absolutely no idea how their camera works. Nor do they care. That’s not how their creative process works.
Techies
Techies are on the other side. Technical folks find comfort in having a deep understanding of their tools. That might mean knowing what every button on their camera does, or it might mean having a deep understanding of optical systems and how to play with light. Techies tend to build and plan pictures, more than capture them. They know what they want and utilize a well developed skill with their tools to get there.
The biggest issue with techies is that they can get a little too obsessed with gear and specs, and can spend more time comparing, shopping, and collecting, rather than shooting.
The Missing Resource
To be clear, there isn’t a wrong or right way to take pictures. There isn’t a better group. Both types of photographers are capable of producing amazing images.
But… in my experience, most resources for the beginning photographer— books, websites, workshops— are designed by, taught by, and generally targeted towards people with creative tendencies and approaches. This type of approach often leaves technically minded folks asking a lot of “Yes, but why…?” type questions, that often go unanswered.
This website attempts to teach basic photography approaches and techniques with a keen eye towards the “why?” questions.
What you will learn from this site…
The articles on this site will tend to deal with technical aspects of camera systems, lenses, and light. There will be math. In learning photography, I’ve dug into a lot of the details, and want to share them. Topics might include things like what that 50mm number on your lens actually measures, why the focus scale of your lenses is non-linear, or why f-numbers are independent of focal length.
What you will not learn from this site…
If you want to learn about image composition, the Rule-of-Thirds, or how to compose your lighting and shadows to highlight a model’s cheekbones, this is probably not the best site. Even if you’re a techie-type photographer, you should have some familiarity with this stuff. Thankfully, when it comes to learning artistic expression, there are dozens of websites, hundreds of blogs, and thousands of books out there on the art of photography. Go check them out.
If you want advice on how to become a professional photographer and start your own business, you definitely want to ask someone else. My only advice is DON’T. It’s a brutal and shrinking industry.
Living Site
This site is mean to be a living resource. I consider the site to be less of a blog, with individual, dated posts, and more of a collection of informational articles. As such, information might get moved around and reorganized from time to time. I would like to keep the individual articles fairly “bite sized” (although, for me, that’s sometimes several thousand words). If I decide a sub-section of an article is getting too long, or that I want to reference it from other articles, I might decide it makes more sense to break that information out into it’s own article.
I realize that editing and reorganizing existing articles makes it more difficult to maintain bookmarks or links, but my hope is to keep the site as approachable as possible for new and returning readers.
My Own Experiences
I bring my own bias and opinions into these writings and articles. Some of my opinions are forged from hard-earned experience, but most are not. Everyone has their own set of experiences and viewpoints. To better understand my viewpoint, keep in mind…
I am primarily a Canon shooter. I own a lot of Canon gear. I’m usually quite happy with it. As such, I tend to discuss things from the context of Canon’s product lines. This is not meant as a claim that Canon is better, only that I am more familiar with it. Most of the information found here is not vendor specific and should hopefully translate to nearly any camera system out there.
I am primarily a still shooter. When it comes to art and expression, I have little interest in video. Because I have little interest in video, I tend to ignore the video functions and features of cameras, and don’t consider video capaiblities when evaluating gear.
I am not a professional photographer. Photography is not a means of income for me, and certainly not my primary occupation. I am a software developer by trade, and photography is, as I call it, my “therapy hobby.” This means I often approach problems or projects for the joy of exploration, and not from a business frame of mind. It also means I’m not out working and shooting every day. I might favor heavier or more fragile gear than a pro would. It is likely that I have a different set of cost-vs-convenience concerns than a pro might have.
I am a generalist. I enjoy a very wide variety of photography projects and subjects, from studio work, to night skies, to sports, to landscapes. I like to try everything, and enjoy the challenge new, unfamiliar situations. Such opportunities force me to depend on my skills and knowledge to evaluate the requirements of the situation and get the shots. This means I have a very broad set of experiences, but it also means the depth of those experiences is, in some areas, quite limited.
Where Did This Site Come From?
A book. A book that was never written, and never published.
In 2010 I finished a book about databases that was produced by a major technical book publisher. Writing something that large was an interesting experience. I wanted to try to do some other types of writing.
I had an idea for a book that taught photography from a highly technical viewpoint. A book that was not afraid of explaining things through math. It was the proverbial, “The book I wish I had when I was learning.” After talking to a number of other photographers, both amateur and professional, the shape and concept of the book started to take form. I went back to my publisher and asked if they’d be interested in publishing a photography book targeted to technically minded people. They said they liked the idea and would seriously consider it— as soon as I could provide a draft.
Unfortunately, that draft never happened. In part, life got in the way: growing kids, new house, new job. In part, I found it much more difficult to compile a book-sized outline that organized the jumble of specific topics I had in mind. I tried to sit down and just write snippets and bits, trying to see if the information would flow together. That didn’t work either.
Getting more and more frustrated with the project, I put it on the shelf and stopped thinking about it for a number of years. Time passed, and the market for technical books is not really a thing anymore, so it seemed sensible to reframe the information as a blog. Articles could be shorter and more focused. I could start to get information out much faster, and adapt the focus and information to what people were asking about. So here we are.
Hopefully you find the information here useful. Go shoot, make beauty.
– The tech•photo photog