Opinion

How do you determine whether a photo you shot is good or bad? This is the eternal question for many photographers trying to separate "the wheat from the chaff" during the grueling editing process.

The point-and-shoot camera is dead? They’ve been saying that for years, especially as the popularity of smartphone photography grows and grows.

Throughout history, photographers (famous and not so) have described photography in their own words. This article isn’t about that—because that horse has been ridden so many times that the saddle sores have saddle sores. This is a request—an invocation if you will—for you to express how YOU define photography.

You have common sense enough to know that you need a spare battery, high capacity memory cards, USB card reader and, for sure, a subscription to Shutterbug, so we won’t restate the obvious. But there are a few other things you really should have to maximize the fun and function of your new camera.

Here’s a helpful video for any photographer out there who suffers from GAS, aka “Gear Acquisition Syndrome.” In the below clip, photographer Michael Andrew, aka Michael the Maven, tries to answer that eternal question photographers face: how many lenses is too many?

Thanks to rapid and ongoing advances in digital imaging technology, our industry is so abuzz with exciting new photographic products—both hardware and software—that it’s difficult for photographers to keep up with the latest-and-greatest gear and without worrying that their photographic arsenal is about to become obsolete. In real terms, though, much of this technical innovation is incremental in nature; better low-light capability, faster processing, higher resolution, enhanced video capability and the like.

The camera market is in a constant state of flux these days thanks to a still volatile economy and the popularity of disruptive, non-traditional imaging forces including smartphone cameras, GoPros, drones and a host of other wirelessly connected, social sharing-focused digital doohickeys. So it was not a complete surprise when a rumor started making the rounds of the photo blogs recently that Samsung was planning to exit the camera business.