The fastest (wide maximum aperture) zooms today are f/2.8. That’s great for helping you shoot in low light with faster shutter speeds, or giving you more control over shallow depth of field (letting the area in front and behind your subject go out of focus). But there are non-zoom lenses that are even faster, generally down to f/1.4 and occasionally to f/1.2. Those lenses have incredibly shallow depth of field (the eye is in focus but not the tip of the nose), and are usually shot to show that. But you usually pay a lot of money for that faster aperture.

A Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AF-S lens, for instance, sells for about $1700. The 24mm f/1.4 AF-S is $2000. If you’re a pro, or just have the money, those are great lenses. For other people, though, that’s getting expensive. However, there are less pricey options out there as well. The Nikon 85mm f/1.8 AF-S is only $500. That’s about 2/3 of a stop “slower,” (lets less light in) than the 1.4 lens. Remember, full f/stops (1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22…) mean half (from say f/4 to f/5.6) the light allowed in or twice the light (from f/5.6 to f/4.0). And those premium fast lenses (f/1.4 in this case) are generally higher quality too. But there are some deals to be had.

Nikon makes a 50mm f/1.4 AF-S lens for “only” $500. And the 1.8 model is just $220. That 50mm 1.8 AF-S is new, too. What’s new is the “AF-S” part. Any Nikon AF-S lens will autofocus on any recent Nikon DSLR body. But not all of Nikon’s lenses are AF-S. If not an “AF-S” lens, then entry-to-intermediate bodies won’t be able to autofocus. These cameras include the D40, D40S, D50, D60, D3000, D3100, D5000 and D5100 (and probably a few others). That’s because in an effort to make the cameras small and less expensive, Nikon didn’t put an AF motor in the body. AF-S lenses don’t need that, as they have their AF motor in the lens. Those are the newer style lenses. And that Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF-S is one of the latest of the new releases of AF-S lenses. So I got one to give it a try.

On the photo trip I just led to Peru, I wanted to go as light as possible. I’m leading a trip to China soon, and both of those trips were going to be weight-restricted. So Peru would be a test for me. My plan was to carry two cameras bodies (Nikon D800 and D7000) and two lenses (Nikon 16-35mm AF-S f/4 VR and 70-200mm AF-S f/2.8 VR). Plus a few small accessories, like a speedlight and filters. But I was nervous about the gap between 35mm and 70mm. So I added the compact 50mm 1.8 AF-S lens to the kit, since it’s tiny and lightweight. And it quickly became one of my favorites.

Using that 50mm lens did two things for me, both of which are good. First, as a “fixed lens (not a zoom), I’d have to think more about my distance to the subject. And thinking in photography often results in good things. Secondly, I’d have a faster aperture (f/1.8) than I’m used to working with, so decided to shoot it only wide open (f/1.8). That meant a different look for those photos, which was also good.

Now shooting a lens wide open in low light is easy. You usually have to do that just to keep a reasonable shutter speed. And we’re used to seeing shallow depth of field in low light. It was outdoors, in sunshine, that the lens became really fun to use. Shallow depth of field with a normal lens isn’t what people expect in bright light. So when I started doing that, the photos looked different. And as I mentioned, in photography, different is often good. That’s because “different” can make a picture unique, and get people to stop and notice. Just look at the cover photo on my business Facebook page. Shot with that 50mm at 1.8, only the llama is sharp, everything else is out of focus: http://www.facebook.com/KCphotographer.

To shoot a fast lens wide open in bright light, though, requires a combination of low ISO and high shutter speed. Otherwise you risk overexposure. That meant I was usually at ISO 100 (and sometimes 50, or what the D800 calls “L 1.0”), and my shutter speed was usually well above 1/1000. And even when I wasn’t in bright light, having that lens at f/1.8 meant my shutter speed was still fast, lessening the chance of blur.

Downsides? Just one big one. At 1.8 you better be sure you’re in focus, because there’s no depth of field to save you. Check your focus, shoot, check again, shoot more. All you need is one good shot, right?

The lesson I learned from this? Don’t get in a rut. Don’t always use the same lenses the same way. Change things up, try something different. Play, experiment, and most importantly, have fun. After all, if you’re not having fun with your photography, it’s time to find a different hobby.

Then you need to consider how many points you want to use. More advanced cameras allow you to choose not just one point or all points, but some subset. For instance, the Nikon D7000 that I used to photograph Jeffrey lets me select one, nine, twenty-one or all thirty-nine points. And as long as I’ve set the camera to Continuous, any time I’ve set it for more than one point, it’s using something called “Dynamic-area AF.” That means it starts with the one point you’ve chosen, but if the subject suddenly moves from that point, it will look at those surrounding points (remember, 9, 21 or 39?) to see if it’s there. If it is, it will seamlessly continue to follow focus. Dynamic is way cool, to use a technical term, and other manufacturers tend to have something similar. Check your manual.

Sometimes it’s possible to cheat your autofocus. And cheating can be good. The more action is has to track, the more likely it may miss, especially with a less expensive camera. So if you know the spot where the key action will happen, simply pre-focus there and wait for it. I like using the AF-L (autofocus lock) button for that. When I press and hold it in, the focus can’t move – it’s locked at that distance.

Lenses are also a key part of good autofocus performance. The more light you’ve got, the easier it is for the camera to focus. “Faster” lenses (with wide maximum apertures, like F/2.8 and lower) will help the AF system focus faster because they let more light in. And don’t forget that the same manufacturer may make lenses with newer AF systems. As a Nikon user, I want an AF-S lens if I’m shooting action, because that’s the current top-of-the-line lens as far as autofocus performance goes.

Finally, there’s one more thing that’s very important to remember. No autofocus system, no camera, no lens, will get every picture in focus. Money can solve a lot of problems in photography, but even the most expensive gear still misses at times. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. After all, where would the thrill be in getting the shot, if you always got the shot?

I ask for a volunteer from the audience (thanks again, Lois!) to come up on stage and work through a series of lighting examples. I start with on-camera flash, which is harsh and flat. Then I turn on “Commander” mode in my Nikon camera (a D7000 in this case) and turn on a Nikon Speedlight (SB-700 for this one) mounted on a stand to the side. And usually, everything looks great. But not this time. As soon as I switched to the SB-700 as my main light, it was overexposing. Now as I said, I’ve done this dozens of times without a problem, but this wasn’t to be one of those times. So I started to troubleshoot, on stage, in front of 150 people. Fun. But it actually turned into a good learning exercise. After all, things don’t always go right in photography, so you need to be able to find a solution. Here’s what I did:

First I went into my camera’s menus to make sure the Commander mode was turned on, at the proper settings. All good there, but still overexposing. So I dialed back the power on the strobe three stops, but that only helped a little.

So I asked the audience, “What now? If your light’s too strong, and you can control its distance, moving it further from the subject will reduce its intensity.” So I moved the light a few feet further from Lois, and the exposure was a bit better, but still too “hot.”

Next step? I like to say that a lot of photography is troubleshooting, and most of the time it comes down to ISO, shutter and aperture. Since I was using flash, I changed my aperture from f/4 to f/5. That lessens the amount of light let into the camera, and it helped some too. I could have gone lower (to f/8 or f/11), but now I was starting to have fun with this.

Then I asked, “What else can I change?” I was at 200 ISO, and lowering to 100 ISO meant my exposure would be halved, and that finally got me to a good exposure.
After that I finished the demo by adding a second speedlight to light the background to separate the outline of Lois’ head from the background.

As presenters, we talk about “dancing” on stage when things go wrong. And if you don’t freak out, it can be entertaining for the audience and educational too. At the end of the day, I got my favorite compliment of the weekend when a woman came up and said, “I think I learned more from watching you solve that problem than from anything else in the program.”

What went wrong in the first place? I’m not sure, but a few days later I think I figured out at least part of it. Telling my wife what happened, I remembered that when I added the background light, I used Commander mode to turn off the main light, to see exactly what the background light was doing. When I turned the main light back on, suddenly it was working properly. I had to take out the minus-3 exposure compensation I had set on it, and then the exposure was good. Looking back, I think cycling Commander mode Off and back On would have solved the problem right at the beginning. But then I wouldn’t have had all that fun!

I work with several different computers, both Windows and Mac, and was always shifting data back and forth to make sure I had current documents on whatever machine I was working on. That was a pain to manage. Then I found out Dropbox would do that for me. You see, Dropbox synchronizes whatever’s in its folder on your computer to what it’s storing in the cloud. And you also have the option to have it synchronize that same data to Dropbox folders on other computers (or access from smartphones or tablets). Which meant that I simply moved my “Business” folder from “My Documents” to the Dropbox folder, and now in addition to having all my key work constantly backed-up in the cloud, it will also synchronize to any of my other computers. For instance, if I’m going on a trip and want to use my Lenovo X220, a small ultraportable laptop, I just plug it in and hook it into the internet, and it will sync with the Lenovo W510 I normally use. Better yet, if they’re both on my home network, that happens via the gigabit Ethernet connection, rather than the slower internet connection. All I have to do is check the Dropbox app to make sure it’s synced everything before unplugging and hitting the road. And I can do the same with my MacBook Pro. Dropbox doesn’t care what system it’s synchronizing. This has been a fantastic way to streamline my workflow.

Most of these services offer a small amount of space free, and you pay if you want more. I started with the free 2GB on Dropbox, then moved to the 50GB ($99/yr) and recently the 100GB ($199/yr). While most of them have you pay for the space you want to use, there are others, like CrashPlan, where you can pay a set annual fee (in their case $49.99) for unlimited storage space from one computer.

Similar to Dropbox is Box (http://www.Box.com). I’ve read good reviews of it in the past, and thought I should check it out at some point. That point is now, as they’re offering a great deal for users of Android devices. They normally offer 5GB of free space, but until March 23, if you download their free app for Android devices, they automatically upgrade your account to 50GB, free, for life. Sign me up! Actually, I already did, for my Android phone. Check out this story for more info – http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400635,00.asp.

Plus, both of these services allow you to let others download files that you’ve designated for them. This is often much easier than trying to email large files.

If you’re not already taking advantage of cloud storage for at least your most important files, now’s a good time to start. Check out one of these service, start with the free package and see how you like the interface. Settle on one (or two, or three, depending on how you use them) and start uploading. It’s one of those times where computers really do simplify and improve your life.

Since the start of this year we’re seeing more ultraportables like that X220, but even lighter, as powerful and with longer battery life. From new Lenovos to the MacBook Airs, these laptops are making it easier to be a traveling photographer and get some serious work done, without breaking your back. I love it when technology works for me, and these new machines do that in a big way.

(if you’re interested in a Lenovo, check out the deals at http://www.Lenovo.com/bluepixel)

First, I download my pictures as soon as possible. End of the same day if I can, into a folder whose name is the date they were shot (for instance, January 11, 2012 would be 20120111, so the year always comes first). During that download I have the software managing the download re-name the files with that date, plus a bit more information. One of the photos from a recent night shoot in Boston (you can see the photos at http://www.Facebook.com/KCphotographer, in the Current Work album) has the filename 20120107_Boston_037. This makes it easy for me to know where and when a photo was shot.

Next, I copy those folders to two hard drives. One for long-term backup (that gets rotated off-site), one to a server in my office that I can access immediately. And every so often when I have time I go through the most recent photos, pick my favorites, and copy them to a “Best of” folder for that year.

And that brings me back to January. That’s when I go through the “Best of” folder for the previous year and cull it. I’m always a better judge of my pictures after some time has passed. So come January I re-visit that collection and narrow it down to those photos that really belong there. Then that year’s “Best of” folder gets burned to DVD and goes into my safe-deposit box. This year that was 2 DVDs, which is far easier to manage than all the DVDs that have everything I shot over the year. They can stay on a shelf at home. If they’re lost, but the “Best of” collection is safe, I’m happy.

So if I have a New Year’s resolution each year, it’s to stay organized, stay on top of all the photos I shoot, and make sure that the best of those are stored for the future. And that’s a worthwhile resolution for every photographer to have.

Since then most of Nikon’s mid-range cameras do that, from the D90 through the D700 currently, supported by their main strobes (the SB-600, SB-700, SB-800, SB-900 and the just announced SB-910). And other companies like Sony, and more recently Canon, have included that ability too.

Which is a great thing for us photographers. We live and die by light, and the quality of it. Because being able to get the flash away from the camera doesn’t just mean better light, it means better pictures.

The autofocus systems on our cameras rely on light, so doing in-focus night shots can be hard for them. My preference is to turn off the autofocus and manually focus. I can usually find something in the scene that’s bright enough to do that. If it’s going to be really dark (like it will be for the northern lights, or star fields), then I try to set my focus on a far distant object before dark, then tape down the focus ring.

And speaking of the northern lights or star fields, they’re even tougher to shoot because there’s much less light, requiring a lot of exposure. I’d suggest shooting with the lens nearly as wide open as possible (f/4-5.6), and an ISO of 1600. Then try a thirty-second exposure first and see what happens. Remember that if you need to go longer, you have to double the exposure to let in twice the light. In other words, two-minutes will give you twice the light of one minute, but you’d have to go to four-minutes now to double that again. Long-exposure noise (image degradation) can happen with exposures beyond one minute, but the cooler the weather, the less that’s a problem. So there’s at least one advantage to doing night shots in cold weather.

Most people don’t shoot pictures at night, so it’s a great opportunity to do something unique and different. Cook up a pot of hot chocolate, fill the thermos, grab your hat and gloves and get out there!