Have you ever noticed little bits on your photos? Not the little crumbs from a cookie that help make the photo more real looking. But, little indiscernible dots or smudges or blobs that appear, usually if you are shooting something on a solid white background. That’s dust. And, if you are using a dSLR, you probably have some on your sensor.

Here’s a quick way to tell. Close down your aperture as far as you can… probably somewhere around 22. Then take a properly exposed photo of something white. Any dust that is on your sensor is going to show up, and look something like this:

The first image is at 100%. You can see two little light grey spots within the red highlighted area. The second box (below) is that red box zoomed in even further. If you look closely in the first box, right by the right edge, you’ll see another dust bunny… a little squiggly do like thing. These little specks will appear in the same place on every single photo I take. Now how annoying is that?

The good news is that there are many ways to fix this problem. First off, if there are just one or two spots, the clone brush in Photoshop or the spot healer in Lightroom will make quick work of them. The only time they are really noticeable (if they are small and light like these) is when they are on solid color backgrounds where they are also easy to fix.

If you easily get weary of the manual dusting, SensorKleen is app that can do the cleaning for you. Basically, the software analyzes a batch of photos, and tries to find the common spots… then it can clone them out automatically. I tend to go the old-fashioned way, but if anyone out there has tried it and has feedback, I’d love to hear it. I’ve also heard that the software that Nikon ships with its cameras that has a dust removal feature.

Of course, once it gets bad enough, you really do need to clean your sensor. There all manners of brushes and swabs created for this task. Personally, I’m terrified to touch the sensor on my camera. I tried to clean my view finder up one time and mucked it up… so I stay far, far away from the inner workings. Instead, I take my camera in 3 or 4 times a year to get it professionally cleaned. In Seattle, I can highly recommend CameraTechs who will clean a dSLR sensor for between $35 and $45 dollars (depending on the size… 5Ds are more than 20Ds). If you live near one of the Canon service centers in New Jersey & California, I’ve heard rumors that you can take it in there and they will clean it for no charge.

Canon has started to introduce automatic sensor cleaning to its cameras, but early results have been not so good. Olympus’s model seems to have faired better, so perhaps there is hope in the future for this technology. Until then, CameraTechs has a pretty regular customer in me.

I think you all know how big of a fan of Capture One I am. I’ve been using it for a few years, and it makes tethered and remote capture super simple whether it’s batch applying settings or making it braindead simple to convert images from Raw to a whole set of other formats. I usually output TIFF, 2 versions of JPEGs and sometimes thumbnails. Click, click, click, it’s done and I almost never go into Photoshop for editing.

All that came to a screeching halt recently with the addition of a new iMac to my studio and the soon-to-be upgrade to Leopard. It turns out, Capture One Pro won’t work tethered with Canons (not sure about Nikons) on Leopard. I just want to note for the record, that Vista isn’t the only OS with problems on upgrading, even if they don’t have silly cool ads pointing fingers. Leopard is NOT all puppies and sunshine. But, anyway, that’s besides the point.

The real point is that between the lack of Leopard support along with the changes to Capture One 4, it seems I was going to need to be finding some new software. I had already been intent on trying a few new apps… something to manage my ever growing library of images. I’m starting to do some stock photography work with one (and maybe two) of the big rights managed agencies (Stockfood right now, and Jupiter Images’ FoodPix as soon as I can get my act together) and so having a great way to keep track of what I’ve submitted to who is going to be critical.

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Fun camera… but not what I actually do my work with…

Wow. It seems like I just posted my Guide to Food Photography gear… but it’s been almost a year, and I have realized a good chunk of my equipment has changed during that time. Since the number one question I get from readers is what gear do you use, I thought I’d give you a new peak into the studio & camera bags.
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Last time Adorama had a Food Photography workshop, I found out too late to let you all know. This time, I’m on it… although there isn’t much time to get signed up. The next talk, given by Lou Manna, author of Digital Food Photography, will be held November 18th. The cost of the class is $250, and it will be held in Lou Manna’s studio in New York. For more information, see the Adorama Workshop site.

Even more exciting, I think, is Sun, Surf and Style, a three-day live tabletop and food styling workshop in San Diego, California from February 8-10, 2008 by food stylist Lisa Golden Schroeder and photo stylist Susan Linnet Cox. This three-day interactive workshop features a “jump start” day focused on getting started in the business of food styling and propping, plus two great days filled with styling demos and test assignments with a professional shooter, New York food photographer Gregory Bertolini. The class will be held in a professional photography studio, fully equipped with a commercial kitchen. There are only 13 slots open for this class which is $900. More info and registration can be found here.

If you are looking for some instruction but can’t travel, you might check out Food Styling 101, a 4 week online class on Photo Styling Workshops. The next round starts on Nov 13th. Also check out Self-Promotion and Marketing for Food Stylists.

Also, if you haven’t stopped by Michael Ray’s food photography website recently, he has a new post on food photography and lenses.

By now, you are certainly familiar with the Moo minicards, and have probably heard about the newly released Moo stickers… little prints of goodness made from your personal selection of your Flickr photos. They are (relatively) inexpensive for such small print runs, fun sizes, and quite nice on print quality. But, have you seen the new Moo note cards yet? Somehow, these slipped past me when they were first released. I found them a few weeks ago, and ordered a test set.

They just arrived, and I have to say, they are my favorite Moo product yet. While quite a bit more expensive than the other goodies ($24.99 for 16), these cards are great little mailable pieces for those needing to stay in touch with friends or even potential clients. Like all Moo products, each card can be of a different image. The cool thing about the note cards though is that they have quite a novel size and shape. The image itself is a small square (100mm x 100mm), with a little flap that lets them easily sit up for display. It’s the kind of thing that people look at and go, “Hey, neat!”

There’s plenty of room on the back for a little handwritten note, or you can have up to six lines pre-printed. Just like the MiniCards, you can also put all your contact info and icon at the bottom, back of each card.

I certainly won’t be ordering these for any mass mailings, but for follow-up notes and thank yous, these fit the bill beautifully.

Are you a food stylist looking for clients? Add your information here!

Just create a new comment, and place in it:

Your Name
Your Location (city/state)
Your Contact Info
A link to your website, if you have one

You might also list any specialties that you have.

You might want to add the RSS feed to the comments on this post to your reader, so you can see when it has been updated.

Looking for a food stylist? You can post your request here:
Just create a new comment, and place in it:

Your Name
Your Location (city/state)
Your Contact Info
A link to your website, if you have one

You might also list any specialties that you are looking for as well as your timeframe.

You can track new comments with the RSS feed to this post, so you always know when new comments have been posted.

Are you a food photographer looking for clients? Add your information here!

Just create a new comment, and place in it:

Your Name
Your Location (city/state)
Your Contact Info
A link to your website, if you have one

You might also list any specialties that you have.

If you are looking for a food photographer, feel free to take a look at my portfolio, and contact me with your requirements if it looks like my style fits your needs!

You can track new comments with the RSS feed to this post, so you always know when new comments have been posted.

Are you looking for a food photographer? Add your information here!

Just create a new comment, and place in it:

Your Name
Your Location (city/state)
Your Contact Info
A link to your website, if you have one

You might also list any specialties you require, as well as your timeframe.

Also, feel free to take a look at my portfolio, and contact me with your requirements if it looks like my style fits your needs!

You can track new comments with the RSS feed to this post, so you always know when new comments have been posted.

Maki, over at I was just really very hungry posted her tips for taking better photos in restaurants and indoor markets, including the golden rule (never use your built in flash!) as well as some neat ideas to use those white napkins for something other than wiping off your face. Even if you do everything right taking those photos, low light conditions usually mean extra work in Photoshop. You’ll likely end up with several typical problems:

• Photos that are just too dark
• Photos with a yellow/green cast
• Graininess, color loss or noise due to high ISO speeds (400+)
• Blurred photos due to your hands shaking while trying to hold a long exposure

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