Learning from other photographers camera settings.

I am always interested in learning what settings were used for images that I see on websites and I have found a way a long time ago that helps me do just that. Have you ever looked at an image and wondered what camera, focal length, F stop or shutter speed and other settings were used to take that picture? I use Firefox as my browser and there is a free add on that will let you right click on any image and select to view EXIF data. Some software will drop this off and some people that post on the internet will remove it but in most cases you will be able to get the data and learn a lot about how the picture was taken. A year and a half ago our family went to Walt Disney World on vacation and I was doing research on photos that had been taken there to find out what lens would be most useful to have with me. After checking the data on many pictures I found out that probably 95% of all the pictures that I checked that were taken down there were between 18mm . and up to 40mm. This let me know that my Sigma 17-50 F2.8 would be the lens of choice that I had in my bag. Of course not everyone will have the same shooting needs but I can tell you that out of all the pictures that I took while we were down there just about all of my pictures were taken with this lens. The point being is that I was able to view that EXIF data of hundreds of pictures and get a good Idea of the equipment that would be needed for the trip. I had taken all of my lenses with me just in case I needed them but found that this lens pretty much did the job. You can learn a lot just by going back and reviewing settings from your own pictures and seeing what worked well for certain situations and what didn't really do the job that well.

My tip this time is to review your own data on your pictures and also others whenever you get the chance and I believe that you can get some very valuable information. If you use Firefox just Google EXIF viewers and you can download them for free and get started learning. Jeff

If you are interested in seeing my Disney pictures taken wth the Sigma 17-50 F2.8 lens they can be seen HERE