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  • Have You Lost Your Inspiration For Photography? A Toolkit to Find Your Inspiration Back. — Mikko Lagerstedt

    Have You Lost Your Inspiration For Photography? A Toolkit to Find Your Inspiration Back. — Mikko Lagerstedt



    It’s natural for us, as photographers and creatives, to lose our inspiration. While taking a break can initially be a great way to get your inspiration back, it can also harm your inspiration. Procrastination will sometimes sneak in when you are too comfortable.

    It can be easy to fall into a creative rut and feel like you need more ideas. I certainly have been there. However, finding new sources of inspiration is an essential part of any creative process, and there are many ways you can do this. In this article, I share a toolkit of ten tips for finding sources of inspiration.

    If you haven’t read my earlier posts about inspiration, here you can find them below.

    Get Out of Creative Rut
    How To Find Inspiration For Your Photography?
    Stay Inspired – Create a Catalog of Inspiration

    1. Be ready for inspiration

    Take your camera with you wherever you go, and be open to capturing unexpected moments and subjects. Visit new locations and try shooting at different times of day to see how the light and atmosphere changes. Explore new neighborhoods, towns, or even countries – sometimes, the most unexpected locations can yield the most inspiring photographs.

    2. Try new techniques or subjects

    Consider trying new editing techniques or using different lenses or cameras to change the look and feel of your images. Try shooting in black and white, trying long exposures, or experimenting with different compositions. The more you experiment, the more you’ll learn about what works for you and what doesn’t, and the more you’ll be able to develop your own style.

    3. Get out of your comfort zone

    Stepping outside your usual routine and trying something new can be a great source of inspiration, such as taking up a new hobby or visiting a new location. Taking a break from your routine can help you see things in a new light and spark new ideas.

    4. Find new subjects

    Keep your eyes open for inspiring subjects and moments in your everyday life. By staying attuned to your surroundings, you’ll be more likely to spot unexpected moments and topics that can inspire your photography. It could be a beautiful sunset, a stunning landscape, or an interesting street scene.

    5. Journal

    Consider keeping a journal of your photography ideas and inspiration; this can be a great way to keep track of your ideas and revisit them later. Having a place to capture your thoughts can help you stay organized and keep your creativity flowing. You could include sketches, notes, or even photographs that inspire you.

    6. Seek inspiration elsewhere

    Photography is just one art form, and many other art forms can inspire. Consider looking at paintings, sculptures, or even music for inspiration. Pay attention to the colors, compositions, and themes in these art forms, and think about how you could apply these ideas to your photography. For example, you might look at a painting with a strong color palette and try to recreate that same palette in your photographs. Or, you might be inspired by a sculpture’s texture and try incorporating texture into your compositions.

    7. Open your Mind

    Keep your eyes open for inspiration in the world around you. It could be the changing seasons, a city’s architecture, or the natural landscape’s beauty. Look for patterns, textures, and colors that catch your eye, and think about how you could capture these elements in your photographs.

    8. Plan a trip

    Planning a trip specifically for photography can be a great way to step outside your surroundings and find new sources of inspiration. Consider researching locations known for their photographic potentials, such as national parks, historic cities, or natural wonders. Look for places that offer a variety of landscapes and lighting conditions, as this will allow you to experiment with different techniques and subjects. Wander from the beaten path and explore off-the-beaten-track locations – sometimes, the most unexpected places can yield the most inspiring photographs.

    9. Collaborate with others

    Collaborating with other photographers on a project or photo shoot can be a great way to learn from others and find new sources of inspiration. Working with others can help you see things in a new light and inspire you to try new approaches to your photography. Consider reaching out to photographers whose work you admire and see if they would be interested in collaborating on a project. Alternatively, you could join a local photography group or participate in online forums or communities where you can connect with other photographers and discuss ideas and techniques.

    10. Seek new experiences

    One of the best ways to find new sources of inspiration is to seek new experiences. It could be trying new hobbies, traveling to new locations, or simply trying something new in your everyday life. By stepping outside your comfort zone and trying new things, you’ll be more likely to find new subjects and experiences that inspire your photography. For example, if you’re a landscape photographer, consider trying a new type of photography, such as portrait or still-life photography. It can help you see things in a new light and find new ways to approach your landscape photography.

    An additional source for inspiration: Create a theme or a goal.
    Consider setting yourself a personal photography project with a specific theme or goal. This could be a project where you photograph a particular location over the course of a year or a project where you focus on a specific type of landscape or subject. Having a specific project to work on can help you stay motivated and focused and can also provide new sources of inspiration.





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  • 8 Ideas to Spark Your Creativity With Photography Projects — Mikko Lagerstedt

    8 Ideas to Spark Your Creativity With Photography Projects — Mikko Lagerstedt



    As a photographer, I have discovered that starting a project can help me channel my creativity and bring new dimensions to my work. A project can be a way to explore new techniques, themes, and perspectives, leading to personal and artistic growth. Currently, I am working on a new photography series that will challenge me to think more deeply about my craft and explore new horizons. While I cannot reveal my project, I encourage you to consider the benefits of taking on your own photography project.

    A project can provide purpose and direction to your photography work. It can help you explore a specific subject or theme, experiment with different techniques, and improve your photography skills.

    To inspire you, I have compiled a list of project ideas that can help you enhance your photography skills in various ways. These ideas cover different aspects of photography, such as exploring different genres and experimenting with lighting, composition, and post-processing techniques.

    Selecting the right photography project can give new life and meaning to your work. It can allow you to explore new themes, experiment with new techniques, and help you take your photography to new heights. To help you get started, I have curated eight project ideas that can benefit photographers, whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting.

    Project Ideas

    1. One Landscape, One Day

    Capture a single landscape over 24 hours. This exercise in patience and timing, observing how light transforms the scene, is fundamental for mastering exposure and understanding the nuances of natural light.

    2. Seasonal Series

    Document the same location across different seasons. This long-term project highlights nature’s transformative power and tests your commitment. It’s perfect for studying changes in color, light, and weather. Below is my try at capturing this location in different seasons.

    Here is an ongoing series of this beautiful tree I’ve captured with different seasons, from Autumn to the start of Winter to Mid-Winter. The only season missing is Summer. However, I’ve shot it multiple times and never really gotten anything special in summer.





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  • Have Your Image Featured by National Geographic Instagram

    Have Your Image Featured by National Geographic Instagram



    Don’t throw away your shot—literally!

    In honor of Earth Day, National Geographic is offering the chance to feature your best nature-themed image on their “Your Shot” Instagram page. The event is being pitched as less of a formal competition and just a great way to honor the best wildlife photography on the planet, for the planet.

    The process is easy: Just post an image using the hashtag #NatGeoYourShotOurHOME between now and April 22nd. Prolific filmmaker Bertie Gregory and a handful of Nat Geo editorial staff will select their favorite shots and share on the Your Shot Instagram page on April 30th.

    You can find more details on this FAQ page. And of course, stay tuned for the winners of the 2025 World Ocean’s Photo Competition!

     





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  • Why are your SD card transfers slow?

    Why are your SD card transfers slow?


    This article provides all the information about SD cards and USB card readers that you could possibly need. The reasons why things could be messed up with your data transfers are listed below. Please read each section carefully in order to make sure you understand exactly what is going on.

    #1 Your SD card is actually slow

    SD cards have been around awhile and because of that there is a chance you dug up an old card somewhere that is older and slower than any of your other cards. In this case there’s not a lot you can do, and since the SD card standard is really old, if you’ve been doing media stuff for awhile there’s every change in the world you have a slower card.

    The original SD cards don’t have any extra naming on them, it’s just “SD”. SD cards have been introduced according to size class, below are the different size classes currently offered:

    Maximum Capacity 2GB 32GB 2TB 128TB
    Date Introduced 1999 2006 2009 2018

    Size classes are a broad category for different SD card technologies that show what the maximum possible size is supported by each technology. Since 2018 most new cameras should support the largest size class for SD cards which is SDUC. These labels should be printed somewhere on your SD card, so, if you see SDHC which was introduced in 2006, you may have an older and slower SD card.

    The most important rating related to speed is the Bus Interface type. Look on your card to see if it has a UHS Bus Logo on it as shown in the chart below. If there is no logo your card is probably an older and slower technology. If your card one of the bus logos in the chart below, then you should get the associated Bus Speed. However, that doesn’t mean that you’ll get those speeds for bursts or sustained writes, although you should something in that range for bursts because there is obviously no point in supporting a faster bus speed if the memory in the card doesn’t support the bus speed.

    Bus Interface Bus Logo Bus Speed SD SDHC SDXC SDUC
    Default Speed 12.5 MB/s yes yes yes yes
    High Speed 25 MB/s yes yes yes yes
    UHS-I 50-104 MB/s no yes yes yes
    UHS-II 156-312 MB/s no yes yes yes
    UHS-III 312-624 MB/s no yes yes yes
    SD EXPRESS 985-3983 MB/s no yes yes yes

    Bus speed does not guarantee sustained writes. It guarantees that the card can write in a burst at up to that speed. For sustained writes you’ll need to refer to the following chart which is called the VIDEO SPEED CLASS.

    With the Video Speed Class, it’s purely about sustained writes specifically for something like recording video. Sustained writes tend to be a lot lower because these writes are limited by the flash memory in the SD card as opposed to the card’s bus.

    #2 you’re using an old USB port or an old USB hub

    Assuming you have determined that you have a relatively fast SD card to work with we can now move on to the next possible issue, your USB port or hub. From 1996 to 2014 there were 4 speed classes of USB introduced and they all used the same familiar rectangular USB plug known as a USB A connector. USB 3.2 introduced in 2017 uses only the new USB C type port. However, just having USB C does NOT guarantee USB 3.2 speeds! USB C is backwards compatible all the way to USB 2.0 so a USB C device could support any of the USB specifications from 2.0 all the way to the upcoming USB4… To try to state that as clearly as possible, USB 3.2 and USB4 ONLY support USB C, but USB C supports ALL USB versions going back to USB 2.0. Now, depending on the age of your computer you will probably be stuck with a USB port that is pretty slow. Here is a chart to help you make sense of that:

    Version USB 1.0 USB 1.1 USB 2.0 USB 3.0 USB 3.1 USB 3.2 USB 4
    Date Introduced 1996 1998 2001 2011 2014 2017 2019
    Maximum Transfer Speed 1.5 MB/s 1.5 MB/s 60 MB/s 625 MB/s 1,250 MB/s 2,500 MB/s 20GB/s – 120GB/s

    With USB 2.0 things are further confused by the fact that there were different speeds of connections possible with 60MB/s being the maximum but slower connections being very common due to device limitations. The point being that your USB 2.0 device could be running at USB 1.0 speeds depending on whether the device, such as your card reader or USB hub, actually supports USB 2.0 High Speed.

    There are two types of USB 3.1. USB 3.1 gen 1, and USB 3.1 gen 2. USB 3.1 gen 1 runs at the speeds shown above in the chart, but USB 3.1 gen 2 is a USB 3.2 speed protocol for USB 3.1 connectors. For instance, if you buy a USB A to USB C cable that says it is USB 3.1 gen 2 it will give you the USB 3.2 speeds.

    Using the above chart you can see that any and all computers made before 2011 had USB 2.0 at best, so if your laptop or desktop is from 2011 or earlier this could be your reason for slow transfers.

    The annoying thing is that even on new computers there are often still USB 2.0 ports. That is because many devices like a mouse and keyboard don’t need anything better than a USB 2.0 port. So, even though you might have a newer laptop a common theme I have seen is that a laptop might have 3 USB ports on it but 2 of them will be USB 2.0 and only 1 of them will be the newest USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 or whatever. If you are confused which one is which you can check your laptop case for a text label, try looking at the side or bottom of the laptop near the USB port in question, or you can also check your computer’s online user manual. If all else fails, try calling customer service.

    Another common issue is that if you use an old USB 2.0 hub with a new USB 3.1 port you will only get the USB 2.0 speeds. So, if you are using a hub and getting slow speeds, try plugging your card reader directly into your computer and see if that improves things at all.

    Of course the opposite is also true. If you plug a brand spanking new USB 3.2 hub into a USB 2.0 port, again, you only get the USB 2.0 speeds.

    If you want the full speed of the USB port the card, the card reader, the cable, the USB hub, and the USB port on your computer all have to support the same maximum speeds.

    Speaking of cables, this is yet another tricky situation with USB devices. Many companies are out there are selling non-standard cables, so watch out. As I said earlier USB C is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and newer so just buying a USB C cable is no guarantee you will get the high speed transfers. You have to make sure that the USB cable you buy specifically supports the speeds you are trying to achieve.

    Usually, devices and cables that support these standards will sport the “SuperSpeed” logo as a sign that they’re officially rated to achieve those speeds.

    That just about covers the possibilities with USB devices and cables so on to the next possibility!

    #3 Your card reader is slow

    Card readers have to support all features of the USB connection and the SD card. You can’t just plug a UHS-III card into a card reader that only supports UHS-I. If you do that you will only get the UHS-I speeds at the most. The same is true for the USB support. If the reader only supports USB 3.0, you’ll be stuck with USB 3.0 speeds no matter what port you plug the card reader into.

    #4 Your computer HDD is slow

    That is because there are literally dozens of things you have to know about how computers work just to transfer data from a card to a computer HDD.

    Even if you have the fastest USB, the fastest USB cables, the fastest USB card reader, and the fastest CFExpress cards in the world, when all that data gets downloaded onto your computer it still has to be saved onto the HDD or SSD and if the storage device in your computer is slow guess what?? Your transfers will still be slow. The fact is that while a CFExpress card can manage about 1,700 MB/s read speeds and the USB 3.2 spec can support that, the fastest mechanical hard drives will generally write to disk at about 170 MB/s, or about 10 times slower than the fastest cards.

    In order to fix that problem, you have to get a faster SSD in your computer. Typically, that is going to be an NVME SSD. The good news is that as of the writing of this article 8TB SSD drives are currently available. So, using SSDs for media storage is finally possible.

    If you have an older laptop you may be limited to SATA 3, that interface is limited to 600 MB/s which is still fast enough for most transfers you might encounter. But, if you are trying to transfer terabytes of data from your cards 600 MB/s may not be fast enough. 600 MB/s works out to about 32 minutes to transfer 1TB if that helps you decide whether you need to buy a new NVME enabled laptop or desktop.

    IF you have a desktop computer with free PCIE slots you can purchase an NVME expansion card for your computer.

    #5 Transfers are still slow even though you know all of the above should be correct

    In the case that you have verified all of the above should be correct to enable high speed transfers to your computer, there are rare situations where your drivers are incorrect. Usually Windows will automatically install the correct drivers but sometimes things get messed up. You also could try reinstalling your operating system.

    Another unfortunate possibility is a hardware failure of some sort. A cable may be failing or a USB port may be failing on your computer. In those cases try another port, USB hub, or even another computer and see if you get different results. It may seem crazy, but I have had USB ports fail on my computer from overuse. They usually don’t stop working entirely. What I experienced is that the port would become intermittent during transfers, slowing down to just a few KB/s then speeding up for a few seconds before slowing down again.

    I have learned from experience that many of these USB related products have questionable performance characteristics either due to buggy chipsets or just being sold as something they are not. Don’t automatically take your cable and USB hub’s performance claims 100% at face value. Test them out on a system you know works properly. This is especially true if you went cheap and got one of those weird Amazon brands for a lot less money than seems normal (I speak from experience).

    If all else fails, call an expert and see if they can help you figure out where the issue may be.

    #6 SD cards aren’t fast enough for your needs

    The highest read speed for SD cards as of writing is 300MB/s. Future cards may be faster, or they may not. To get faster transfers to your PC you’ll need CFExpress Type B cards, or you can use an external recording device that uses CFExpress Type B or SSD (NVME) drives to save your video and photo data.

    Troubleshooting:

    Problem: Transfers start out fast then slow down.

    Answer 1: The computer HDD may be too slow to sustain a large file transfer.

    Answer 2: The USB port may be failing. One sign of a USB port failure is highly irregular transfer speeds or extremely slow transfer speeds that never get faster.

    Answer 3: The SD card, computer SSD, or USB port may be overheating due to excessive use or other problems.



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  • 10 settings to boost your Canon EOS R5 to the max!

    10 settings to boost your Canon EOS R5 to the max!


    Did you just get a new R5 or R5 mk II? Here are 5 helpful settings that can help you get more out of your R5 mk II.

    Tip #1: Make sure IBIS (In Body Image Stabilization) is turned on.

    Both version of the R5 have IBIS. Make sure IBIS is on so you can get more sharp pictures with less camera shake.

    Tip #2: Turn your EVF and rear display up to the max!

    Set your display to use 120 hz pro motion for the best result. When looking at your screens it will look smoother and better, especially when there’s things moving.

    On the same menu you’ll see a setting called “Suppress lower frame rate”. To maximize performance, turn this off as well.

    Please enjoy the use of your camera.

    Tip #3: “Lower” the image quality to get more on your cards.

    The EOS R5 mk II can record with a variety of different file formats and compression algorithms to help you fit more data onto your memory card. This can be especially useful for 4k video and higher resolutions.

    Tip #4: You can use EF lenses on your R5 mk II with an EF to RF adapter.

    Canon was very nice to design an adapter that will let you use an EF lens with your RF camera. Simply buy Canon’s adapter and attach it to the back of your EF lens, then you can attach the lens to your R5 mk II just like any other RF lens. By do this, you can save money and still have a Canon lens. (Very nice.)

    Tip #5: Use the joystick to control your focus point.

    The R5 mk II has a joystick on the back of it that you can use to move your focus point around. By using the joystick, you can easily select where you want your camera to focus on the frame.



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