Articles written by Mel Martin

I do mostly outdoor photography and anyone who does this can get bitten by the night sky bug. All those beautiful stars and the dramatic Milky Way beckon, but for many beginners it seems an impossible task. They think of needing tracking mounts, ultra-long exposures, and complicated processing. The good news is, it's not all that hard to get started with a fairly modest investment.

I got through the Sunday eclipse and helped a couple of friends with their first time try at eclipse imaging. It got me thinking about what I've learned over the years that might save you some time when the next one comes along.

There was quite a bit of buzz about the Arsenal Smart Camera Assistant some months ago. It's a hardware device that can plug into many DSLR or mirrorless cameras (though there are some important exceptions which I'll detail later.) It's designed to automate a lot of shooting situations, and make AI based decisions about camera settings to get you the best possible images.

The long awaited version 3 of Luminar from Skylum arrived this month. It held the promise of new features, and digital assets management tools (DAM) that would rival Lightroom. That's important, because some percentage of photographers don't like the Adobe subscription model, and while powerful, Lightroom's Library management can be a pain. Of course others love it, and would never switch.

As a landscape photographer I'm always looking for unique locations. Living in Arizona, I seek out ghost towns, abandoned mines, and old airfields, military or civilian.

No matter what camera you have, it will be missing some feature available on another brand or model. I found that with my Canon DSLR, and when I moved to a Sony a7 III, I gave up some good features and gained a few.