Articles from Mike Smith

When was the last time you took a photo with your DSLR? The time before that? And before that? Maybe a photo challenge will help you to consistently pick up a camera.

Can the smartphone camera leverage the capabilities of the rapidly developing, open source and hugely capable Android operating system to displace traditional firmware? Will this finally integrate camera and computational platform? One manufacturer thinks it might have the answer.

I've bemoaned the state of current Android camera apps and so, in the first of this two-parter, I interviewed Martin Johnson, the programmer behind the well respected Snap Camera HDR. As a follow-on, this article interviews Mark Harman, developer of Open Camera.

DxOMark awarded the Google Pixel 2 the top smartphone stills camera award with a score of 99. Now that's a DSLR beating score. Or is it?

In an earlier article I bemoaned the state of Android camera apps and in particular, how they lacked the features that even moderately specced cameras have. Find out what one developer has to say about the prospect of Android camera apps.

The Cottingley Fairies are famous (or infamous) in the history of photography as one of the earlier cases of photo fakery. Perhaps then, it's not surprising that there has been considerable interest in the auction of original prints and a high sale value.

It all started when I lost my camera. I needed a smartphone with a decent camera for just such occasions. So why on earth aren't there any good camera apps on Android?

Hyperfocal distances are an arcane, over-technical art for some photographers and just another tool to whip out at the necessary moment for others. So, how do you put those hyperfocal blues to bed?

Two trips in two weeks, and on the first day of each trip, I'd lost a camera. How did it all come about and where did it end?

Time-lapse videos have grown in popularity as a direct result of their unusual perspective on the world and the success of digital stills cameras. Here's my low cost route to creating them.

The Earth is an amazing place and Earth Science Picture of the Day provides a daily dose of it. So, get your fix and just let yourself go for a moment.

It was day one of the family holiday to Austria. A low-key photo week, with the camera on-hand to take some shots and grab anything interesting. We landed, checked in to the apartment, and then prepared to head off for the afternoon. Where had I put my camera?

Graphics are international, with photographic ideas and images spreading like wildfire. They speak a universal language, are pan-cultural, yet have their own local meanings and understandings. This sounds like the world of Instagram, 500px, YouTube, and Flickr, but it’s actually 1858, and the Abdullah Frères are setting up their photographic studio in Constantinople.

Where do the foundations of photography lie? If the physical principles of the camera had been understood for millennia and chemists had known for some time that silver reacted to light, what then led to a convergence of understanding in the 1830s?

You've now got a kite, a rig, and a camera and have completed your first test flight as a kite aerial photographer. This kite flying malarkey is harder than it looks, so here are the top ten tips for acquiring great photos.

Has photography in the widest cultural sense morphed in to something that isn't photography? Renowned director and photographer Wim Wenders takes aim at the smartphone.

Drones are near ubiquitous for the capture of aerial imagery, but with their increased prevalence, their use and operation has become contentious. If you are seeking an alternative, then kite aerial photography (KAP) might be for you.

In any random sample of photographers, you can bet that Adobe's Lightroom and Photoshop will be up there vying for honors as image viewers. But what alternatives do you have? Here's my vote.

Light trails are a perennial favorite for long exposure shooters, and a right of passage for any budding photographer. So why restrict yourself to cars in a street scene when the sky's your limit?

What does it take to create a body of work that provides a lasting legacy? As Thomas J. O'Halloran shows, it's about always being in the right place at the right time.

You've taken a series of photos and generated a 3D model. That's great, but how do you make that available for other users on the web?

Efficient project management (in fact, life management), is about getting things done or GTD. So, how on earth does the indent help you?

Client galleries have become the de facto way of distributing photos post-shoot, whether you are a seasoned pro delivering to a corporate client or helping out at a friend's wedding. Can you do this on a shoestring and is there an efficient workflow?

Silhouettes have been a source of artistic inspiration for as long as there has been art. But why is that? And have you recently exploited this genre in your photography?

Want to easily create a 3D model from a set of photos? Find out how to do it in this tutorial.

Cameras are expensive. Anyone with a pro body and a few decent lenses won't have much change from $10,000. So how do we go about protecting them?

Imagine a world that, wherever you traveled, you were the first to capture an image. That was the ten year experience of John Thomson, but it was 1862 and he used the wet collodion process with photographic requirements that are about as far removed from today as imaginable. So what were his achievements?

Sometimes, just sometimes, you have the head-slapping moment where you utter the immortal words "Why didn't I think of that?" When it comes to camera systems you might modify that to "Why didn't my camera manufacturer think of that?"

You've used your inkjet to print edge-to-edge A4s and A3s, then wanted to upsize, so you went to an online printer for a canvas or a poster. They get pretty big at 45" by 30". Wanting to go bigger? Try a wall covering!

Imagine pursuing your dream but lacking the funds to do so, then coming across a technology so amazing that you see the opportunity to establish a new business as a market leader, creating a chain of branches. John Plumbe, the Daguerreotype portraitist, did just this in 1840 which led to some of the most enduring photos of Washington D.C.

An image is eye catching when it's extraordinary. So why is it that the ordinary and banal can appear extraordinary? And if that really is the case, how can we go about achieving that?

Three-dimensional models are now widely used in the gaming and movie industries and one of the most common methods for creating them uses computational photography. This, the first of two articles, explains how it works.

The toilet has a humble and immodest history in photography. So, to follow in the footsteps of the greats, I set out to review it's past and recreate my own in the style of Alfred Steiglitz.

This photo is striking. Skimming through the archives at the Library of Congress, I was immediately drawn to this image. But why?

Professional photographer Stacey Oliver had the moment of her career at a routine wedding shoot when this happened....