Artistically Using the Spot or Partial Metering Mode

You can use the metering mode of your camera to achieve certain looks in your pictures. For example, in the above picture, I used partial metering mode. In this mode, the camera exposes your main subject correctly by measuring the light in a small central area of the frame (usually about 6–10% of the viewfinder). Because in this case the subject is brighter than the surrounding space, the background becomes overexposed, resulting in a black background. You can get even more dramatic results if you use spot metering. 

 

The key point for achieving a dramatic effect is to have a subject that is strongly illuminated or brighter than the surrounding areas.

Here is another example. 

 

My favorite pictures from last weekend

There are two pictures that I like from last weekend. The two of them are landscapes that I edited using Luminar Neo, a software that does a wonderful job, especially with landscapes. 

Luminar Neo is especially good at playing with the light in the whole landscape area, creating a 3-dimensional feeling. 

Trees in Florida are amazing!

This is a picture I took recently, and I love it so much.

 

 Every once in a while, you come across a tree that feels less like part of the landscape and more like a character within it, a silent elder with stories etched into its bark. This incredible tree, captured in the heart of Florida’s wilderness, is one of those rare giants. Its sprawling limbs twist and stretch with a confidence that only comes from surviving countless seasons of wind, rain, and sun. The curved trunk, thick roots, and moss-covered branches give it a sculptural presence, as if nature shaped it with deliberate artistry.

Florida is home to many of these remarkable trees, especially ancient live oaks. Unlike the straight, towering trees of colder climates, Florida’s oaks often grow wide and low, their branches bending with age and weight, creating dramatic shapes like the one in this photograph. The humid air, sandy soil, and subtropical climate create perfect conditions for them to thrive for centuries. Some live oaks in the state are believed to be over 500 years old, weathering storms and standing strong through Florida’s ever-changing landscape.

To truly capture the full beauty of this tree, this image was created using a technique where multiple photographs are stitched together. By taking several overlapping shots and blending them into a single frame, the final image preserves the tree’s immense size and intricate details in a way a single photo simply couldn’t. This method allows the viewer to experience the entire scene, its scale, texture, and atmosphere, with clarity and depth, almost as if standing there in person.

This tree feels like a gateway into another world, a reminder that beauty in nature often comes from resilience, adaptation, and time. It’s the kind of scene that makes you pause, breathe, and appreciate the quiet magic tucked away in Florida’s forests.

Capturing a tree is like capturing a soul. I sometimes imagine them as quiet humans, silent witnesses to the stories of our lives.

The Importance of the Right Shutter Speed

 Selecting the wrong shutter speed can result in blurry photos or motion blur. 

The other day I was at a local park looking for birds to photograph, and accidentally I changed the ISO setting from Auto to ISO 125. I didn’t notice the change at first because it was a sunny day, and this setting combined with Aperture Priority was giving me shutter speeds of around 1/60 to 1/125, so the pictures in the viewfinder looked well exposed to me. What I didn’t notice was that the pictures were not as sharp as they should have been.

When I’m shooting wildlife, I use Aperture Priority and Auto ISO, and I set the minimum shutter speed to 1/500. This shutter speed helps ensure that my 100–400mm lens captures sharp images most of the time. It doesn’t matter that both my lens and camera have image stabilization; I’m not using a tripod, and that introduces movement that can cause motion blur.

This mistake cost me a few pictures, which I deleted because they were not sharp enough. The moral of this real-life story is to check your settings at the start of your shoot—especially if you are getting paid for it.

 

The above picture could have been sharper if it were not for this error. You can notice the blur at the tips of the wings.

P.S. And people still think that a good camera and lens will always result in good pictures. But if you don’t know how to use those tools, they won’t result in good pictures at all. 

From last weekend

This last weekend I decided to visit a park that I do not go to often because for some reason I never have too much luck getting good bird pictures there. But the place is beautiful, as you can see from these pictures.

Click Fanatic, an addiction

At one point in my life, I fell in love with computers, to the point where I switched careers at the age of 33 and began working in the field that still pays my bills. Twenty years later, I fell in love again, this time becoming addicted to photography.

I may have called this blog Click Addict. Seriously, photography can be addictive. It's like you become addicted to the sound of the shutter. Then you have the post-editing part of photography, you’re dying to get home and start editing your pictures to make them as close to perfection as possible. When the whole process is finished, you feel a happiness that’s indescribable.

 I started this addiction as a hobby a little more than 10 years ago, a little before the time when our first grandson opened his eyes for the first time. While the hobby was meant to be about wildlife and nature, I have to blame him for introducing me to portrait photography. Then our second grandson came into our lives, and my addiction got stronger. 

Liam is a born model; he knows how to pose without being given instructions. This is key because if you ask him to pose, in fact, if you ask any of our grandsons, he’ll give you one of those “Schwarzenegger smiles” from the movie Terminator, ruining your picture. So I adopted a paparazzo-style approach, going around taking pictures without asking anyone to pose. 

By the time when our 3rd grandson came into this Earth, I was already sick beyond all possible salvation.  

I do not know if Leo learnt from Liam, but he is always ready for a candid picture. The above picture is an example, he noticed Liam posing, and he went right away to claim the protagonism. Of course, I could not miss the opportunity. 

When I gave up on any chance of sanity on my part, then came sports photography! Nature was not enough. My portrait pictures of our grandsons were not enough. I had to shoot 2,000 pictures in a single sports event to calm down my addiction!

 

So here I am, thinking about future events, new places in nature to shoot thousands more pictures, and looking for ways to pay for my addiction.

Having fun with AI

 Today you can do anything with AI, including having fun. A good example is these pictures putting my grandsons on the cover page of TIME magazine! 

Canon R6 Mark III - Jared Polin's review

Well, the Canon R6 Mark III has been released, and many have shared their reviews online. Personally, I believe it’s a great camera, without a doubt. It’s an improvement over both the Mark II and Mark I. If money is not a concern and you’re a fan of the R6 series, I highly recommend getting it. However, since I’m not in a position to spend a lot of money, I don’t feel compelled to trade my R6 Mark I for this camera. I agree with Jared’s suggestion that you should upgrade your camera when you feel it’s limiting your capabilities. But for me, the Canon R6 is still serving me well and doesn’t need an upgrade. 

My favorite pictures from last weekend

  One more time, I'm confronted with the task of picking what pictures I like from my weekend shooting. This weekend started with a lot of landscape pictures on Saturday, and that changed on Sunday when some water birds came from the north, maybe pushed by the cold front coming down to us next Tuesday. So let's start with a landscape picture.

From the birds pictures I particularly love these two.

Of course, a good weekend can't end without a squirrel portrait!

I'm done editing the last karate event

This was a long event, almost eight hours, the longest I have ever attended. I ended up with more than 2,600 pictures, from which I picked and edited 1,309. When you shoot long bursts to capture the action, you tend to overshoot, and that explains why I saved only about half of the initial count.

Picking a few pictures for this article is an incredibly hard task. I love all of them. Some of the candid shots I took there were amazing, and of course, the event photos are just as good as the candid ones. All the pictures are available on Flickr, split into three albums: Album 1, Album 2, and Album 3.

This was an international event organized by USA Sport Karate. The competition was tough, but our grandsons managed very well, taking home a few medals.

Kaufmann's Karate Team also performed at the highest level.

Unfortunately, I could not take pictures of all of them with their medals, but I capture key moments of their performance. 

I can’t fit 1300 pictures into this short article. Please visit the links I’ve posted above and enjoy all the pictures. If you decide to share them on social media, don’t forget to credit me. That’s my payment.

Canon R6 Mark III for pre-order

 Canon just announced the Canon R6 Mark III, and it's taking preorders here. The asked price for just the body is $2799, taxes are not included. To me, the biggest change is that it now includes a 32.5MP full-frame sensor instead of the 24 MP from the two previous versions. Another big change, Canon replaced one of the SD Cards for a CF Express card to increase the saving speed, something that will help also with the support of 4K 60p and 7K RAW recording at 60p.  

 

 Overview: The EOS R6 Mark III camera is built to meet your demands and deliver stunning results.  Capture 32.5MP stills with impressive detail at up to 40 fps and enjoy the comfort of pre-continuous shooting to aid you during those unpredictable moments.  With Canon Log 2 color, 4K 120p slow motion, high-quality oversampled 4K 60p, 7K RAW recording at 60p, and 7K 30p Open Gate recording for post-production versatility, this is a hybrid camera you’ve been waiting for. 

Canon 5D Mark III, so good

I am taking a break from editing pictures from the recent karate competition to write this note. This Halloween, I decided to take my Canon 5D Mark III for a ride, a camera that was released in March 2012, 13 years ago. This camera does not have eye detection, face detection, or subject detection. It does not have as many focus points as the most modern cameras. Still, every time I use it, I cannot stop thinking about how good it is. The colors coming out of this camera are amazing, and the pictures are incredibly sharp.

No wonder Canon is still selling this camera for around $1,368 new — almost the same amount you would pay for some of the Canon mirrorless models released in the last few years. If you are lucky, you may find a used one in good condition for less than $800.