Canon ELPH 180

On February 18, 2019 By Quack MediaLeave a comment

My experience with this camera and the pictures I can take with it

The Canon ELPH 180 is one of canons pocket sized cameras. Don’t count it out as a decent camera based on its price. There are many good things about this camera. With some well composed shots and a little editing you could mistake it for professional photography. Put this camera in the hands of anyone and you could be amazed on what you will get!

So, my story starts with making plans to travel to Worcester MA. I would be going to Monster Jam, a monster-truck show. The event started around 1PM and again at 7PM. Yes, I went to both showings! Anyways I wanted to bring my camera the Canon T7i. After reading the policies of the event, I had a problem. The DCU center does not allow cameras with detachable lenses to be admitted into the building at any event. Slightly irritated I turned and asked my girlfriend if it was time to buy another camera. I know I have an iPhone that can take photo and far better video but when I take video on my phone, I almost always get interrupted or run out of storage on my device. When I take photo, I like to be immersed in what I am doing.

I went to Target to see what I could get. I was split between the small Sony digital camera and the Canon ELPH 180. I went with the Canon, sorry all you Sony lovers. All I can say is that I am not disappointed. I took this little camera and spent an entire day shooting and taking video. The images that I got were not amazing originally but for the price of the camera what do you expect? After some editing and color correction I have some fairly good pictures.

The next couple days I took some random pictures around the house and in the back yard. I am not sure what to say… I am pretty happy with my purchase. For an entry level camera or a camera to buy to see if you even like photography, this is a solid start. The auto setting will get you decent photos and the zoom is okay. The camera, plus an SD card is going to put you back a little over $130. Compared to a SLR or DSLR that can be easily over $500 this is totally worth it. Also, another great feature that not a lot of people talk about is that this camera is so easy to tuck away in your pocket or purse to pull out and snap a couple picks. After your done power it off and the lens collapses for a sleek pocket-sized design. Smaller than my canon T7i and my iPhone 8 plus. The camera also has a threaded hole in the bottom to attach to a tripod plate or other rig for steady photography and varying mounting positions.

If you like the product you can pick one up on amazon by clicking any of the links in this post.

Thank you for reading and if you have any questions drop them in the comments below and I will be sure to answer them. Thank you and come back soon for more content coming soon!

How To Sell Your First Products On Any Affiliate Program!

On February 12, 2019February 12, 2019 By Quack Media1 Comment

Stats and Research are King

In this post I will share some of the ways that I have been able to make some extra cash with affiliate marketing. Most larger companies have an affiliates program now and it is very easy to sign up. Full disclosure I am a part of the amazon affiliates program and do gain commission based on viewers clicking and buying off of my links. Don’t worry though I only post what I actually use. I own two cameras and I only have one on the site. That is because I don’t think it makes sense for a person to post five different thousand-dollar cameras and try and fake review them. Its greedy and misleading. I want all my viewers to get my honest opinion on all my reviews. I’m here having fun and hoping to make a couple dollars while I do it.

CLICK HERE

The signup is straightforward and easy. You link your associates account to the website that you will be posting your links to and your off and ready. The sign up is that simple but just because you post links and people see them doesn’t mean that they will click and buy. You need an audience.

In this example you could create an Instagram account that you display or show products or review the products that you buy or already have. That is one way of doing that. Many other social media accounts will bring traffic and I recommend becoming fluent in them all. Link your website that you post all of you affiliate links to in the bio or directly in the post of your social media account.

If you like to blog make a WordPress site that shares experiences and shows your viewers that you are trying to provide more than just a portal to your affiliate source. Give some knowledge or show some of your research for free. Providing content is greater than making a sale. Helping others learn and learning form others is worth more than the commission in the long-run.

Now it is time to practice what you preach! As the consumer that last thing you want is to be lied to. Don’t post a link to a product that you have never personally used. Everything that you post should be products that you actually know about and actually recommend over other products. How would you feel if someone recommended a product that turned out to be junk? You would feel scammed. Please don’t do this solely for the money.

Personally, I like photography and so I post my link with my personal feeling about the product. I am by no means coaxing anybody to buy the products that I have I just seek to be the honest review and person to ask if the product is legit or not. All the products that I have on my site I use regularly and if you ask, I will be able to give you the answer that you are looking for. If people DM (direct message me on Instagram I will make custom content based on their question or if they want to see a more in-depth review or example of use of a product I have I will create that content.

Wrap that all up and give it some time and you will be making some money. It won’t be great but it can help pay for some groceries or a night on the town. Don’t try and make affiliate marketing your day job its way to inconsistent to do that early on. Don’t quit your day job, build this on the side.

Thank you all again for taking the time to read my posts! It would mean so much to me for you guys to comment and share your pages so i can check them out. also go check out other peoples pages as well.

-Tristan

What Is Aperture? How Do I Know When To Change It?

On February 11, 2019 By Quack Media2 Comments

Aperture means an opening, Hole or Gap. In the lens there is a hole or opening that the light comes through. When you adjust the aperture, you are adjusting the size of this opening.

Aperture number or F-Stop is how wide the Iris within the lens is. The lower the aperture number the wider the aperture and the more light that comes in. So, the reverse, the higher the aperture number the narrower the aperture and the less light that is coming in. If you look at variable aperture lenses you can see the hole that opens and closes. When you change the aperture on the lens you can see the hole get larger and smaller. My canon T7i with the Kit lens does this in the manual settings.

Aperture is the amount of light you are letting into the lens of the camera. I refer to my Eye a lot when explaining lenses and I feel it makes total sense. The lens on your camera is doing the same as your eye, helping you (the camera) see.

If you look closely at some animals you will notice that some animals have wide eyes like an owl, narrow skinny eyes like a snake, horizontally long like a mountain goat and eagles that can see eight times as far as a human being. All of these animals could represent a different lens but with aperture I think humans and Owls will do.

Owls would be like a low F-stop due to the size of the pupils being so large. Now owls can see very well at night. Majority if not all of their hunting is done at night or low light. If you have a lens with a lower f-stop you will be better suited for low light conditions. Humans don’t have a massive pupil. Humans are like your kit lens. They can see okay in most lighting conditions but will never be well suited when moving to either polar side of that spectrum. Plus, who doesn’t want to be able to see at night? Grabbing a lens that can provide some more capability and allow you to shoot in different lighting conditions will only grow your knowledge of photography and your experience.

Majority of the time when I want to do a quick shoot, I will actually set my camera to aperture priority. This setting gives you manual settings without having to worry about aperture. If I am out hiking with my girlfriend and she doesn’t want to slow down to let me change my settings, I need to be quicker. To be quicker I just let the camera pick the aperture. I know its not the professional way meaning full manual, but you can get some truly stunning photos.

I hope you liked this blog post and continue to follow my page as I learn and grow as a photographer. Soon I will write a post about on how to get inspired and start a mini-adventure. Please add to this post in the comments and feel free to share your experiences.

Thank you all,

-Tristan

What Is ISO And How Do I Know What To Set It To?

On February 3, 2019 By Quack MediaLeave a comment

ISO is an abbreviation for International Organization of Standardization. Well then why isn’t it IOS? Well nobody knows, I guess? Anyways ISO is a combination of three different systems to measure camera sensitivity. Sensitivity? Sensitivity to what you may ask. That would be light. There are three organizations that make up the standard for ISO. They are The American Standards Association (ASA), the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) and the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) and for some reason that last name stuck.

If you are like me and never understood what was happening in your camera but now you want to use the manual settings and unlock the door to great exposure and read the rest of this post.

A good place to start for ISO is to take photos on automatic mode and try shooting different lit and shaded compositions. Review the photos making sure you are able to track your cameras ISO for each picture. The different shots with automatic may not give you the best ISO but is s decent place to start if you don’t really know that much at all. I do recommend understanding what you are doing as you will get much better photos and be less frustrated over all.

After a short google search and asking a couple different questions you can sum up what ISO is and what the main points are.

If the ISO is set too high with enough light the picture will appear grainy
If the ISO is set too low without enough light the picture will be too dark
If you set the ISO too high with a lot of light you will get very white or (BURNT) image.

These are the three outcomes you want to avoid. There is no real way to figure out how to set ISO in all conditions. You need to take some images and tweak your ISO. If the image is too bright well that means that you could reduce the ISO and get a better exposure.

I think of ISO like my pupil. If there is a lot of light my pupil will reduce in size to let less light in so that I can see a clear image. If there is less light my pupil will become larger to let more light in, letting me see a clear image once again. But just like I can’t see in the dark, either can my camera so when conditions are too dark or need to be brighter artificial light can be used. If you pay close attention your eyes adapt differently to artificial lighting and so will your camera. Artificial light can mimic natural light but it is so much easier to just go outside or get near a window.

The best thing to do is just play around with your camera. If you use a more modern Canon Camera and come of the other brands there are built in settings to help you figure this out. On my Canon T7i I can have a Histogram that appears in my viewing screen that when there are spikes in the middle, I know my exposure is right and my ISO was set properly. Also, what I like to do is change ISO on the fly and take a couple shots purposely with too much or too little ISO to understand what I don’t want. The only way to know what you want is to know what you don’t want. As you get more experience using ISO it will come a lot more natural, I have found that picking the correct ISO has become a lot easier just by spending a couple hours researching and about 6 different photo shoots mostly just messing around.

As always, I am sharing what I do and what I find to be a good practice and proper technique. If you know of a better way of doing this than comment and share. Everybody is learning and everybody knows enough to have an opinion. Keep it constructive and keep it positive. Thank you for reading another one of my posts and come back soon for more content.

The Canon T7i

On January 26, 2019February 11, 2019 By Quack MediaLeave a comment

The Perfect Starter Camera

With a easy user interface and great beginner setting this is the greatest starter camera. For all the beginner photographers out there, get this camera! This is that Canon T7i that I have been using for a while now. I can honestly say that the second it came out of the box it was ready to go. The Kit lens is a 18mm-55mm lens that allows you to take some great photos and good video. In the beginner mode on the camera all the different shooting modes and settings are explained to you with drop down boxes. The viewing screen is touch screen so changing settings is super easy. The touch screen allows you to zoom and scroll through photos just like a smartphone.

The Camera is light compared to other DSLRs and for the price you get a lot of functionality. If you are starting a Youtube channel, Thinking of shooting as a business or just want to get into photography as a hobby this camera can do it all.

I have shot a few videos and if you look at my previous post called Camera and Photography you can see some photos that I have taken with the camera. All photos that I take are unedited and I don’t add filters after shooting

If you have any questions about this camera or want to get more info comment and I will be sure to get back to you. If you like gear and want to see more go check out my the other gear that I use. At the My gear tab in my site

-Tristan From Quack Media

Cameras And Photography

On January 22, 2019 By Quack Media7 Comments

Hi All! My name is Tristan and I am beginning my journey as a photographer, videographer, and creator. I come from a background of design and construction so I can see many DIY projects in the future. I hope that you are all as excited as I am. I am a relatively new photographer and love to learn about and play with my camera. Today I took some random items in my room and set them up with some natural lighting. Using the manual settings I was able to get some decent shots. I hope you guys love random photos as I will be posting them here often!

XBOX 1 Controller surprised at how crisp this image looked!

Love my XBOX 1 so much. I have not been able to play in the past couple months until today. Playing elder scrolls Skyrim again is so great. I remember why I was so addicted.

SLIDE Camera strap for Professional Photographers. Check this out in my gear!

This is a recent purchase. I absolutely love this thing. I put the anchors for this onto my camera and now I can attach and detach my strap so easily. The strap is well built and I feel so professional when I use it!

My apple watch series 1. Great tech I use this every day!

Picked this watch up second hand and it has helps me everyday. Reminding me about meetings, answering calls, changing music while I drive, and even tracking my health. If you have the extra money I would recommend picking one up. I don’t have lots of money so I got the series 1 and it works really well. (you will come to find out that I am a real nerd for Apple products)

I love this knife so much I carry it every day. It is a Hans Anso Design and has an amazing construction. The steel is great and the body is titanium with a liner lock. The action uses a ball bearing so the flick is very smooth and almost effortless. The knife is pretty heavy though other than that it preforms great!

Thank you for checking out my blog. If you like this content let me know. Like comment and follow my blog if you love cameras and gear. I will be posting every week at least once to start. Thanks!

-Tristan A

The Journey Begins Here at Quack Media

On January 16, 2019January 21, 2019 By Quack Media2 Comments

Thanks for Following me!

Welcome and thank you for following me on this journey! I am staring this adventure to become a photographer/videographer. So far I have gotten myself a camera, tripod and some other accessories to start. If you like my Instagram and enjoy my website then consider going over to my youtube channel. Stay tuned and if you like my pictures and content check out my gear page and possibly buy something.