If you have a seizemometer ( sp?) the whole world is constantly shaking, sometimes feelable to humans. The object of any stability help is to minimize that to insignificance. A tripod on the edge of a volcano may just transfer motion and ruin a handheld photo, etc. Same for a shuddering ship of any size. Buildings sway, wind, passing vehicles, etc. make the best of equipment unable to cope completely. Tripods and firm purchases on ledges, etc. all can help. We pay for the most acceptable results and technique has a firm (unfirm?) place. Eliminating body tremors, all other factors makes possible what we call sharp results.We all hope for equipment that collectively create a WOW, is that sharp reaction. In general, they work,or we deduce why not.

BEST NOT TO USE TAPWATER WITH MICROFIBER OR LENS TISSUE, USE TRIPLE DISTILLED WATER WITH ABSOLUTELY MINIMAL DETERGENT IF YOU WISH, THEN WITH SUPER CLEANED MICROFIBER AND NEARLY NO MINERAL DEPOSITS WILL OCCUR. TAPWATERS' MINERAL CONTENT VARIES, CAN LEAVE MICROSCOPIC GRANULAR SLEAR DRYING ON SURFACE. BLOWING OFF GENTLY UPSIDEDOWN, USUALLY REMOVES GRIT NOT ADHERING TO SKIN OIL OR ANY SALIVA, YUP, SALIVA AND FOOD SUBSTANCES THAT LOVE TO SPATTER ON LENSES.INDUSTRIAL VAPORS, SEA SPRAY, ETC. TAKE LITTLE TIME TO KILL RESOLUTION, SO HAVE AN OBSERVANT SET OF EYES. GENTLY IS THE WORD....

Some eight year old kids have seen a different world than most American children, and responsibility and life where it was hard ages them early. Likely not in your case, so consider the ruggedness and rapidity of the results major factors in your choices. A sit down class or more may open them up, and kids learn quickly. Opening a new world of fixed images can change lives, both in the giver, and the receivers. Wisdom mixed with luck will give joy to all, we hope. Choice to be determined by the brightness and nature of the kids, as much as your best guess.

You will need lots of light, and ways to get it to a very close subject. Beware cooking your little beauty. A high priced Aplanat lens is priced up there to provide flat field images usually from a slide. Three dimensional subjects likely don't require that, but might benefit from apochromatic lenses for color fidelity and lack of fringe colors.The medium priced non-apo will probably be all you ever need. Start off with the lowest magnification you can find, which will be a brighter and easier lens to work with, blacken the interior of any mounting tube, and go to it. Remember at high magnification, movement, focus etc. is critical.If you give me your address, I will send you a new no-name, probably Chinese 10X/025 with plastic case for just the priority mail cost. Would recommend a 4X lens I don't have as an easier start, however. Good luck, it is a finicky assignment.

Close one eye and move extremely close to a person with even features, and when say within an inch, really look at what you see...then slowly back off and watch the nearest part of the person morph into the more appreciated shape. your eye could be called a wide angle lens, the exaggeration of the nearest feature could be called distortion. It is not. it is just the relative distance between features most often seen at, say, across the kitchen table or at ordinary room space distances. Note that a nose, seen at one inch shows no ears, which have receded out of sight around the head. If they were still visible, they would be much reduced and now very small. Normally rectilinear lenses introduce little distortion of their own. Fisheye lenses, in an attempt to see more, are a great compromise in distortion, with off axes curvature, a true distortion.

Some labs and industries have vacuum negative air pressure facilities, with a chamber large enough for your camera. removing batteries, memory cards, then drop air pressure as close to zero as the vacuum can do should evaporate away nearly all water, leaving a residue perhaps of minerals that hopefully will not effect electronics, but may cloud lenses and other needed surfaces to produce unmarred image. Don't give up, re- soak the camera in triple distilled water, then repeat vacuum perhaps several times to thin out any mineral content. What remains is unknown, but certainly immensely less than most other methods. Mini-vibration may be tolerated by the camera, if you can introduce them as a last resort while flooded with distilled water. The micro-shaking may free up more detritus. Camera may have to be re-lubed by expert, if something sticks that shouldn't. If all that fails, it's a parts camera.

Wonder if air show is at what was Bader field. Took flying lessons near the high school I attended 19 49-51. Pilot named Knocky Nordheim trained me in Pipers, and such. Never piloted after that, regrettably. Best couple of years in my life up tp that time. Home there at nearby 103 N. Harrisburg ave likely not standing.

Essentially all cut stones are faceted mirrors. if you can position lights to reflect in these mirrors, more or less brilliance will zing back t your lens. It requires observation for each light position, including the results from broadening or softening the sources. color imbalance mixing is usually a no-no. The ability to rotate, or otherwise move the subject without giving away the support source is a good ability. Rare earth magnets and ingenuity can help. A careful look at posh magazines selling the highest end jewels tells you what is wanted, but you have to figure out how to do the same. It may take a very long time to juggle the factors to be brilliant, but maybe you are that. Then they are too.

Learned quickly that the blacker the sky the better the result. Explosions quickly fill the sky with particulates, and gases that all glow with reflected light from any lights below a la the city, etc.or subsequent explosions and cut the time you can leave the shutter open for multiple blasts. First time I tried it was a hero for the dark night results. The next year there was moisture in the air and the best i could do was dismal. Murky was too good a description. So it is part luck of the evening, matching f-stop with light intensity, and not leaving the shutter open too long, which accumulates too much light to produce high contrast.

If tripod is short enough to put in a freezer overnight, it is very likely to slip apart easily. Everything with close tolerances shrinks when cold enough. Should not hurt corrodeable metal if warmed up quickly after removal.

Formal programmed weddings usually include both enough relatives and friends to keep you shufflling groups into herds, hopefully all enjoying themselves. The informal photos can be a joy to look at many years in the future, with expressions and the awkwardness we all have. Get a list of specially wanted or not wanted photos. Ask when it's not appropriate to take shots with flash or hot lights in use. Inevitably some salient moment will be missed, unless you are a machine gunner. So shoot thoughtfully, but don't spare the memory chip from a workout. It's easier to delete, and impossible to re-create. Hopefully, it's all about love, so make that show.

Geezer nearing 84 from mostly film era. Used Nikon 28,35 shift lenses for real estate photos and sprang for a nikon 13mm when they were fresh. Made money because at that time I could produce wider scenes and by either leveling the camera or not, cover a radically wide scene. Correction was often done just by cropping. Lens was slightly soft at corners, but there were few complaints. Retired 1999, so all equipment sold off. Modern tilt shift lenses make what required view cameras now much easier, but generally need full frame 35 to get the most from them. Does make miniature sets a snap both for perspective and DOField. Say, miniature trains sets, doll houses, similar scenes that need rectification and have a plane suitable for stop downs. Yeah, you suffer some diffraction qualities at smallerr apertures, but depending on enlargement, you may not see it.

Deepest answer. Wisdom can be found here.

Some of us praise what others consider poor. There are wide opinions as to the how, why and what, etc to take or make a great picture. When many agree on a wow opinion, that is the publics means of letting the photographer know what their reaction is. We may take comfort in back pats, financial reward, publication, etc. Or know we can try to better our efforts by learning from others, and our mistakes. Pleasing yourself first may be as far as a picture gets, or it becomes world messaging. We can all visualize some of those and wonder at their power. We are visual animals, with a memory that is faulty. So photography locks in a vision for a more permanent recollection of what we saw, or with manipulation what we hoped to see.

Once had a Nikon 13mm rectilinear lens, and know all superwide lenses cause what iwe call distortion at the peripherary, which for this lens was most of the image. Even so, it took in more that the then available lenses, and needed to be oriented to vertical walls, etc. it made intereiors seem cavernous, and judicious cropping usually was needed. Exteriors however, both needed verticals and horizontals observed and corrected, usually having a scored screen to line up what needed it. Because it was one of the first of its focal length to be imported, I got the jump on many competitors and made a good living with that lens alone. Then it cost me 0ver $ 9000. Its flaw was it needed shielding from lights, sun coming from outside its field of view, due to its bulbous and vulnerable outside element. Often used leaves, branches, even my hand to prevent ghost flare showing up on opposite side of image. It was slow at F 5.6, but worked well for an ultrawide, sometimes producing ludicrous images. Lens sold when I retired 1999.