A Quick Fix With Sugru
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Hopefully, your weekend went better than mine the other day, I accidentally broke my intervalometer's cable... Always fun. So in cases like this, it's where I break out the Sugru, a mouldable glue that hardens into a rubberized silicone. You might remember a few years back in an article, I used this on my tripod plate adapted for Black Rapid making a tighter fit and keeping everything snug. Since I'm cheap and an intervalometer costs about $20 I'll go with the $4 fix.Sugru is basically like Play-Dou for adults so using it is pretty simple. Once opening the package all I had to do was stick it to the cable, shape it, and let it sit for a day. Compared to electrical tape it makes a thorough seal that works great. As it's made from silicone it's waterproof, handles heat/cold, durable, and shockproof... so perfect for fixing a cable. It's great for DIY repairs as Sugru sticks permanently to lots of stuff like ceramics, glass, metal, wood, rubber, most plastics, and fabrics.
Some Tips For Using Sugru:
- There's a new family-friendly formula that's less messy and the original formula. Personally, I stick with original but it's up to you, I use gloves with the original as its a bit sticky.
- Store in the fridge to get it to keep longer, 3X! I throw it in the butter drawer honestly and get it to last about a year or more.
- Make sure everything is clean, including you. Sugru bonds better to clean surfaces and it tends to pick up dust so keeping clean is best. I use a paper plate for a clean area, sugru can stain when fresh and a plate is disposable.
- Pressing against it with a flat object helps get smooth edges. It's like Play-Dou, just using something smooth rolled against it adds a nice clean finish. If it's sticking apply some soapy water to your object to smooth it out without sticking.
Repairing cords is just the start though really. Add magnets to hold gear, repair a hole in your camera bag, make stands for product photos, make a clip, bond two pieces of gear together for a mount, make a grip, and more.
Just FYI, use the code PARTYHAT at Sugru's site for 40% from now until Sunday, October 8th, midnight PST. Otherwise, if you missed out check out Amazon to get a great deal and get your DIY on today. As a little goes far I suggest the 3 packs (black | white | mixed), just remember to store them somewhere cold to last longer.
Dust on the sensor typically doesn’t show up unless you are shooting at smaller apertures. Bigger bits might show up starting around f/8, but it is really above f/14 and up to f/22 where you see the dust. If you are shooting lots of landscapes, this can be an issue. If you are shooting lots of portraits, with apertures below f/5.6 you can stop reading and go back to enjoying life. It is unlikely you will see any dust impact your image.
The first step in cleaning is to determine how dirty your sensor is. A quick way to test is to take a picture of a clean white piece of paper at f/8, f/14 and f/22 - don’t worry about your shutter speed - the dust spots will be sharp even if you shoot at slow shutter speeds, but you do want to keep your ISO fairly low to avoid noise confusing the issue. You could also photograph the sky on a clear day.Now pop that image in Lightroom and in the develop module there is a nifty option to Visual Spots located under the Spot removal tool. 
Rollover the image below to see the before and after Visual Spots with my Sony a7RII sensor at f/22[himage]
[/himage]If your sensor looks like Sony a7RII sensor does after just a few weeks of use - you probably want to clean it.Many DSLRS and Mirrorless cameras have a sensor cleaning mode - some run every time you turn the camera on or off and some run when selected. This is the first option you should try. With many of the systems, it is recommended to either hold the camera normally or facedown with the lens off so that the dust falls out. The Sony A7RII I have violently vibrates the sensor for a second or two and did absolutely nothing to reduce the amount of dust on the sensor. Hopefully you will have better results. Test again after using the in camera method.
The next step is to use a rocket blower - NEVER use compressed air or air in a can dust off products. Again hold the camera in such a way that the dust will fall out and give a few puffs directed at different areas of the sensor. They do sell sensor loupes - little magnifiers with led lights that make it easier to judge your progress. I used a tiny LED bike light to help see the sensor but it is clear that a bit of magnification will help too as some of these dust specks are invisible to the naked eye.$17 
Lots of things use fire or create fire so try to think of things beyond your standard campfire such as:
While fire is versatile it's also complicated, remember that you’ve got multiple elements of a fire to use and that it's a also an element by itself. Try shooting embers coming off the fire, smoke being lit up by the fire, show heat through the air refracting light, or even shoot through the fire to get the wavy texture. As an element itself try pairing it up with an opposite such as fire and water or another similar element such as fire and steel.For fire and ice shots real ice works but Acrylic ice still looks the same to the camera. With fake ice it can take a bit more abuse and won’t melt screwing up an entire image. As acrylic ice gets quite expensive for professional grade, 
As they put out a lot of light you can draw with fire and sparklers. With Toby’s article below you can try this yourself. You can try drawing words with a sparkler, making lines in the sky of fire, to even complicated effects such as wings of fire from Von Wong.
Fire is not just one color so you have the opportunity to think out of the box. While the standard flame is nice you can get blue through a torch or alcohol for example. Using chemicals or photoshop you can extend that to many more colors. Not to mention the multiple colors and patterns of a firework you have to work with creatively.You can use household chemicals to make a rainbow of fire or go for just a ethereal green flame. As a bit of a warning some of these can be a bit toxic, others a bit smelly, do it outdoors so you have proper ventilation. Soaking wood in the chemical or adding a bit beforehand to the fuel provides the longest amount of flame but it does take a bit longer to get everything ready. For photos where you just need a small fire using methanol in a small dish provides the best color, commonly found in Heet antifreeze for cars.
Get your inner science geek on with a bit of fire!
With July 4th coming up it’s time again for some fireworks photos. Definitely one of the more colorful things you can shoot it makes for a nice shot and an easy one at that using the the DPR articles below.
Wall of Sparks via Steel WoolUnlike spinning steel wool you can get sparks oriented with your subject which makes for a nice background for a portrait. This one requires a bit of elevation to get the effect which gets a bit tricky as you're going to end up with someone on a ladder or up in a tree with an extension cord. It makes for a nice effect as unlike the spinning sparks this creates a shower background. You can even add to the show by integrating the background, for example having a couple hold an umbrella that's getting hit by a few sparks that are falling.Take chimney starter (or a pipe with a catch on the end) and add a layer of steel wool, use a 9v battery or lighter to get it started. Now use a hair dryer or even better a heat gun to blow air through the pipe and unlike spinning it this way you can get a wall of sparks oriented straight with your subject. By doing this behind your subject you can use gravity to feed the sparks down while walking left or right to make a complete wall.Wall of FireFor a bit more of a dramatic background that adds contrast to a photo you can try making a firewall. Essentially its the same process as lightpainting but done on a much larger scale. Like the wall of sparks above it does require a bit of help but makes for a great shot overall.
Fire and cooking just go together, and it’s an excuse to pull the grill out this weekend. For you foodies it's a nice way to stand out for fire photos and makes for a nice photo overall. As a bonus you get some nice food so its a win-win.
Leave It to the ProsLastly be safe, no unnecessary risks for a photo, if you think it might be dangerous it's best to avoid it. One of the local photographers in town here has a scar on his hand from trying to hold two steel balls while they were on fire. That said if you know someone trained to do it, or have an event in town, take a few shots just be safe doing it.
Once you’ve got a sparkler in the ground setup the tripod to your lens’s minimum focus distance, or in other words as close as possible for your lens. Getting it as close to the subject and still in focus is the goal but watch out that it's not dangerously close in the case of a true macro lens. In the case of a partial macro shot just keep in mind that you will have to do a bit of cropping later (See 
You need to nail the focus perfectly. Use a flashlight or whatever light source you have available to light up the sparkler. You need to be exact as being a macro shot your depth of field is going to be about the same as the width of the sparkler. Since the focus is so shallow we want to catch sparks traveling parallel with our focus plane, the window of focus in front of the camera, so that everything lines up in focus as much as possible.
Decide your composition. I don’t think you're going to want a pole(the sparkler) in the center of your photo so adjust as needed to get it to the far left or right so its not in the way. You want to get the middle of the sparkler in frame as the top is a bit of a waste before it gets going. I prefer out of frame personally as it maximizes the amount of frame you have to work with to get the shot even though you lose one side of the sparkler.
For manual settings it’s a pretty simple shot to setup. Being it’s a light source we can use ISO 100 which conveniently blacks out the background if it's not completely dark yet. F/13 aperture to get the depth of field wide as possible. Speed is the tricky part, too slow and you’ve got a massive overexposed explosion, too fast and its dim with tiny lines. For a more chaotic busier photo go 0.3” Sec, to catch fewer straighter lines go 1/25” Sec, and 1/10" Sec for a happy medium.
If you have image stabilization turn it off. It’s not doing anything while attached to a tripod and actually induces a slight blur. The system can’t detect any movement and on occasion will inadvertently cause a shake. With the macro shots in this case the tiniest shake is going to blur the photo and you just wasted a sparkler. This isn't a constant effect and will only happen to a few rare photos but its better for this to be a habit now then learn the lesson while your on a expensive vacation.
For shooting your going to want a burst of photos without touching the camera. A remote is going to be very handy in this case as it can be held down to continuously take photos. Alternatively a self timer set to take multiple shots is your best option sans remote. At this point its the same process as shooting lightning, we want to capture a bunch of shots so we can sort through them later.
So… Remove the offending material! Really, it’s made out of stainless steel, it’s going to hold either way. No guarantees but if you’re paranoid of the screw coming out or metal breaking you can use an 
Get a grinder, dremel, etc. with a bit that can grind stainless steel. Take the lip down to the hole in your quick release so it can inset for the least amount of wiggle. You can use 
