Congratulations to Michael Andrews of Michael Andrews Photography in Los Angeles for the winning tip in our contest! He won the latest Kubota product, the Raw Workflow for Lightroom Tutorial DVD. I myself have a copy and it is such a great help for using Lightroom.

Pick up your copy by clicking here!

We loved reading everyone’s emails with all of your helpful tips and hilarious nightmares (one photographer wrote in that it wasn’t funny at the time, but tragedy + time = comedy, right?). Thank you so much for participating in our contest! I’ll be posting some of my favorite emails in the Daily Special, but for now, here is what Michael had to say:

“What do you do when you are faced with a situation where you can’t use your flash?
OK, you’ve cranked up your ISO, and maybe you have a fast prime lens or an image stabilized lens–cool! And with Kevin’s tools, you already know that you can reduce your ISO noise considerably.
Alright, well that’s easy enough, right?
*But*, alas, your shutter speed is too slow. Crud.
So you still can’t get the beautiful shot you want of a lovely bride and groom sharing a private moment by candlelight.
Or can you???
It’s time for SHIS: Semi-Human Image Stabilization. It’s also called using that cool motor drive to save your tucas
I learned this trick when I shot on film, but with Compact Flash cards you will not need to worry about how many frames you have left on a roll of 36. Isn’t digital great?
A fair amount of motion blur is caused when one presses and releases the shutter button. Set your camera to fire as many frames per second as possible on whatever camera you are using, and shoot a series of images. The first and last frames will probably suck. However–this is the cool part–somewhere in the *middle* will be a “sweet spot” with a frame that is nicely exposed and sharp. Yea!
How low can ya’ go? Well, that depends. With a wide through medium focal length, I have been able to nail shots as low as 1/8 of a second hand held. Say what?!? Yes, you read that correctly: one eighth of a second, not 1/80th.
Don’t believe me? I understand your skepticism. Try it for yourself! What have you got to lose?
Is it perfect and will it always work the way you want? No, but it can be the difference between getting the shot or missing the moment. “

Exposure data: 1/10 @ f2, ISO 3200, Canon 30D, 50 mm f1.4.