For example, the iPhone camera is excellent for macro shots. It also works amazingly well for shooting well-lit scenes, like the shot in an indoor butterfly garden above. However, the low light performance is quite poor. In other words, the images taken in low light have a lot of noise.
In some cases, noise is quite acceptable. This is true for sports images, for example, although a phone camera would a very poor choice for sports, because of the short focal length of the lens.
I took a couple of photos with my iPhone during an early morning hike up Mt. Doug, when it was still dark. It was very foggy and dark, so I new the images would be very noisy. Instead of fighting the noise, I tried to use it to create an artistic effect. After returning home, I brought the photos from my iCloud into Lightroom. The photo of the gnarly tree above had almost no colour in it to begin with, so I slightly increased the contrast and converted it to black-and-white using Nick’s Silver FX plug-in. I used the “Fine Art process” preset, which increases local contrast and brings out small details. I wanted to preserve the noise pattern, because I thought it looked like the surface of a watercolour paper.
with a 
lens in it too. I 
that day, so I used it to shoot the portraits of my daughter and wife in our kitchen using natural light from a skylight located directly above them. I shot wide open, at f/1.2, which gives such a shallow depth of field, that the typical kitchen clutter in the background is not very distracting. The wide aperture also lets in a lot of light, which allows the ISO (and therefore, noise) remain relatively low.
is not a substitute for a 
for long exposure shots. It enables only slightly slower shutter speeds than what can be managed by hand-holding the camera. However, there are certain situations where using a monopod is very convenient.
and of course, there is Nikon counterpart: 
). It is important to support a long lens not only to avoid fatigue (these lenses are heavy!), but also to reduce camera shake. At many venues, tripods are not allowed, as they take too much space, but monopods can be used. Sometimes, a monopod can be used as a makeshift stationary camera support in very tight spaces, when it is clamped to some heavy object. I have used it in this way in a research laboratory and also at a sporting arena where tripods were not allowed (by clamping the monopod to advertisement panels that surrounded the pitch).
or using a 
. I tried both methods and found that using a collar is more convenient. In the photo above, Armando has his 
lens attached to a gimbal head. When using a head, it should not be tightened too much, so that the camera can be be turned quickly. An alternative is to attach the lens hood directly to the monopod and tilt the entire system slightly to adjust framing. Since long telephoto lenses have a narrow field of view, small inclinations of the camera result in large changes in the framing. The collar should be kept relatively loose, to be able to quickly change from horizontal to vertical camera orientation. Most telephoto lenses have collars, so monopods are usually sold without a head.
, but this time, I attached the lens to a 
, which was extended to a height that allowed me to shoot from a standing position. Normally, a lower shooting position, such as standing on one knee, is preferable for sports, but I was willing to sacrifice it for extra mobility (no need to fiddle with the monopod – just set it on the ground, point and shoot). I attached the lens collar directly to the monopod, without a 
. To frame the shots, I simply tilted the entire monopod. I kept the collar loosely closed around the lens, which allows me to quickly rotate the camera to a vertical shot position.
body. With the crop sensor, this combination gave him a very long effective focal lens, allowing to shoot closeups of the action from the opposite side of the pitch. Also, low camera position was excellent for capturing the flying pieces of mud being kicked up by the players.
, on the other hand, is lightning fast, especially when paired with a built-for-sports DSLR, like a 
by moving “Blacks” slider to the left until the black levels are clipped (around -75 in most of my images). To compensate for the large amount of light reflected from the ice surface, the “Highlights” slider also has be moved to the left (my typical values were around -50).
, because it can be made grey, by limiting the amount of light shining on it, or any other colour by illuminating it with a spot light with a coloured gel on it. On the other hand, black paper is not as good as fabric for 
are slightly more expensive than paper. They can be changed very easily, and are more durable than paper, but it’s not recommended to stand on them.
is needed for any type of background, and in case of fabric, some 
are very handy.
