website design photography

Photography for magazines, catalogues and other marketing materials is usually done using medium format cameras fitted with digital backs. These cameras are capable of shooting at resolutions up to 33 megapixels (and sometimes even higher) and the quality is generally superb.

In my opinion though, website design projects seldom warrant this kind of treatment, and in many cases comparable results can be achieved using standard 35mm set ups. For example, images for the slideshow on Ancient Beadart were taken with a Canon digital SLR and a 100mm macro lens. The photos are 980 pixels by 460 pixels in size, and the overall quality is good.

But while SLRs are great, they too can be overkill in certain situations. A few months ago I designed a new website for George Fisher Advisors, a firm of financial advisors in Boston, USA. Home page photography is once again original, but on this occasion I used nothing more than a tripod-mounted Fuji compact. Admittedly the images are quite small, but they are nonetheless clean, well composed and quite appealing.

Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind when managing photography is the need for a good (ie, solid) tripod. In fact, this point really can't be stressed enough: the impact that such a basic piece of equipment can have on image quality is extraordinary, and yet I am constantly surprised by the number of people who seem not to know this.