Applying the Rules...

My wife was taking some pictures of our daughter showing off her new ballet skills. After snapping a few and reviewing them on the camera, she noticed the background had a few problems. Once she removed the distracting elements, we ended up with a better snap...

Practical Tip: Backlight...

Shooting with your subject between the camera and a light source can provide some interesting and often dramatic results. You can end up with a glowing outline around your subject (like in the image above) and golden hair, or you can produce a dark silhouette (like the jelly fish picture below.) This is a great technique which can give your picture a different look pretty easily, but there are a few things to watch out...

Composition: The Importance of Foreground Elements...

Have you ever taken a picture of a beautiful scene and been disappointed with the resulting photograph? Who hasn’t? There can be lots of reasons for this, but here’s one: many times things that are breathtaking in person can look flat and muddled in a photograph. This is particularly true when we try to take pictures of landscapes because we capture so much scenery that there is not a clear subject or focus point...

Nikon Announcements...

Nikon recently announced a new DSLR and four new lenses. This is a lot of new stuff all at one time. The new camera is the Nikon D3100 which takes the spot of my most highly recommended camera. It has a 14 megapixel sensor (ridiculous considering the professional Nikon D3s has 12) and also adds HD video capability. This is the first time I’ve considered upgrading our three year old “family camera” (Nikon...

Practical Tip: Set Your Clock...

If you are the type of person who used to live with an incorrect flashing time on your VCR, you may not like to read this, but setting the date and clock on your DSLR can be extremely helpful – plus it’s not that difficult once you find the right option in the menu. The reason to set the time and date on your camera is not to use it as a clock or calendar, but rather to record when you take each picture inside each...

Reader Feedback...

Hey Readers, As I continue writing I’d love to know what you’d like to read about. Please take a moment to send me an email or comment on this post to tell me what you want to know. You can ask a specific question or suggest a general topic. Additionally, as you read other posts, comment on them as well – then I will know what’s hitting the target and what’s...

Picture of the Week...

Sometimes it’s hard to apply technical principles in the real world, so here’s an example to see it in action… Shutter Speed: 1/5000 Aperture: f 4.5 ISO: 200 White Balance: Auto Exposure Compensation: 0 Focal Length: 92mm This picture was taken on the beach (obviously) at about 8am. The sun was low in the sky off to the camera’s left. The low sun gives the golden glow and the shadows across the girls....

5 Tips For Low-Light Photography...

When there is lots of light, getting a good exposure is pretty easy with modern cameras, but when the lights are low things get tricky. Here are five tips to help you adjust in failing light. 1. Boost the ISO – Increasing the ISO to a larger number will make your digital sensor more sensitive to light. This means you won’t need as much light coming in the lens to get a good exposure. The trade-off for this...

How To Photograph a House...

A few weeks ago I wrote a guest post for another blog, Digital Photography School, about how to photograph a house. If you missed it, check it out...