Archive for April, 2008

Photography is a vast subject and the photographic equipments are unlimited.

Photography is no doubt an interesting career, but if you don’t have knowledge of the additional accessories, then photography is night mare for beginners [Essential photography accessories].

When you ask an apprentice about the important equipments in the camera, the normal answer will be lenses, tripod, flashes and a carry bag.

Photographic filters are often overlooked as important accessories. But, filters carry an equal importance with all other camera accessories.

When it comes to photographic filters, many questions arise such as why you need them, why you use them, why filters are important, what are the different types in filters, how to know the use of a filter, how to recognize filters, which one to use and where to use.

Basically the use of photographic filters in camera is to safeguard the lens. The lens is the most delicate part of the camera. When the harsh UV rays in the sunlight hits the camera lens, the lens sensitivity is lost. So, the use of a UV filter will cut down the UV rays from hitting the lens. The filters are just like sunglasses which protect the eyes from sunlight.

Portrait photography is “clicking the person not the pictures of the person”. Portrait photographs should have full of life in them, i.e. it should be natural. You should not pose for a portrait photograph. Portrait photographs highlight the facial expressions of models.

So, lighting is very important for warmer skin tones of the model and to highlight the face for facial expressions [Photography lighting techniques].

There are two types of lightings to consider in photographs:

• Natural lighting
• Artificial lighting

Natural lighting for portrait pictures:

Many think that natural lighting is only available for shooting outdoors.But you can divert the outdoor lighting to indoor with the means of window and light reflectors.

Providing lighting indoors with the means of a window is an easy way of proving light indoors without any artificial set up.

When shooting outdoors, it’s advised by experts to have a photo shoot between 4-6 pm or if you are inside, you can try window portrait pictures at mid-evening or mornings. Photos shot in natural light yield beautiful results [Perfect light source for good clarity].

As a photographer, you must have clicked enough pictures and made a photo album of yours. What’s next?

How long can you just go on clicking images and adore them in your album, you need to sell your images for a fairy price.

Selling your photos doesn’t mean to sell your art.

Selling the pictures will give encouragement to your photography career or photography hobby.

If people like your photographs and buy them for a fairy good price, you will have a rise in your financial status and will be willing to click more photographs.

What do you do with a hard drive full of images? Convert the images into money and fill your bank account. Tally the different ways to sell your pictures and find the best way.

The first thing to remember before selling your photographs is being sure that your pictures are flawless and looks great. The photos you want to sell must not have the old mundane subjects and techniques; they must be unique with different patterns. You should be sure that your photo does not need any extra editing to cover some mistakes [Steps to perform image editing].

Wildlife photography is an exciting glimpse of photography which helps us to see the fantastic world of wild life in their natural habitat.

It is also a frustrating subject and you need lot of patience to get success in wildlife photography.You cannot click great pictures of wildlife on your first attempt; you need lot of patience and practice to click a better picture.

Never give up the passion of wildlife photography with these limitations, as every photography has its own pros and cons and wildlife photography has its own.

Basics rules to follow in wildlife photography:

Choose your object: Start clicking with one specific species of wildlife. If you select certain species of animal you want to shoot, you can have a small brush up on the animal and find the place where you can usually find the animal and what time is best to capture the animal in your camera.

Brush up classes on the species: On your first shoot of wildlife photographs, you cannot blindly go into the forest and start shooting. The important thing you need to do is know about the animal. Find different sources such as internet and library to know about the animal. Every animal has its own routine.

Ultra Compact digital cameras are easily slipped into a pocket or purse, making them a great choice for photographers on the go.

Don’t let their small size fool you, however — while they may not offer all the manual controls of their heftier counterparts, these are serious cameras that can take superb pictures without weighing you down.

1. Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS

The Canon Powershot SD1100 IS (IXUS 80 IS in Europe) is as fresh off the Canon engineers’ drawing boards as it can get. The camera comes as a replacement for the SD1000 (IXUS 70).

Canon’s SD1100 IS adds optical image stabilization to last year’s hit SD1000, while delivering just as impressive image quality. You’ll get fast start-up, focus, and shooting speed on this sleek Canon compact camera.

Read the complete review on Canon Powershot SD1100 IS .

As an amateur photographer, you always thrive for perfection in your photos.

There are many techniques and rules to be followed by amateur photographers to get “picture perfect” photos.

One of the famous rules for many learners is”Rule Of Thirds”.

Rule of thirds teaches the amateur photographers to click pleasing and rewarding photos.

Often the mistake done by many learners is they take photos with heads or chins cut off, giving empty space in the photo, which looks awkward.

Many amateurs’ tendency is to place the object in the middle of the frame. These photos may not appear interesting and some may even feel that these pictures are boring and usual. At this point, rule of thirds helps you to overcome this and you can have pleasing images.

Rule of thirds helps amateur photographers:

The rule of thirds technique divides the photo by drawing 2 horizontal and vertical imaginary lines making the photo into 9 parts. The imaginary lines intersect at 4 points. These points are important and act as view finders. These 4 intersections act as important points to your photographic objects. Thus, placing your objects in these intersection points will yield perfect photos.

Rain photography comes under nature photography. As a photographer, you must be ready to shoot in all seasons.You must make your photo album complete with all the seasons.The sunny day, the snow and the rain should not stop your eagerness to click photos.

It’s easy to say, but hard to follow. One cannot shoot photographs in rain, even a professional photographer runs for a shelter when it’s raining. Noting can be so miserable than shooting in a rain. With some care, you can make your rain photo shoot memorable and interesting.

What to shoot on a Rainy day?

Creativity has no bounds and you can shoot anything which is beautiful and interesting from the lens view.

Before rain: You can shoot the sky which is fully covered with dark clouds. Stormy clouds often create impressive back grounds for exciting images. You can shoot a long road which seems like meeting the sky at a distance place. For this photo, the cloudy sky is a great background.

How can you forget the lighting in the sky. During the storm, the sky shows off different colors in the light form, so plan before to shoot great shots of lighting. You can shoot the wonderful light spread in the sky during storms.

Whatever camera you use, it has different modes and settings.

Knowing about the modes in the camera helps you to know about the camera and make the operations easier.

Once you completely know about the operations and settings in the camera, you will develop an ease to click the photographs in different modes and settings.

The modes in the camera can be distinguished into:

• Automatic modes
• Semi automatic modes
• Fully manual modes.

Many digital cameras, which are released now-a-days offer automatic or semi automatic modes. This helps the user to take photographs without many arrangements in the settings.

With the evolution of digital camera, every one had become a photographer. Beginners are also able to take interesting and great pictures with these different modes [Photography tips for beginner].

Before using your digital camera, know about the modes and settings in the camera for a better usage.

Know about the different modes in cameras:

Automatic modes:

The automatic modes in the cameras are like completely done, you need not adjust the settings for a different photograph. These modes in the cameras adjust the aperture, ISO, focal length, focus, flash, shutter speed and white balance.

If you are a part-time photographer and have taken break from photography, it’s often hard to get back to the work and get inspirational ideas.

Even experts in photography often go blank without ideas for taking pictures.You need to get recharged with new inspirational ideas to add creativity.

There are different ways to improve your imagination and get inspirational ideas. The sources which help you to get ideas are enormous and a few of the ideas are given here.

Different techniques to get inspirational ideas:

Review a newspaper or magazine: If you want to be intellectual, get ideas by reading newspapers. Many amateur photographers keep a set of old news paper pictures as a library. They review old ideas in photography with a new dimension. The cover pages of a magazine give enough ideas and the mix and match of the different ideas will yield a new idea. Overview at the eye-catching magazines rack will end up with a bundle of creative ideas.

Get ideas while traveling: If you are a travel bug, you have a scope to find new ideas in your trip. Visit a small rural town near to your place and find the local culture for creative ideas. This may seem routine, but you can get new ideas when you visit rural places and people.

To an apprentice photographer, the wide range of lenses make them go crazy.

It’s quite surprising for many apprentice photographers to choose a perfect lens for their shot [Selecting the right digital camera  lens].

Understanding about lenses is itself the first step to success.

Photography is capturing light on an electronic sensor or a photographic emulsion.

The lens, film and sensor are the important components which affect the quality of image.

Lenses are classified into different types using different specifications. The specifications vary from focal length to zoom lenses.

The classification of lenses:

Lens varies with different specifications. One such specification is focal length.

Standard lenses: Focal length is ~50mm (millimeters). This lens is usually supplied with a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. The general purpose of these lenses is having a close view to the human eye. The lenses view is sharp. The lenses are compact and light weight.

Wide angle lenses: Focal length is <50mm. This lens is used in shooting natural landscapes, outdoor shooting, group shots and panoramas. This is preferable for subjects which require strong perspectives. The characteristics of wide angle lenses are deep depth of fields and constant refocusing. When you are shooting a subject that is moving fast, you need this wide angle lenses to click for the right shots.