Category: Photography Tips & Tricks

12 Steps to Understanding Your Digital SLR

By John Watson
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From wikiHow, a 12-step program for getting to know your brand new digital SLR camera:

When they were first introduced, digital SLR cameras were enormously expensive and a tool for professionals only. Since then, they have come down in price into the consumer price range. Because of this, many people buy digital SLRs without understanding how they work — and, consequently, not making the most of them. This article will guide you through the most common functions they have, and to show you how to learn to use one by experiment. The principles herein are the same for any camera; but you will probably not be able to set your shutter and aperture manually on most non-SLR cameras. Read on nonetheless.

How to Understand Your Digital SLR: 12 steps (with video) – wikiHow

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Free Secrets of Digital Night Photography Webcast

By John Watson
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O’Reilly is putting on a free webcast on Digital Night Photography by Harold Davis, author of Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers, reviewed favorably by yours truly back in May. The webcast will be on Tuesday, December 2, at 11am PST. Advance registration required:

In this webcast, professional photographer Harold Davis, author of Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers and creator of the Photoblog 2.0 and Digital Night web sites shows why night photography has become increasingly popular among digital photographers. He demystifies exposure techniques at night, and explains how he post-processes night photos. Following Harold’s presentation, there will be time for a Q&A in which he’ll answer your questions about night photography.

Secrets of Digital Night Photography Webcast

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Advice to young photographers from Magnum photographers

By John Watson
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Alec Soth asks 35 of his fellow Magnum photographers two simple questions:

  • When did you first get excited about photography?
  • What advice would you give young photographers?

One of my favorites:

“Forget about the profession of being a photographer... Make the pictures you feel compelled to make and perhaps that will lead to a career. But if you try to make the career first, you will just make shitty pictures that you don’t care about.” — Christopher Anderson

Click to read all of their answers: Magnum Blog / Wear Good Shoes: Advice to young photographers

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Basic Travel Photography

By Ray Davis
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I’ve just returned from a little jaunt to Portugal and I have to say there is little else that gets me as eager to get my camera out as wandering around a city I’ve never seen before. And of course, in the age of the compact digital camera pretty much everyone takes a camera with them when they travel these days. But how do you come back with photographs your friends and family won’t have to feign interest in? Here’s a few basic tips:

1) Be selective. It’s tempting when you’re surrounded by new things, impressive architecture, beautiful landscapes, and photogenic locals to go nuts and photograph everything ten times over. Especially when you’re using a digital camera and can tell yourself you’ll delete half of the photos later. While there’s nothing wrong with taking lots of photos make sure you scale it down a bit (i.e. do the deleting part) before you showcase your holiday snaps. Even Great Aunt Maude is going to struggle to feign interest in 200 photos of a church, however architecturally brilliant it is.

2) Try a little originality. If you’re photographing an iconic site see if you can come up with a more original way to photograph it.

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Photographing Children

By Ray Davis
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the culpritIf you get it right photographing your children can produce pictures you’ll want to treasure for years to come, whether it’s snaps of their tenth birthday displayed in a professional coffee table book or the embarrassing shot of Timmy wearing his underpants on his head that you choose to keep lovingly displayed where all your visitors can see it. But it can be a frustrating process, children are rarely still for any length of time and as they get older often get either camera-shy or obsessed with making that face that involves rolling their eyes back into their head and sticking out their tongue.

If you’ve got little ones you want to photograph here are a few tips to help you avoid those blurry, monster-face shots being the only thing in your memory book.

1. Make it fun. This is the golden rule of photographing little ones. If you want to have photographs of your children having fun, smiling, looking happy and adorable then you will need to let them have fun while you’re photographing them. Standing still for ages while you tell them how to pose is unlikely to appeal to them as fun.

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Print something. Print it BIG.

By John Watson
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The wall was framed
Photo credit: Leonski (cc-by-nd)

If you’re like most digital photographers, you probably don’t print photos very often. It’s become pretty common to go on vacations or day trips with friends and family and then exchange CDs full of photos or Flickr URLs or just send photos around as email attachments. I know lots of people still print photos, but let’s face it: lots of people don’t.

And, mostly, it’s a good thing. Back when folks had to print photos just to see them—and it was never free, not even to shoot them in the first place—they took a lot less photos. Granted, there’s a lot more crap we’re all subjected to. I heard a story recently from someone about how they’d casually send in photos to their kid’s school throughout the year. Photos of field trips and stuff. And how the people receiving those hundreds of photos used every single one for a slideshow that lasted an hour. Kill me now, right?

But there’s a lot more good stuff, too. Photography is partly a numbers game. The more you shoot,

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The Importance of Focus and Quick Tips on How to Get it Right

By John Watson
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Focus in photography is about a lot more than simply sharpness or being able to see what you are looking at. Focus can enhance a subject by making it stand out from or blend into its surroundings, focus can draw you in, and the right focus can create an emotional connection with the viewer.

No matter what style of photography you enjoy, focus can work for you or against you.

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Tips to Introduce Photography to Your Children

By Ray Davis
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Perhaps this is one of the biggest reasons why people enjoy photography: to capture the beauty that they see. It’s no wonder that people of all ages are attracted to the camera, especially young and curious children. Wouldn’t you feel the same way when you look at the smiling faces of adults after getting that one perfect shot?

Girl taking a photo with her camera

So why not try to introduce photography to your children which will open up a whole new world for them.

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Review: Light and Exposure for Digital Photographers

By John Watson
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Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers by Harold Davis (published by O’Reilly) is a new book that teaches basic but important lessons: understanding light and how to capture it creatively with a digital camera. The author sums up the philosophy of the book in the introduction: “Today’s photographer is one part digital artist and one part photographer.” But he also warns that “it is fundamentally flawed to assume that incorrect exposures can be corrected in Photoshop.”

Read on to learn more about the book and find out how you can get a free copy.

Light and Exposure then proceeds to reintroduce the basics of exposure, the exposure “equation,” and how exposure can be used creatively. From there he devotes an entire chapter each to aperture, shutter speed, and ISO and noise. For $20, it’s the cheapest Digital Photography 101 course you’ll find. The topics are covered in depth and the author uses an approach grounded in understanding concepts rather than telling you exactly which buttons to push (which would be practically impossible since everyone’s camera is different).

I agree with the approach.

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Orphan Works bill introduced in US

By John Watson
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There has been a lot of discussion and a lot of fear among photographers regarding potential orphan works legislation.

A major problem with current copyright law is that it does not provide a way to use a creative work that has been abandoned (no entity can be found to claim ownership). The premise behind an “orphan works” addition to copyright law is that it would provide a means for anyone to make use of copyrighted material that no longer has an owner.

It works by limiting damages that can be claimed if the work truly falls under orphan works protection. If a person wants to use a work they must ask permission from the copyright holder just as they do now. Under the current law, if they can’t find the owner they are out of luck. With the orphan works bill in effect, they could use the work after conducting a diligent search and failing to find the copyright owner. Later, if the original owner shows up, he must be paid fair royalties for the use of the work. It does not limit or change Fair Use.

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