Digital SLR Camera Tips

Dirty Sensor - To check your camera sensor for dust, here are a few simple steps to take. Set the ISO @ 100 or the lowest setting. Set the aperture to F/22 or higher. Turn off the anti-shake or any other image stabilizing feature. Take a picture of a grey card, a light colored even surface, or blue sky. Move the lens around during the exposure. Be careful not to over-expose the shot or you won't be able to see the dust. Take a few different shots just to be sure. View the images on your computer. Increasing the contrast shows any dust spots.

Filters on DSLRs with "APS" size sensors - If you're using a full-frame lens on a DSLR with a 1.5x or 1.6x sensor, you can probably use a step down ring and a smaller diameter filter and not have vignetting. For example, a common filter size on lenses is 77mm. If you can use a step down ring and say 62mm filters, you'll save a lot of money. See if a local camera store will let you try out various step-down rings and smaller filters to determine what combination works for your lens.

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Tripod Alternative Tips

Handheld Shots -- When hand holding a shot that normally requires a tripod, try shooting several frames with motor drive on its fastest setting. The first picture is often blurry - like a single shot would have been - but subsequent shots are more likely to produce a satisfactory result.

Light (But Sturdy) Tripod (add weight on site) -- Buy a light aluminum tripod with a center post. Drill a hole through two sides of post bottom. When you set the tripod up for a shot, put sand, rocks, etc. into a plastic bag, then put the plastic bag into a nylon stuff bag (perhaps the bag you carry the tripod in). Hang bag from the center post. Note - replace the tripod's "cheap" head with a good ball head.

String "Tripod" -- Equipment required:

- a thumb-screw that fits your camera's tripod connector
- 4 to 6 feet of string
- a stick about 1-1/2” to 2” long

Tie one end of the string to the screw and the other to the stick. Attach the screw to the camera mount, drop the stick on the ground and step on it. Roll the stick with your foot to wind up the string while holding the camera in shooting position until the string is tight. Adjust the string to your preferred length and re-tie it. Place your legs apart a comfortable distance and step on the stick. Pull up with camera, tightening the string. Take a breath, hold it, and press the shutter release. (Note: using a longer stick with string going to both ends and placing both feet on the stick may be helpful.)

Stability in Sand -- Get three tennis balls, cut a "X" in them and put one on the bottom of each tripod leg. They will prevent the legs from sinking into the sand and stabilize your tripod. As an added measure, you might want to punch holes in each of the 4 "flaps" (with an awl, nail, etc.) and run a string thru the holes and tighten the string to help hold the balls on the legs.

Monopod -- A monopod can be a great solution for many photographers. A "walking stick" monopod with a reasonable quality ball head on top can be a great tool unless you: (a) use slow film, (b) need slow shutter speeds for low light or blurring motion. Backpacking stores will usually carry one or two brands.

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Lightning Photography Tips

I can give you the following tips to reduce the chances of error, disappointment, and catastrophe when you attempt lightning photography. I compiled this list over 8 years of lightning photography and I hope it includes most problems you may encounter.

Note: I will not be liable for any personal injury or structural damage due to your lightning photography. Know what you are doing, and stay safe!

• Know the weather danger - don't get struck by lightning, or otherwise getting in trouble. A good advice is to photograph lightning outside rain, while the storm is somewhat distant. It is unwise to go in the open field to photograph close lightning - you can easily get surprised by a thunderstorm, and this could get you into a lot of trouble. Unless you are experienced, don't take any risks!
• Know the other dangers - there are many people with bad intentions out there in the dark, as well as critters & crawlers. Keep an eye on your surroundings, stay away from areas close to roads or other unsafe places, and take a cell-phone with you if you go away far. When trouble comes - leave.
• Check the lens cap - in most cases you won't forget this, since you'll probably be using an SLR camera, but make sure Mr. Murphy doesn't catch you on this one.
• Don't photograph through a window since it will probably show on the photo, especially when the window is wet by rain. If you DO photograph behind a window make sure the window is very clean and dry, and make sure that when lightning strikes, the interior of where you are standing is not reflecting its light by the glass into your lens. Cover up the camera, and put the lens as close as possible behind the glass.
• Cardboard as shutter. You may want to use this as an additional shutter: put the cardboard in front of the lens, open the shutter, and remove the cardboard. When you are done, put the cardboard in front of the lens again, and then close the shutter. Don't touch the camera with the board. This technique will eliminate several problems related to camera shake. Beware that no lights are shining on the cardboard from behind - the lens will catch this. The cardboard also comes in handy when you want to photograph multiple lightning discharges on one frame, to prevent overexposure between the lightning.
• Stay dry. If possible, operate from under a roof or something with the camera at the edge, not letting your camera get wet by rain. Check from time to time whether the lens is clean and dry: do this with your head outside the camera's view if the shutter is open! If lightning were to occur just then while you put your smiling face in front of the lens, the effect will be very weird indeed!

• Pay attention to composition. You might want to mount the camera on the tripod in such a way that just a bit of horizon, a tree, rock formation or something is visible, with the camera ofcourse pointing in the direction where most discharges occur. This way the size of the photographed discharge can easily be estimated by observing the photo, and it's more natural.
• Save film. Each time you wind a new frame, estimate the activity of the storm before opening the shutter for the next photo. If the storm is a weak one, you might want to wait some time before opening the shutter. This will save you film.
• Spare camera for quick film change. If possible, use two cameras with tripod quicklinks on them; when photographing lightning use one camera to take the photos, and when the end of the film is reached (this can be fast!) continue photographing with the other camera while you take your time changing film of the first camera. This way you won't loose time and nerves by frantically changing film (most beautiful discharges occur when you are unable to photograph).
• Aim at potential lightning targets. When you use two or more cameras, you might want to mount a telephoto lens on the second camera and point this one portrait-style to a target: a large tree, a chimney or a radio transmitting tower - anything which has a fair chance to be hit by lightning. You may be lucky.
• Listen to the sferics. Sferics are the crackle heard on radio when there is a storm around. It is the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) which is transmitted broadband by a lightning discharge. Use a SW/MW radio to listen real time to the lightning discharges this way, this can be very informative after some practice! Adjust the band (short wave (SW) or mid wave (MW), it doesn't matter much in this case which band to use) so that the radio is not receiving any signal, just noise. When lightning strikes somewhere within, say, a 100 mile radius (depending on atmospheric RF transmittance conditions), you will hear a characteristic crackle. This crackle itself can tell you a lot more about the lightning activity:
  • Relatively long lasting crackle, with several 'pops' in it: you'll know the lightning is probably extensive or a multistroked CG, thus the thunderstorms will probably be well electrified, building enough charge separation for multistroked lightning. A longer lasting crackle without that much pops in it usually indicates a long CC discharge (cloud to cloud) or an IC (intracloud) discharge
  • Just one pop: lightning is not a very powerful discharge, thus thunderstorms may not be very active
  • Frequency of subsequent crackles: this is a direct measure for the intensity of thunderstorms
  • Loudness of crackles: Tells you something about the distance of the lightning discharge, to your location. Loud crackle on the radio will usually be accompanied by visible lightning, whether it be visible as heat lightning (sky lighting up), sheet lightning (cloud lighting up) or a visible lightning channel
• Take care you do not reuse exposed film! Adapt some habbit of organizing your film such that you will not accidentally do this, or make sure you rewind the film all the way into the film roll when finished.
• Always have a film loaded in the camera. Shooting without film in the camera has happened to more than one photographer, and let me tell you, it is a painful experience!
• Load film well in the camera. It has happened to me on a photography session back in 1998, that the film wasn't winding, because I loaded it improperly (I was in a hurry). When I found out (after taking 50 photos or so, and wondering why the film didn't finish) the lightning was over. All my photos were taken over eachother, on a single (completely overexposed) frame. This, too, is a very painful experience.
• Check and double-check camera settings frequently. With each photo you make, check the following items:
  
  • focus at infinity (sometimes you accidentally alter this without noticing)
  • aperture still set correctly
  • camera lens still clean and dry
  • proper composition
  • lightning still appearing in the frame (the storm usually moves)

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6 Tips for Shooting Great Sunset Photos

Tip 1: Get a Full View

When shooting sunsets, it’s important to position yourself so that you get a full view of the sunset. An example is to perch yourself on a high point. Another good idea is to catch the sun reflecting off water. I also like to photograph the sun setting between the leaves of trees. Think about different, creative ways of viewing a sunset. It will help enhance the beauty of your shots.

Tip 2: Keep Shooting

Here’s another tip for shooting sunset photos. Keep shooting! This is very important because there is only a small time window during which the sun sets. Get in as many shots as you can and select the best. With practice, your sunset photos will start looking better and better.

Tip 3: Clouds

When shooting sunset photos, clouds make a nice backdrop. Clouds add color and texture to an otherwise uninteresting photo. Try to look for cloudy skies to add more variety and texture to your photos.

Tip 4: Shooting Off-Center

Another tip I recommend is to shoot the sun off-center. It’s not essential to keep the sun right in the center of the photo. You can position the horizon at bottom of the frame, so that you can highlight the sky, or perhaps focus on a subject in the foreground. Try this, you can get many interesting silhouette effects.

Tip 5: Use Multiple Exposure Settings

A good thing to try is to try multiple exposure settings. I use a technique called bracketing (which simply means shooting the same picture at different exposures) to get the best shot. If the picture is too bright, underexpose it and vice versa. To bring out details of a person in the foreground, try using the fill flash or night mode. Experimenting with exposure is very important for getting the best looking sunset photos.

Tip 6: Zoom In

Always bring along a telephoto lens when shooting sunsets. That way, if you suddenly have an urge to make the sun larger and more impressive, you can simply zoom in. Some of the best shots of sunsets I’ve seen are done with long focal lengths in this manner

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7 Tips for Shooting Great Digital Photos

So how do you begin to take good photos? Well, the first thing to remember is this: It's the photographer that takes great photos, not the camera. Think about that for a minute. It's true isn't it? I've seen some people take great photos with a simple point-and-shoot camera, while some take lousy shots with the most expensive SLR.

Fret not! Read these tips on shooting digital photos and apply them the next time you have a chance. Before long, you'll be shooting photos like a pro!

1. Know Your Camera

Does this sound familiar? You buy the latest digital camera out there, come home, rip off the box, then proceed to fiddle with the device. You briefly flick through the hundred page camera manual and then never look at it again. Not a good idea! If you buy a digital camera, you owe it to yourself to understand its ins and outs. Learn how to control exposure, how to use different camera modes and how to use the flash. The knowledge you gain about the camera will be invaluable when you're out in the field taking those special photos.

2. Learn to Control the Flash

One of the most important things you need to know about digital photography is to control the flash. Personally, I hate to rely on the automatic flash that comes with the digital camera. Depending on the situation, you need to switch off or switch on the flash.

For example, when taking outdoor photos, it is sometimes good to turn on the flash to illuminate the subject, especially if he or she is in the shade. On the other hand, you can also choose to turn off the flash when taking indoor shots. Sometimes, using the flash indoors will result in unnatural skin color and harsh glare in your photos.

3. Play with the Macro Mode

Almost all digital camera these days have a macro mode. This setting is ideal for taking close up shots of objects like flowers or insects. On my Canon PowerShot S500, it's represented by a flower symbol. What you do is to pick a subject, turn on macro mode, then get as close to it as your camera will allow. Make sure you allow the camera to focus properly before depressing the shutter button fully.

4. Hold the Camera Level

A basic rule of photography is to hold the camera level. Since most digital cameras come with a LCD, you can use it to properly frame your shots. Next time you're taking a shot, try to look for the horizontal lines and use them as guides. A good example is to make use of the horizon when you're taking a photo of a sunset.

5. Use The Tripod

I recommend this tip to all budding photographers - camera tripods are an essential tool in your photography arsenal. When will you need a tripod? Well, it's useful if you're taking shots under low-light conditions or trying to capture fast moving objects. I like to use a tripod when taking night shots city streets, for example. Always try to look for a tripod that's convenient to carry around. For personal use, you don't need a huge one - just a simple compact one that's easy to pack.

6. Play with the ISO Setting

I find the ISO setting in digital cameras very useful. The ISO setting of a essentially camera controls it's sensitivity to light. If you're taking a photo of a still object, like a flower, then always use a low ISO setting. It allows for a longer shutter speed and produces a cleaner image. If you're shooting a moving object, like a baby playing with a toy, then a higher ISO setting of say 400 would be better. Do take note, however, that a higher ISO setting gives a faster shutter speed and requires less light. This will produce noiser photos.

7. Have Enough Memory Capacity

Just like you must have enough rolls of film when using traditional cameras, make sure you always have enough memory capacity in your digital camera. It's terrible to be on a holiday taking great photos and suddenly realizing you've no memory space left. Here are some general guidelines for digital camera storage.

• 2 megapixel cameras - get at least a 64MB card
• 3 megapixel camera - get at least a 128MB card
• 4 megapixel camera - get at least a 256MB card
• 5 megapixel camera and above - get at least a 512MB or 1GB card

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How to Remove Red Eye from Your Photos

What Causes Red Eye? Understanding what causes red eye is actually pretty simple. When you use the flash on your camera to brighten a dark setting the light from the flash is reflected off the retina in the subject's eyes, and believe it or not – the retina appears red! The reason that red eye doesn’t occur so frequently in brighter lighting conditions is because the pupils of the human eyes aren’t open enough in such conditions to allow enough light in to reflect off the retina, so the quickest way to reduce red eye is to add some more light to the scene before taking a photograph. Obviously this isn’t always possible - or desirable - so if red eye does occur in your photos then the following sections can help you to reduce and remove it. Repositioning The Flash Another quick method of reducing red eye is to move the flash further away from the camera’s lens. When light is emitted from the flash and bounces off the subject’s retina a large amount of it then proceeds to travel straight back towards the flash - meaning that a lot will be heading straight for the lens on most cameras. Using a mounted flash on top of your camera or positioning the flash at a distance will help to keep red eye to a minimum, although this may not be possible on a camera that doesn’t accept a mounted flash. Letting The Camera Do The Work Most if not all digital cameras have several flash modes, and one of them is usually targeted towards reducing red eye. Setting your camera’s flash to the red eye mode will cause your camera to use the flash several times before actually taking the photograph. This can help to reduce red eye because it makes the irises in the eyes of your subject contract the size of the pupils, meaning less light will be reflected back towards the camera lens from the retinas. Although this can help to reduce red eye, it does not always get rid of it completely. Healing Red Eye With Image Editors So you have tried all of the above precautions but you are still seeing red eye in some of your photos - don’t give up yet! - Image editors such as Adobe Photoshop and Jasc Paint Shop Pro can help you to correct the red eye in your photos with relative ease. With Photoshop you can create a duplicate layer of the original image and remove all red colors before using an image mask to make the repaired eyes visible, and Paint Shop Pro has a red eye removal feature built-in which can make the whole process even less time consuming. At last you can completely remove all traces of red eye from your photos! Copyright by http://www.basic-digital-photography.com

Learn How to Capture Action Shots

Shutter Lag

One of the major reasons why digital camera cannot shoot nice action shots is due to shutter lag. On many digital cameras, when you press the shutter button, it may take an entire second before the photo is taken. A traditional, analogue 35mm camera can take the picture within 50 milliseconds. There is a world of difference between 1 second and 50 milliseconds.

What this means is that you need to compensate for shutter lag when shooting action shots. Give extra time when framing your shot, so that when you depress the shutter button, the photo will get taken at precisely the right time. Another option, of course, if to get a higher end camera which offers less shutter lag.

Take Control Shots

Another factor influencing action photography is the shutter speed of your camera. If your camera allows a very fast shutter speed (say up to 1/8000 of a second), you can easily capture fast motion. If it only supports a slower shutter speed (say 1/640 of a second), then you won’t be able to capture such fast motion. One way to capture motion with a slow shutter speed is to use the panning technique. When you next shoot a fast action shot, try following through with the subject. Track the subject, shoot the picture, then continue moving the camera. If you practise long enough, you’ll be able to get a sharp subject with a blurred background – which is a nice effect.

Camera Write Times

The write time of the camera is also important when shooting action shots. Some cameras will chug away to store a picture in memory each time you press the shutter button. This, of course, is terrible for capturing action. One way around this is to ensure that your camera supports continuous shots. This way, the camera takes a fixed number of shots, before writing them all to memory at once.

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How to Take Better Night Photos

Tip 1: Use Long Exposures

The key to successful night photography lies in a long exposure. We’re talking about exposures measured in seconds. When a long exposure is used, more light is allowed into the camera, allowing the details in your night photo to be captured.

The problem with using long exposures is that you may shake the camera, resulting in poor pictures. The way around this is to use a tripod. I prefer to install a tripod with a shutter-release cable to ensure that I don’t jolt the camera at all.

Tip 2: Take Control Shots

One problem with digital cameras is that there are always some pixels on the image sensor which are bad. When taking day photos, these defects are not discernible. However, they are pretty obvious in night photos. How do we correct these? Here’s a simple way – take a control shot, then use image editing to subtract out those bad pixels.

This is how it works. The next time you’re out to take night photos, go ahead and snap a picture of Scene A, as you normally would. Then, when it’s convenient, take a photo of the exact same Scene A again, but with the lens cap on.

Now you will have two images, one night shot and one control shot (with the hot pixels). Load them up in say, Paint Shop Pro. Switch to the control shot and select Edit and Copy from the menu. Next, switch to the night shot and paste the copied image as a new layer. Then, select the new layer and change the Blend Mode to Difference and click OK. You’ll get the correct night shot with the hot spots subtracted out.

Tip 3: Try to Capture Motion

With a long exposure, you have many creative options when it comes to photography. This includes capturing motion. For example, have you ever wondered how those professional photographers shoot pictures of trails of car lights as they zoom down the highway at night? It’s all due to long exposures. Try to keep this in mind the next time you’re taking a night photo – you don’t have to restrict yourself to still images.

Tip 4: Play with the Aperture

In addition to shutter speed (which determines exposure time), you can play around with the aperture size of your digital camera. There are two scenarios here. If you set a long exposure, try to use a small aperture to avoid overexposing any stationary lights. in the picture. On the other hand, if you set a short exposure, try using a larger aperture to avoid any motion in your shot.

Tip 5: How to Use the Flash

As a general rule, I turn the flash off when taking night photos. There are some exceptions though – one specific example I can think of is trying to shoot a subject in the foreground, with motion trails of car lights in the background. In this case, bring along an external flash unit and shine it on your subject manually. Set a long exposure, then have your subject wait until the picture is taken.

Tip 6: When to Take Night Photos

When’s the best time to take night photos? I usually like to take them during dusk when colors and details are easier to capture. I’d recommend that you do some research on the evening before the photo shoot. Decide on the location, then come back the next day to take the photo at dusk.

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