Color is counted as another element in a scene and composed along with the lines and patters, shapes and forms, highlights and shadows.

Here a few tips o capturing color well:

• Avoid complicated compositions. Bold strokes of two or three strong colors will carry the photograph; you do not need to burden it with a lot of detail, nor a lot of colors.

• To simplify the composition, find an angle. A few inches left or right maybe enough to cover to cover an unsightly element or compress the planes of view.

• Another way to simplify the composition is to zoom in or come in close. Objects seen up close cease to become objects as we see them and become pure areas of color.

• If you find and want to highlight a strong color, see if you can frame it against neutral surroundings. Neutral can range from gray or black to light shades of cool colors, which are receding colors.

• Use a polarizing filter to eliminate glare reflecting of surfaces. Reflections weaken color. If you don't have a polarizing filter a t hand, see if you can shoot at another angle. Following the law of reflection-the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence-the light.

• Shoot in muted light or right after a rainstorm, when highlights and shadows are less pronounced, leaving colors more saturated.

• Look for the contrasts, harmonies, and color accents discussed in the text and work them into your photographs.
  

Color of Light

From the instant the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, daylight is constantly shifting in color. While we may notice the particularly golden light of dawn or the inky blue light of twilight, our eyes and brain tend to neutralize the gradual color changes in between, making daylight appear colorless.

The color of daylight, however, has a profound effect on the atmosphere of a photograph, and knowing how it affects the emotional content of an image enables you to control the mood of your travel photos. A castle bathed in the cool blues and grays of twilight may seem mysterious or gloomy, even foreboding. The same castle splashed in the yellow and amber waves of early morning light appears to be safe or beckoning, summoning the reassuring memories of a favorite childhood fairy tale. Changes in daylight's color occur most rapidly—and are most dramatic—at the beginning and end of the day, so work quickly at these times if you want to capture a particular mood.

Tip: With zoom lenses you can get a novel special effect by changing focal lengths during an exposure. The result is a sharp central subject engulfed in a burst of light streaks.

Indoor Natural Light

Because much of our vacation time is spent indoors in hotel rooms, restaurants and museums, it's important to know how to shoot in these situations. You can usually get away with just using a flash, but the indiscriminate blast of flash destroys the intimate mood of existing light, whether it's daylight or artificial lighting. By using a fast ISO setting, a fast lens (f/2.8 or faster), and a tripod (or some combination of those three things), you can shoot nice pictures even in the most dim ambient illumination, and without resorting to flash.

Museum and other interiors lit by daylight are often bright enough so that you can work at handheld shutter speeds and still get a natural color balance. Window light also has a soft and even quality good for casual portraits; be sure, however, to position yourself to shoot with rather than into the light, or it will fool your meter into underexposing your subject's face.

When shooting pictures indoors using artificial light, you will have to make a decision about which white balance setting to use. Because all artificial light sources produce light of a different and specific color, it's important that you try to match the white balance to the existing light, or the scenes may have an incorrect overall color cast. If you know the source of most of the lighting (tungsten lamps, for example), you can simply choose the white balance setting that matches the lighting. Things get trickier when a scene contains unknown sources (in a hotel lobby, for example) or when there are several different light sources. In those situations, try to make your best guess about the main light source. If you guess wrong, or if you're combating multiple sources, you can easily correct the color balance during editing.

Often when shooting indoors, you'll work with a mix of natural and artificial lighting, and the results can be evocative. In taking an informal portrait by a window in a pub, for instance, you might have daylight from a window, a lamp on a nearby wall, and a candle at the table. The color balance will be natural in the areas lit by daylight but have a warm glow in areas lit by the lamp and candles.

Lights in Motion

Taking long exposures of lights in motion is a night-photography special effect that often appears in travel-magazine photos and is easy to mimic. Because your camera has the unique ability to record the paths of moving lights, it can reveal patterns and designs of light that are entirely invisible to the eye. Unfortunately, you can use the technique only if your camera has a shutter that you can lock open or that lets you set very long exposure times (10 seconds or longer).

An example of light streaking is the swirling trails of automobile head—and taillights. It is a great way to brighten up city street scenes, especially when you shoot from a high enough vantage point to reveal an elaborate traffic pattern or when you include a landmark, such as the Arc de Triomphe, as a focal point. One curious aspect of this technique is that while the film perfectly records the glow of headlights and taillights, the cars are moving too fast to be recorded, so they disappear. Taking an exposure reading for traffic lights is all but impossible, so your best bet is simply to set a small aperture (f/11 or smaller) to give you adequate depth of field, then keep the shutter open long enough for the lights to move all the way through the frame.

You can use the same technique to photograph carnival or amusement-park rides in motion. Ferris wheels and other spinning rides are especially attractive, because their colorful light displays form dramatic swirls of light. To get the complete-circle effect, you have to be sure to shoot at least one revolution of the ride. A good way to do this is to pick a spot on the wheel, wait until it hits the twelve-o'clock point, then keep the shutter open until it passes that point again.

Remember, these are experimental techniques, so it's a good idea to shoot lots of photos and bracket widely.

Fill-In Flash

Although making dark places brighter is the primary use of flash, the next-best place to use it, surprisingly, is outdoors in bright sunlight. One of the problems of taking pictures—especially individual or group portraits—using midday sun is that the harsh lighting creates deep, distracting shadows. In people pictures, this usually means dark eye sockets and unattractive shadows under the nose and lips. Fill-in flash lightens these shadows to create more attractive portraits.

Fill-in flash looks most natural when it's about a stop darker than the main light. When the flash-to-daylight ratio is too even, or when flash overpowers the existing light, the balance looks false and draws attention to the fact that you used flash. Until the advent of built-in and dedicated accessory flash, calculating for fill-in flash was like doing the math for sending a rocket into another galaxy. It was easier (and quicker) to wait for a hazy day.

Today, most built-in and dedicated flash units have a special mode just for fill-in flash. Basically, all you do is point and shoot. The camera reads the ambient lighting and then kicks out just enough flash to fill shadows but leaves the picture natural-looking. Many dedicated accessory flash units even let you set a specific flash-to-daylight ratio, so you can make the fill more or less bright. Because a dedicated flash's output is mated to the autofocusing system, the camera even knows how far away your subject is.

Fill-in flash shouldn't be limited to taking pictures of people. I frequently use it to open up the deep shadows in close-ups of flowers or architectural details.

Using Your Light Meter

If built-in exposure meters are as sophisticated as camera manufacturers claim, why do people still get poorly exposed pictures? The truth is that while most built-in meters are fabulously accurate, they can be fooled. Fortunately, there are ways to wrestle difficult subjects into submission, provided you can recognize a difficult situation.

Light meters are calibrated to give you good exposure for subjects of average brightness; fortunately, most outdoor subjects are of average brightness. Problems pop up when you want to photograph subjects that are much lighter or darker than average. Rather than recording such scenes as you see them, the camera will see—and record—them as a medium tone. Instead of pristine white snow, you'll get a drab gray winter wonderland; instead of an inky-black horse, you'll get a gray nag.

If your subject is nearby, or very large, the simplest solution is to take a close-up reading and then adjust the exposure using your exposure-compensation dial (or manually) by a stop or two. To photograph this swan, for example, the photographer took a direct reading of the swan and then added 1 1/2 stops of exposure. This recorded the swan as white and still cast the water into blackness. To photograph a black bull in a meadow, take a reading from the animal and subtract one to two exposure stops to keep it black.

The problem gets tedious when you are photographing a relatively small average-toned subject against a very dark or light background—a friend lying on a bright sandy beach, for instance. The best recourse here is to use your spot-metering mode and take a reading of just the subject. This way, your main subject will be correctly exposed, even if, because of the contrast, you lose some detail in the background. Yet another solution is to scout the scene for something of average brightness—green foliage is good—and set your exposure for that.

Lights at Night

Nighttime is loaded with bright and colorful subjects to photograph—neon lights, theatrically lighted landmarks and monuments, carnival rides, fireworks, etc.

The stripes and squiggles of neon lights and signs are colorful and provide good results over a wide range of exposures. Sometimes the lights are bright enough that you can take handheld exposures with the camera set to a moderately fast ISO speed of 400 or 800. Sometimes individual signs work as a whole, but more often you'll create stronger images by moving in close to isolate patterns or abstract designs within a sign—a colorful slice of pizza in a restaurant sign, for example. In neon-heavy locales like Las Vegas or Times Square, use a telephoto lens to compress space and squeeze a number of lights into a brilliant abstract composition.

Carnival and amusement parks abound with night lights. You can get a bird's-eye-view by climbing aboard the Ferris wheel. Lighting will be fairly dim, so use a very fast ISO setting of 1000 to 1600 for sharp handheld photos, or use a tripod and long shutter speeds at ground level to capture the motion of the rides.

Bridges, fountains, and monuments are often more interesting to photograph at night, when they are theatrically lighted and the darkness hides distracting or unattractive surroundings. Use a tripod to steady the camera, and make long exposures so you can use small apertures for maximum depth of field. Exposure isn't critical; move in close, take readings of just the lighted areas (or use your spot-meter mode if your digital camera has one), and bracket exposures a stop or two in both directions using your exposure-bracketing feature. Don't fret about getting a correct color balance as most night scenes include a variety of light types and there really is no way to balance them all in one shot.

Using the Flash on Your Camera

Fast ISO speeds and fast lenses make it easy to work in all but the most dim lighting conditions, but there are times when turning to electronic flash is a better and more predictable alternative. For example, because the duration of flash is so brief (often measured in thousandths of a second), you can use it to get sharp pictures of moving subjects in very dark surroundings, like dancers in the ballroom of a cruise ship. The drawback of flash is that it produces a comparatively harsh and obtrusive light.

Most point-and-shoot and many DSLR cameras have a built-in flash that is capable of producing good results over a modest distance range, typically from about three to 15 feet with an ISO 100 film. Accessory flash units for DSLRs are considerably more powerful and sophisticated than built-ins, frequently providing a maximum shooting range of 100 feet or more.

Most accessory flash units these days are "dedicated," meaning that they're designed for use with specific brands and models of cameras and use incredibly sophisticated circuitry to communicate between camera and flash. The flash automatically knows, for example, the ISO setting of the camera and sets its output accordingly. In addition, virtually all digital cameras use "TTL" (through-the-lens) light metering, so that the camera measures the reflected flash at the sensor plane and shuts off the unit when enough light has been supplied. Flash exposure in general is very accurate.

A problem peculiar to taking portraits with any type of electronic flash is the phenomenon known affectionately as "red eye," the somewhat satanic red glint in subjects' pupils often seen in photos. The effect occurs as the flash reflects off the rear surface of the retina. Many flash units, both built-in and accessory, have a red-eye-reduction feature that uses a series of brief preflashes to constrict the pupil, thereby eliminating the effect. This is a feature worth paying extra for if you photograph people often.

Dramatic Lighting

One of the great thrills of travel photography is coming unexpectedly upon a sudden and dramatic light phenomenon—when the light's direction, color, or intensity stops you in your tracks.

As a traveler, you don't often have the luxury of waiting by a scene for a spectacular bit of lighting, but if you know when such light is likely to occur, you can be on the lookout for it. Among the best times to expect dramatic lighting are just before or after a storm. Storms often end with dozens of brilliant rays of sun bursting through a bank of clouds. Similar displays occur on almost any sunny day inside many cathedrals, when the sun pierces the highest windows and a thousand rays gleam down on the altar. Another way to increase your odds of capturing these moments is to rise before the sun and linger until long after it has set. In addition to the theatrics of sunset and sunrise, the low-angle light of these times often brings high drama.

Silhouettes

In photography, the simplest and most effective way to reveal a shape is by creating a silhouette. You can use silhouettes in your travel pictures to dramatize subjects whenever shape is more important than form or texture, or just to jazz up your slide shows.

To create silhouettes, simply put an opaque object in front of a bright background and expose for the background. Any brightly colored surface will work: a glittering gold sea at sunset, a cheerful colored wall, or even the illuminated glass wall of an aquarium. Alas, intriguing subjects and colorful backgrounds don't just appear when you want them to. You'll have to use your artistic eye to spot the potential of a bright background and then hunt around until you match it with a suitable foreground subject.

Look for subjects that have a bold and simple shape. It's important, too, that the subject be entirely surrounded by the bright background. A fisherman on the beach at sunrise will produce a clearly identifiable shape, but fishing boats lined up too closely in a row may merge into a dark clump.

Exposing for silhouettes is fairly simple; as with sunsets, a variety of exposures will produce good results. If your camera has an averaging meter (as do most point-and-shoots), be sure to skew the viewfinder toward the brighter area and then use your exposure-lock feature to hold that exposure. If you have a DSLR with a spot-metering feature, take a reading of just the bright area and then bracket in half- or full-stop increments toward overexposure.

Light Quality

Hard light blasts its way across the landscape, zapping subjects with brilliant highlights and creating jet-black shadow areas. Soft light awakens worlds of subtle hue and gradation and provides a gentle but pleasant modeling in both landscapes and portraits. Because you can't alter the quality of light (other than by waiting for it to change), the key is to match it to a compatible subject: hard light to accent the graphic lines of an industrial landscape, or soft light for a group portrait.

Moonlight

Opportunities for shooting a landscape by moonlight only occur a few nights a month as the moon waxes into and then wanes out of its full phase. When these moments occur, it's nice to know how to capture them. You can photograph two types of moonscapes: those that feature the moon itself (both full moons and crescent moons are nice) in the frame and those that are simply landscape exposed by the light of the moon. Shooting the latter requires a very bright cooperative moon and a relatively high ISO (probably 800 or higher).

The best time to shoot landscapes that include the moon is shortly after the sun has set, just as the moon is beginning to rise: The moon appears largest at this time because of the visual land reference of the horizon and the refraction of the earth's atmosphere. As lighting is predominantly from the twilight sky, you'll still get a sufficient amount of foreground detail. Look for simple scenes you can compose with a telephoto lens of 300mm or longer; remember that the longer the lens, the larger the moon will appear. Exposure can be based on meter readings of the foreground, but be careful to avoid exposure of more than a few seconds or the moon's shape will become elongated.

If your camera allows you to make exposures of several seconds or longer, landscapes illuminated exclusively by the full moon but not including the moon can make eerie, ethereal pictures. The technique works best with snowscapes or beaches, because light reflected from snow or sand brightens the entire scene. Exposures will still be quite long: even with the ISO set to 800 or 1000, start with exposures of two seconds at f/2.8 and them make several additional exposures, doubling the time for each successive shot (if you have a manual-exposure mode) or adding extra light with your exposure compensation feature. You'll need a tripod.

If you want to be really creative, consider taking two exposures: one of the moon with a very long lens (300mm or longer) and then a landscape with a normal lens and combine the two shots in editing. The moon will appear huge in the landscape.

Direction of Lighting

The direction from which light strikes a scene, relative to the camera position, has a significant effect on color, form, texture, and depth in the resulting photo. Frontlighting spills over your shoulder and falls squarely on the front of your subject. Because frontlighting is very even, auto-exposure systems handle it well. It produces bold, saturated colors, but when too strong it can actually wash out some colors. The downside is that, because all the shadows are falling behind the subject and away from the camera, frontlit scenes lack a sense of depth or three-dimensionality.

Sidelighting comes from the left or right of a subject. Because the light is scraping across from side to side, it catches every surface blip and imperfection, leaving a trail of large and small shadows and exaggerating surface textures. It is ideal for landscapes, like desert badlands or beaches, where you want to convey the tactile qualities of a subject. Sidelight also imparts form and three-dimensionality to objects, giving a pumpkin its full roundness or a tree trunk its volume. Gentle sidelighting, especially from slightly above, works well for portraits because it creates a delicate modeling of facial features.

Backlighting can produce theatrical effects, particularly with landscapes. Shadows coming toward the camera exaggerate depth and distance and help lead the eye into the scene. When backlighting is used behind partially translucent subjects, like leaves or human hair, it creates a bright fringe called rim lighting that helps separate subjects from their surroundings. In backlit portraits, however, you may need to increase exposure by 1 to 1 1/2 stops over the metered value to keep faces from being lost in shadow. An alternate solution is to use flash fill. Keep the sun itself out of the frame or it will trick the meter into severe underexposure.

With many subjects, you can change the apparent direction of lighting by changing your shooting position—by taking a short walk if you're shooting a close-up of a barn or a horse, or a drive if you're shooting a landscape.

Photography is all about capturing light on a photographic emulsion or electronic sensor. And as such the lens and film or sensor, are the most important components affecting image quality. Essentially, the camera itself is just a light-tight box with a shutter!

You've seen the wonderful pictures from the rovers sent by NASA to Mars. All detailed and colourful. You might think that they're from some huge megapixel space-age techno-beast and you'd be surprised to hear that the sensor is a paltry 1 megapixel. Bigger pixels mean less noise which is always a good thing, but where NASA put all its money was into a very high quality lens. The results show it was worth it!

A camera that allows you to change the lens will obviously give you the greatest flexibility to pick the appropriate lens for the situation. An ideal camera like this is the SLR. You can choose from super wideangle to super telephoto. Macro for close ups. Bellows for even closer close up. Attach it to a microscope. Attach it to a telescope.

PRIMES VS ZOOMS

Prime (fixed) focals have the advantage of being fast (bright) and very high quality by virtue of the fact that they can be designed just for that focal length. A zoom lens allows a choice from a continuous range of focal lengths. They are useful where you require a range of focal lengths but want the convenience of a single lens, whether for weight (only one lens), always being ready to take the picture or shooting in a dusty environment and you want to keep debris entering the camera to a minimum (you also need to think about how to change films).

This all sounds great but there are drawbacks. Zooms are slower than primes (smaller minimum aperture) and can thus make hand holding and focusing (whether manual or auto) problematic. Also due to their complexity zoom lenses suffer from more abberations than primes. Lenses from the major camera makers tend to be very good. Third party zooms vary considerably. Like everything else, you tend to get what you pay for.

Zooming is more than just getting closer. It alters the focal length and affects the perspective and depth of field of the picture. Consider whether you should zoom in and use a longer focal length, or get closer and use a shorter focal length?

FOCAL LENGTHS

Standard Lenses (~50mm) A standard lens is the usual lens supplied with an SLR. They are good general purpose lenses having an angle of view close to the human eye. They are sharp, compact and lightweight.

Small "standard" zooms have a range of typically 35-70mm (2x), 28-85mm (3x) or 24-105mm (4x). These zooms often replace the 50mm lens.

A typical compact has a zoom lens with a focal range of 35-100mm.

Wideangle Lenses (<50mm) The natural choice for landscapes, sweeping panoramas and other outdoor scenes, group shots and generally anything requiring strong perspective. In some situations a wideangle might be the only way to capture the entire scene without excluding an important element in the frame. A characteristic of wideangle lenses is a deep depth of field making constant refocusing less critical. Good when you're in a hurry or the subject is moving fast such as photojournalism.

Medium Telephoto Lenses (85-135mm) These lenses are perfect for portraits. Compared to a 50mm lens they isolate the subject from the background more and the increased focal length slightly flattens the image and gives more a natural and flattering perspective. Popular for candid photography.

Long Telephoto Lenses (>135mm) Used for sports, nature or other types of documentary style photography that requires you to be close to the action but cannot be close physically be it dangerous or timid. Like portrait lenses they are great for picking out the subject from the background.

OTHER SPECIAL LENSES

Macro Macro lenses can focus very close allowing real size, 1:1 image ratios, ie an object 10mm in size will appear 10mm on the 35mm frame. Excellent for nice close ups of insects or flowers.

Fisheye Lenses Distort the perspective to create a circular "fisheye" 180° image. A very specialised lens. Picking the correct subject is necessary but when you do can produce some memorable images. Focal lengths vary, 7~16mm.

Super Wideangle Lenses (<24mm) Like wideangle but more so, but not as much as the fisheye. Great for exaggerated perspective or scenes from restricted vantage point. Favoured lens of the estate agent!

Super Telephoto Lenses (>300mm) Longer telephotos and an eye-watering price tag to match. Can be heavy due to the amount of glass they contain. Often they have a tripod mount on the lens. You will need to tripod mount to reduce camera shake and weight of lens (unless you're after a work out!) Favoured by tabloid journalist when spying on celebrities!

OTHER TERMS

Fast Lenses A fast lens is one that has a large minimum aperture and is often a good thing. The minimum aperture might be f/1.4 or f/2.8 or whatever is appropriate for the lens compared to other lenses of the same focal length. Obviously the larger minimum aperture requires larger glass elements and is consequently heavier and maybe bulkier than a lens one or two slops slower. They are often higher quality as a side-effect of the lens maker justifing the extra expense.

Mirror or Reflex Lenses It is possible to make lenses using mirrors to fold and focus the light rather than glass and are also known as catadioptric lenses. Many telescopes are like this. The advantages of this type of lens are compactness and reduced weight. Long glass telephotos are big and heavy beasts. The reflex equivalent is compact and lighter making hand holding possible. Like big telephotos, they usually have built-in rear-mounted filters. Catadioptrics also produce characteristic doughnut shaped out-of-focus highlights, or bokeh, which can be quite pleasing.

Apochromatic Lenses An apochromatic lens is designed to focus three wavelengths of light, corresponding to the colours red, green and blue, onto the film plane. This reduces chromatic abberations, or the phenomenon of different wavelengths being focused at different distances or different point of the film plane. Chromatic abberation appears as coloured fringing around high contrasts objects typically a red fringe on one side and a purple fringe on the other. Normal lenses are called achromatic and they are designed to focus two wavelengths (red and blue) onto the film place and the designer assumes that everything between will be similarly focused. Apocromatic lenses are also designed to focus two wavelengths at the edges to reduce spherical abberations. Spherical aberrations show up as unfocused portions of the frame usually at the edges and at larger apertures. To achieve these feats some or all of the optics in an apochromatic lens are made from special (expensive) glass. Apochromitic lenses can be expensive!

SPECIALISED LENSES

Varisoft Lenses Allows the photographer to adjust the amount of spherical aberration to create a distinctive soft focus effect. The lens has a control ring to set the amount of softness. Perfect for portraits. Creates more reproducible results than the alternative, but much cheaper, version of smearing vaseline on a skylight filter.

Shift Lenses With a wideangle lens the exaggerated perspective can make tall buildings look like they are curving inward (or outward) if the camera is tilting slightly upward (or downward). Having the camera perfectly vertical (specifically parallel to the buildings) fixes the distortion but might not be the picture you are after. The shift lens allow the photographer to correct the distortion so that the buildings are straight again. Great for architectural photography and for panoramic shots intended to be stitched together.

LENS CARE

Don't use tissue to clean your favourite camera lens as it only redistributes the oily dirt and leaves tiny scratches. Use a blower brush, cleaning fluid and a lint free cloth.

HAND HELD PHOTOS

You might ask is: what is the slowest shutter speed I can use and still hand hold and get acceptable results? If you've ever used a telephoto before, you'll know that the longer the focal length the more difficult it is to hold the camera steady. That is why binoculars with ridiculous magnifications are impossible to use hand held.

A reasonable rule-of-thumb seems to be you can allow the shutter speed to drop to the inverse of the focal length. So a 200mm lens would be 1/200" and a 28mm lens would be 1/30". Naturally, all this depends on your own steadiness.

Of course, nowadays, electronics takes all the fun out of trying to hold the camera steady after a night on the pop. Anti-shake sensors and CCD scanning tricks can easily cope with moderate shaking and they seem to work well.

NOTES FOR DIGITAL CAMERAS

Comparison with 35mm The sensor in a digital camera (CCD, CMOS etc) can vary in size. As new technology arrives they can get smaller or bigger and so the focal lengths of the lens can be difficult to relate to. To solve this the focal length is often specified as a 35mm equivalent, This is as if the sensor was scaled up to 35mm frame size (36x24mm) and focal length accordingly.

Digital Zoom The most useless and over-marketed feature of a digital camera. I mean, what were they thinking? Most places quite wisely tell you to ignore the digital zoom. It is nothing more than cropping and enlarging a portion of the image with a resultant loss of resolution. It does not (and cannot) alter the focal length. Switch it off and use imaging software on your desktop PC to achieve better results if you need to crop.

We all use cameras in our day to day lives. However, most of us know nothing more about the devices than "point and shoot". If you ever wondered how to take portrait photos of a subject with a blurred background, or how they take those pictures of trailing lights or water across a landscape, keep reading.

Light. We see it every day, and just like how we see light, a camera does the same thing. In dim light, our pupils dilate to bring in more light, so we can see better. In bright light, our pupils contract to restrict the amount of light so we can see without being blinded.

A camera will do this same thing. The aperture of a lens is the opening at which light passes through. For most lenses, this opening can change based on the camera's settings. These opening have been standardized into specific sizes, called aperture stops, or F-stops.

If you've ever bought an SLR camera, then you may have seen the F-stop numbers and not know what it meant. You may have seen it represented like so: f/2.8 - f/5.6. This means that this lens makes a range of openings from the 2.8 stop to the 5.6 stop. Just what does it all mean?

Follow me closely: The larger the F-stop number is, the smaller the opening is. In other words, the larger number represents the lower end of the scale, less light entering the camera. A smaller F-stop number means the opening is larger, more light entering the camera.

Aperture goes hand and hand with the shutter. The shutter is what lets light hit the film (or digital receiver). Remember, the aperture controls how much light enters, and the shutter lets that light hit the film.

Shutter speed is simply the length of time that the shutter remains open to let light hit the film. It is directly dependent on the aperture and the F-stop, because the amount of light entering the camera through the aperture determines how long the shutter remains open. With each F-stop, the shutter speed will increase or decrease in step. Naturally, a larger F-stop number (remember, smaller opening), requires a slower shutter speed. A smaller opening means less light is reaching the film, so it needs more time to create a picture or exposure.

A smaller F-stop number (remember, larger opening), requires a faster shutter speed. Less time is needed to create the exposure.

Opening and closing a shutter is like opening and closing your eyes. If you open and close your eyes quickly, you can not see very much, and only what's immediately in front of you may be in focus. However, if you leave your eyes open, much more may be in focus. This same principle applies to- you guessed it, the F-stop. How much of what's in front of you that's in focus is called depth of field.

A smaller F-stop will have a faster shutter speed, thus it would have less of a depth of field than a larger F-stop. This means that smaller F-stops (larger opening) are great for portraits, where the main subject of the photo is a person. By the same coin, larger F-stops (smaller opening) are great for landscape shots, where there is huge landscape that is the main subject.

So how to we go about making special effects?
Let's say, for example, we want to make a car or a fast moving person appear to be frozen in time, with no blur. We would want a quick shutter speed, because a slow shutter speed would capture too much light, essentially capturing too much in time, blurring the shot. A quick shutter speed would also mean a smaller F-stop. This would also mean that we have a diminished depth of field. Bottom line: Quick shutter speed = smaller F-stop number = more light being let in (larger opening) = less in focus (smaller depth of field) = frozen time, focused subject, blurred background.

Let's say we see a fountain. We want to show the water as moving and flowing. If we take a picture with the settings in the previous example, we would see droplets of water frozen in time. We want to show movement, and encourage blur in the water. So what do we do?

To begin on this example, we have to know what causes blur. We already know depth of field blur, but what about motion blur? When the camera opens it's shutter, it makes a permanent impression on the film (or digital receiver). If the shutter is held open too long and the subject moves or the camera moves, this shows on the film as blur, almost like smudging a painting. So rest assured, when a photo is blurred, the camera is functioning as intended!

For this photo, the only thing moving should be the water. Any slight movements of the camera will ruin the whole effect. The F-stop would need to be a high number, which would mean the shutter is left open longer because there is less light reaching the film. More of the picture would be in focus as well. Slow shutter speed = larger F-stop number = less light being let in (smaller opening) = more in focus (larger depth of field) = illusion of movement at higher F-stops, focused subject, focused background.

Everyone knows that in every picture there is always a center of interest. It may not be in the center per se but it should be obvious what the subject of any photograph is.

Chances are that subject is usually sharp and in focus. If it isn't, it might be framed in such a way that the viewer's eye will naturally gravitate to it.

Generally speaking, following some of these simple advice, even if you are using a point-and-shoot camera, whether digital or film, will make your pictures better.

1. Backgrounds. Usually an afterthought but this can make or break a successful portrait. Moving closer to your subject physically or moving them closer to you taking them further away from the clutter in the background reduces the depth-of-field. Depth-of-field is jargon for "how much of a picture will be in focus and appears sharp."

Because you are most likely concentrating on the face of your subject, you don't want the background to be in focus. That background especially if it is cluttered ends up competing for attention from your picture's center of interest--generally your subject's eyes.

2. Lighting. In instances when is impractical to move the subject from the background. Then what you can do to remove the clutter?

Consider lighting just the subject and basing your exposure on just your subject. A picture exposed this way immediately renders the background a none factor.

When you selectively "light" just your subject, either by opening a door or window next to the subject and turning off the room lights, you have effortlessly and effectively removed the clutter in the background.

If your aim however, is to do an "environmental portrait," then you will need to show something else in the picture that tells your viewer what your subject does for a living.

In this instance you should carefully pick elements in the scene that will "read" best. By "read," I mean choose elements which are bigger or more obvious especially if they are small in comparison to the size of your subject.

A good example of this would be if you're photographing an artist.Posing your subject, the artist, in his studio by a window or doorway and turning off all the lights in the room, leaving only a work lamp to illuminate his work on an easel is a good example of this simple technique.

If shooting in color, pay attention to the color temperature of your light sources. Using your flash or light source which is compatible in color temperature with your film or digital camera setting is extremely important. It can save you hours of post production work.

3. Lens selection. Use the longest focal length lens to enable you to fill the frame. Unlike artists who paint and draw, photographers with the exception of those who work to execute what an art director envisions, usually don't get to arrange everything in their pictures.

So they have to carefully select lenses that allow them to use as much of their viewfinder or frame as possible. In order words, they need to include only what is important or relevant. If it's a portrait, it means maybe just the face and not the whole entire body.

If you include more of the body, the less impact your subject's face will have especially if the "finished" picture is going to be small.

So telephoto lenses are usually better for portraits because it allows you to get a larger image of your subject's face without you invading their space.

Also the shallower depth-of-field will help remove the clutter of foreground and background.

4. The eyes have it all. If you have ever looked at a portrait where the subject's eyes aren't in focus, you will know this one. It's not surprising that there exists software especially in the new digital cameras that pick out faces in the viewfinder and focuses on that automatically.

If both eyes are visible, the eyes that's closer to the camera needs to be in focus and not the other way around.

I am confident if you just apply some of these four tips, you'll see improvements in your next portraits.

Photography blends science with art. The photographer is the artist who engraves his creation with light and shade. Science has gifted the artist a technically advanced digital camera for him to captivate life with it. But he must know to decipher the codes of light

And, Let There Be Light...

Natural light sources like the sun and the moon are considered the best light sources. These lights often invade indoors and make natural shots come alive. Men have created artificial lights like the ordinary bulb, the tungsten halogen lamp or the bright photoflood.

There are various types of lighting, the photographer can employ. The most common is the Directional lighting provided by flash, tungsten or several sources and can be used from the front, back or side.

Front lighting is the most in vogue but it reveals every detail. The light is at the back of the photographer beaming at the face of the subject highlighting every detail. This often results in an unexciting and flat look of your subjects. Another technique is to mystify your subject by lighting up from side. The main illumination from side adds interest and vigor with presence of dark shadows.

In Back lighting the source light remains in the rear of the subject shining in the face of the camera. So, you must be very careful while using this mode otherwise the subject will appear like a silhouette. The main advantage here is, you will be able to capture the natural expressions of your subject in an outdoor shoot, as he will not squint facing bright light.

You can employ Cross lighting where strong directional light comes from both sides. But this method is only suitable for studios with bright flash or tungsten lights.

Lighting For Digital Photography

Digital cameras may offer a wide range of easy lighting modes but there are challenges for the artist in his path to perfection. You must adopt the trial and error method and acquire the knowledge of lighting.

Most digital cameras have preset digital photography lighting modes or 'scenes' for different lighting situation. There is the indoor mode to click without flash, which is particularly useful in art galleries or museums, the night and portrait mode allows you to take pictures of your subject with a gleaming backdrop at night using a slower shutter speed.

The digital cameras provide an automatic setting for white balancing .You can determine the baseline white in your image against which, other colors will be rendered. Your camera may have a histogram to evaluate exposure in different digital photography conditions. Most cameras have various options like daylight, cloudy, tungsten and more.

What Is Auxillary Lighting?

If you want to create art using light and shadow, the Flash unit alone is not enough. Here, auxiliary lighting comes in. If you decide to shoot portraits or product shots in a studio then auxiliary lighting is not optional but necessary.

For great results use head and kicker lights. Flashlights do not generate heat like floods and spots, so are more suited for portraits. Make sure the flash suits your digital camera. If you want to shoot still shots or product shots, continuous tungsten light is the cheapest and best. A range of wattage bulbs and reflectors will help you control the intensity and direction of light too.

If you don't have money you can rent lights. Top studios have various assortments of flash units, flood and spotlights.

How to use light

Light is made up of all colors. If seen through a prism it bursts into different colors. You are free to experiment with the rainbow. Artificial lights have their own characteristics. The photographer can utilize different light sources. You can alter white setting for a different effect. Most digital cameras have color setting modes to achieve accuracy of the colors.

Direction of light is important in digital photography. People look best in diffused sidelights and backlight produces a halo effect while overhead lighting produces sharp contrast of light and shadows. Strength of light is also an essential factor. You can have placid effect from diffused lighting and sharpness from strong light.

Indoor lighting gives you ample scope to shoot nice pictures. You can assemble light as per your choice and can even harness sunlight when it enters your house to soften your image.

Outdoor shots are more challenging. It leaves you at the mercy of Mother Nature. While landscape looks good in soft light, the wildlife is captivating with fine details in bright light. So photographers try to capture wildlife just before dusk or before dawn.

In digital cameras, you do not need to worry about ISO film speed. Most digital cameras have preset ISO setting. However, experimentation is the perfect way to curb imperfection. So inflame your imagination and hone your skill. You are ready to enter the luminous empire of photography.

1. Introduction:

If you have just picked up a camera for the first time, or have been taking pictures for years, the information contained in this guide will ensure that you do not overlook anything as you frame and shoot that picture. Taking your photographs to the next level, by using a few computer tools, no special filters, and free clip art, we will walk you through the steps to create a picture like the one on the cover of this book as easy as 1-2-3.

When displaying your vehicle at a show, enthusiasts like yourself pay close attention to every detail down to the shine on the bolts to ensure that the automobile is perfect. The end quality of your pictures is dependent upon your attention to details. Whenever we take a photograph for a client and create their unique art we do exactly the same. Starting with the right photograph is key and we will provide some often overlooked aspects of automotive photography. Remember that you must start with the right photograph in order to obtain good and even great results

2. Digital Photography Basics For Automobiles:

There are two assumptions made here. The first is, that you are interested in color photography and the second is that you have read your camera owners manual and understand the features and capabilities at least at a basic level. With that said the intent of this guide is to help you get started with taking photographs and getting the best possible results. Before we continue, there is one thing often overlooked until it is too late that will ruin a great photograph. Shut off the date and time stamp feature. You can be sure that it will always take away from the picture or be in the wrong place where no amount of editing can account for it.

The focus here is to start with the best of everything possible and use your camera to the fullest. This does not mean that you need to spend $2000 on a camera and special lenses, but it does mean taking advantage of the best capabilities your camera provides. Even a $100 camera can create good small prints. After you understand your cameras feature menu and how to navigate it go back and re-read the picture quality section again. Once you understand that section set your camera to the BEST modes possible

2.3. Always Use The Flash- Well Usually

No matter if you are using a standard film camera, or a digital camera you want to be sure that your camera ALWAYS uses the flash. The only possible exception to this would be for indoor photography where there are halogen or other obtrusive lighting that you may have to experiment with. To force your camera to use the flash set your camera to "FORCE Flash" or "Fill Flash", not "AUTOMATIC Flash". This flash is often represented by a "lightening bolt" symbol. Automatic flash will determine if the flash goes off based upon the amount of light detected. When we tell you to use your flash in the sun, automatic flash will almost never turn on since it will think there is sufficient lighting. Using the flash helps to illuminate the shadowing areas, as well as minimizing any glare along with balancing the overall lighting. Force flash should be used for exterior shots, cockpit shots, and engine bay shots.

You compose and shoot that great engine bay shot and then realize when you are working with the photograph later that all you see if the top of the engine and nothing more. The flash will make the steering box, headers and other components stand out as well as enhance the top of the engine detail and make the colors stand out even more. The following examples show the difference with and without flash. In the first figure the image is rather washed out and with the blue not so blue and the red and other colors not all that brilliant.

2.7. Lens Filters and Shades

If you must take photographs in bright sun, such as an outside car show, use a lens shade and force to overcome the harsh sun. The other alternative to use especially if your flash is not powerful enough flash is to use a polarizing filter instead of the flash. The polarizing filter is one of the most useful filters for outdoor photography and is a requirement for any serious photographer, especially for those that use a digital camera. A polarizing filter will reduce the glare and make colors stand out more in harsh sun conditions. These filters can significantly reduce white-outs or wash-outs (surfaces with the primary color all washed out) due to bright reflections. Some photograph flaws can be edited out and touched up, however, these flaws are nearly impossible to eliminate after the fact and make look natural.

A second important tool to have in your camera bag is a lens shade. A lens shade is inexpensive and is attached on the end of your lens to keep excess light from directly entering lens. It basically provides a tunnel that shields the optics (lens), and due to its black color absorbs any bouncing light. This helps the camera to better detect the light levels of the subject.

3. The Photo Shoot - How Do We Work With What We Have

Now that you have a general understanding of how to use your camera, lets focus on where, when, and how to get the optimum environment. There are some things in our control, and others that are not, and at any one time they can change. It is important that we discuss each elements so you can decide what to do given your situation. These elements are lighting, the location, and the position of the automobile. If you are restricted to a specific time of day, then you many not have any control over the lighting, or do you. If you are photographing the vehicle at a show, you are probably limited to its position and location. Ideally you want the best lighting, optimum flexibility with positioning the vehicle. Lastly if you are going to remove the background from the final print, the cleanest background for editing is desirable. This section will help you take advantage of any flexibility and optimize your shoot given the environment.

3.1. Pick The Right Lighting

Given that we are focusing on color photography, proper lighting is essential. In fact proper lighting actually means LOTS OF LIGHT, and the correct type of light. Without proper lighting it is nearly impossible to have an award winning photograph, even one that has touched up with the best photo editing tools. When it comes to lighting you want to have an even distribution of light over the entire surface of the automobile. This light illuminates all areas, is not harsh or glaring and does not cause shadowing. Sun light that is at a low-angle such as at sun rise or sun set is often the best. This low-angle light covers the side surfaces with light. Sun light that is high in the sky such as that mid-day harsh sun must be avoided or you will have glaring reflections. This harsh light results in the top surfaces being washed out, and the lower areas being dark with excessive shadowing. The ultimate goal is low angle, soft, evenly distributed light that illuminates the entire vehicle. Also remember to keep the sun behind you and watch out for your own shadow!

3.2. Picking The Location

The lighter color the ground surface the better the lower area lighting will be and less lower body panel shadowing due to the upward reflected light. Parking the vehicle on a light colored concrete surface versus a dark asphalt surface has this is a major benefit as well as making the tire profiles stand out due to the black rubber from the lighter surface. This reflection will better illuminate the lower areas including the undercarriage and minimize shadows.

The intent for many of the photographs put into fantasy scenes is to remove the background and have the vehicle stand alone. It is important that nothing sticks up in front of any part of the vehicle and causes an obstruction. Unless your final print will be of your automobile in a grassy field, do not take your pictures on a lawn or grassy field. The blades of grass will hide the bottom of the tires as well as produce reflections and irregular shadowing on the lower panels and any reflective surfaces such as bumpers. This is also true if taking pictures on a gravel area. The tires could slightly depress the surface hiding the lower portion.

3.3. Positioning The Vehicle

Park the vehicle away from anything that will cause a reflection on it. For example, the white parking lot stripes will be reflected on the side panels and in the glass. Any building signs or even trees will be reflected and even if they are not clear, they will end up looking like distorted body work in the final print. Remember your automobile can be like a mirror and many things around will show up as a reflection and later take away from the final picture.

Position the vehicle for the best lighting. Remember that you want to always take the picture from the sun side and not the shadow side (sun always behind you). This may require that you reposition the vehicle during a photo shoot for optimum lighting from all sides. Make sure that the areas that you are photographing (i.e. front/side, etc.) are positioned for best lighting.

3.5. What Angles Should You Take

Take a series of photographs with all doors, hood, trunk are completely closed. This series should include the following shots (refer to the example pictures). In this section we will include the final photographs that were created in order to help you jump ahead and start to visualize what can be done as you look at the different angles. These are only a few compositions, and many more combinations could be created using different backgrounds and the inclusion / exclusion of various elements. Just use your imagination, and eventually you will be able to look at a vehicle and have a good idea of what the final print will look like.

4. Basic Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator Introduction

For most photography work and picture manipulation you will be using Adobe Photoshop or other similar photo editing tool. If you will be creating large prints greater than 11x17 with text, you should use an illustration tool that provides good text and layout capabilities such as Adobe Illustrator. With these two types of tools you can create fantastic and artistic pictures, and then include them in professional looking layouts. The intent of this section is to provide some starting guidelines to create some of the basic pictures that are displayed on www.PalmieriConcepts.com. Keep in mind that the guidelines and steps provided here have been generalized, however, they will point you in the right direction to create a great picture. The references in this section are referring to Photoshop, so if you are using a different photo editing tool, you will need to find the equivalent features.

The full book contains the complete section on editing the photographs and creating an image like the one on the cover of the book.

So to get started, take what you have learned here, get out that camera and have fun.

When dark clouds roll into the sky most photographers run for shelter, but the ones who stay out and brave the weather can sometimes capture the most amazing photos. Bad weather can give photographers a chance to capture rain photos, snow photos, or even lightning photos. In the world of photography the rarer and harder to capture photos tend to sell for a higher price; so there is a potentially large market for bad weather conditions if you are a photographer.

Rain Photography

When it rains outside the moisture tends to create a shiny surface on most materials. In the cities the rain causes the streets to shine and the buildings to look gloomy. In the countryside the grass can shine with the right amount of light and droplets of water hanging from branches and leaves often sparkle. The clouds that accompany the rain also diffuse the available sunlight spreading it equally and removing shadows. I have found that rain can create amazing landscape, wildlife, and even portrait photos. Animals tend to curl up or tuck their heads into their fur in order to keep dry and warm offering some amazing nature photo opportunities. Portrait photos in the rain can also be very compelling because the light reflected off of people’s faces can often dominate the frame because the rain dampens the light reflected off of surroundings.

When it rains you will probably have to use either a longer shutter speed or a wider aperture because the clouds tend to also block out direct sunlight. In order to be prepared for rain you should have a waterproof bag for your camera as well as an umbrella or something else that you can use to shield the top of the lens so water doesn’t reach the front of the lens and leave water droplets. I also always carry a tripod in the rain so I can make sure that I can do a long enough exposure without having the results blurry from cold shaky hands.

Lightning

Many photographers spend hours trying to capture a bolt of lightning lighting up the scene in their photos. Lightning is definitely one of the hardest things to capture in a photograph. It definitely requires a tripod and often requires a very long shutter speed. Most photographers try to capture lightning by using the “bulb” option of shutter speed where the photographer simply just manually holds the shutter open as long as necessary until a bolt of lightning streaks through the sky and then the photographer closes the shutter right after the lightning passes so it is as bright as possible in the frame.

Snow Photography

Snow can change a landscape photo into a winter wonderland photo. The whiteness of the snow tends to add a nice contrast to the normal colors of a scene which makes for very effective photos. Snow photos can also make for unique nature photos and can often sell for a higher price because they are so appealing. Unfortunately some snowy locations where the very rare animals live such as penguins and polar bears are very hard to reach and require a great deal of risk and effort.

Bright and white snow can be trickier to capture effectively then most photographers think. The light readers on cameras tend to see snow as very bright so it sets the exposure for the brightness of the snow leaving the background and other objects almost as dark as a silhouette. Most experienced photographers overexpose the snow photos they take leaving the snow as bright as it is in real life and the rest of the frame well-exposed as it should be. Snow can also disrupt the camera’s automatic white balance sensor so you should also make sure that you either adjust the white balance to suit the snow or switch the auto white balance mode to the snow white balance mode.

Storm Chasing

There are many serious and adventurous photographers that have devoted their careers to getting the best photos of hurricanes and tornadoes that Mother Nature has to offer. This type of photography is very dangerous but can also provide some high priced photos that are demanded by magazines and news conglomerates all over the country. Extreme storm photos are one of the only types of photos that can bring fear to the viewers who have the privilege of seeing them. They can also inspire wonder in viewers at the destructive power and forces of nature.

Storm photography requires some durable equipment and different techniques then other more normal types of photography. Some photographers stay relatively far away from the storm and just have to deal with rain and high winds. These photographers usually have covers and lens cleaners that they can use to clear the lens of water droplets quickly before they are ready to take a photo. Other photographers commonly leave cameras set up on tripods in the paths of a storm that they can operate by remote control from a safe location. These cameras are put in protective cases and have special tripods that can be drilled into the ground.

Conclusion

Bad weather should be looked at as an opportunity by photographers instead of as a nuisance that is avoided. Some of the best photos that I have taken have been in situations where there was rain, snow, or wind. I recommend that all serious photographers should carry a tripod and some kind of covering that can be used shield the camera from wind and moisture if they are going on a long trip with unpredictable weather. The successful photographers are the ones that are ready and willing to deal with difficult circumstances that other photographers would normally avoid.

Shoot in Camera RAW Format
Number One: If you have read any of my previous photography guides then you probably know that I strongly recommend shooting in RAW format. Why is this so important? The answer simply boils down to control. When you set your digital camera to automatically convert your images to JPEGs, you give up a great deal of processing control. Most digital cameras automatically apply sharpening, saturation, and tonal adjustments during the conversion process. The image is also compressed into an 8-bit file removing a great deal of the exposure latitude that you had with the original photograph (up to 16-bits for many cameras). Essentially the camera automatically applies a standard set of processing routines to the image and then throws out roughly one third or more of the data during the compression process. The JPEG file format is destructible in that it compresses and recompresses the image (and thereby removing file information) each time it is saved. If you do shoot in JPEG format, be sure to save your processed files as PSDs or TIFFs to avoid additional compression and to retain all of your Photoshop layers.

Always be on the Lookout for New Locations
Number Two: It goes without saying that traveling to exotic locations around the world is an exciting part of landscape photography; however you can find just as many wonderful places to photograph in your own area. Success as a landscape photographer has a lot to do with preplanning and scouting out potentially new locations. Scenes that you photographed during the summer have a whole different look and feel during the fall. Whether you are out photographing a specific location or just driving through a new area on unrelated business, always be on the look out for hidden gems. This might be a little known area where eagles are feeding or an abandoned farm concealed by years of overgrown weeds and brambles. Even while I am out and about hanging out with my family and friends, I always have my eyes open for new places to work.

Shoot During Hours of Dawn and Dusk
Number Three: Many of my favorite images were taken during the golden hours of dawn and dusk. A successful landscape photographer is usually willing to get out of bed well before dawn or to stay out late into the evening to capture the beautiful light of the setting sun.

I have a good friend who is an exceptional landscape photographer. He recently paid a good deal of money to travel to exotic areas of South America with a small group of photographers. He told me that when they arrived at each location he was surprised to find many of the photographers in his group unwilling to get up early with him to work during the early hours of dawn. Imagine paying thousands of dollars to travel to exclusive parts of another country to photograph landscapes just to sleep in! Having this kind of discipline must extend beyond fancy trips to other countries. A good landscape photographer knows that dawn and dusk are two of the best periods of time during the day to capture exceptional landscapes. Take advantage of this as much as your schedule allows and try to establish a routine of going out early and/or staying out late. Whether you come back with beautiful images or not, you will always be rewarded with the wonderful solace that comes with watching the sunrise and sunset.

Arrive Early and be Ready
Number Four: Consider getting to your pre-selected location well in advance of the time you actually expect to shoot. Photography is a creative endeavor and should not be rushed. If you find yourself chasing the sunset or rushing to capture the sunrise at the last minute, you are missing the point! High quality landscape photography usually requires that you take a slow, methodical approach. I think that a lot of us fall into the trap of shooting off the hip and hoping that one of our shots will stand out.

Landscape photography should be creative and not mechanical. This is a little bit like going to an important business meeting where you have been selected as group's main presenter. If you leave for the meeting late and rush into the conference room just as things are getting started, you are much more likely to give a dismal performance. In contrast, if you make an effort to arrive early, get your equipment setup, and take a few moments to collect your thoughts; you are much more likely to give a more impressionable and meaningful presentation. The same approach is true of landscape photography. Arrive early and give yourself plenty of time to transition into a creative mode.

Bracket Your Exposures
Number Five: When I worked with 35mm cameras, I was always conscious of how much film I was using. Between purchasing the high quality film I needed and then processing it later, it was always extremely expensive! Today with high-resolution digital single lens reflex cameras we have less to worry about when it comes to the cost per image (of course today's DSLRs are generally more expensive that traditional SLRs were). Now there are fewer reasons to avoid bracketing your exposures.

In photography there is nothing more disappointing than to capture what you think was the perfect shot just to later find that it was improperly exposed or even out of focus. When you can, take the time to bracket your images. Bracketing also gives you a bit more creative latitude in processing by allowing you to use Photoshop CS2's HDR feature to combine shots to increase an image's total dynamic range. Even better than HDR is manually combining images that have been exposed for different areas of a scene and using layer masks to create a single photograph with additional dynamic range. For example, the image above is a composite of two shots: one exposed for the sky and the other exposed for the foreground. This could have only been accomplished by taking multiple photographs at different exposures; the total dynamic range was just too great in any single exposure.

Use a Tripod
Number Six: The reason for using a tripod might seem obvious on the surface. For me using a tripod goes beyond reducing camera shake and taking photographs at slower shutter speeds. I have found putting my camera on a tripod forces me to slow down and really examine my composition. It is so easy to just fire off a bunch of hand held shots without really thoughtfully looking at the composition. Intuitively most of us know what we are trying to achieve in a particular shot; however taking the extra time to setup your camera on a tripod can help you slow down and pay extra attention to composition. Remember that having a creative mindset is central to capturing high quality landscape images.

Keep in Mind the Rule of Thirds
Number Seven: Sure, rules are meant to be broken. This is especially true of rules that involve such a creative process as photography; however the Rule of Thirds is a pretty good standard to keep in mind. Push yourself to try out different ideas and compositions that may be outside your comfort zone or usual style. I estimate that 20% or fewer of my landscape images rise to a level of quality where I feel comfortable presenting them to others! With digital cameras and massive amounts of storage, you can have fun with your work and try out new ideas. You never know, you may like what you see!

Do Not Forget to Look Around
Number Eight: I have to constantly remind myself to look around my environment and to refrain from getting locked into a single perspective. What do I mean by this? How many times have you been photographing a spectacular scene just to look over and see an even better possibility? If you get too focused on one particular composition, you may miss opportunities for other equally or better photographs that are within walking distance of where you are shooting.

The classic example of when this seems to happen to me the most is when I am shooting directly into the rising sun (which can be wonderful for silhouette and high dynamic range landscapes). Occasionally I get so wrapped up in what I am seeing that I forget to look behind where I am standing (opposite the sunrise). Even after I setup my camera on a tripod and finalize a composition for the scene I am photographing; I still try to remember to move around and look for additional perspectives. I typically make a point to walk approximately 20-feet in all directions staying alert for additional ideas. My main point here is to suggest the importance of remaining open minded about the other possibilities that might exist and to avoid getting overly committed to just one perspective.

Shoot Often
Number Nine: This should be a no-brainer, but remember that you increase your odds of capturing outstanding landscape photographs if you go out in the field often and on a regular basis. If you are like me and have a real job during the day, you may only be able to get out a couple times a week. It is so easy to put off going out (especially early in the morning!) when you get busy with other aspects of life. Again, much of this boils down to discipline and creating good habits for shooting regularly. Even if you are facing poor weather conditions (e.g. gray sky, clouds, rain, etc.), push yourself to go out and shoot anyway. You never know, you might just come back with wonderful black and white images or beautiful photographs of a dramatic lightning storm.

Keep a Photo Diary
Number Ten: Keeping notes about your work in a small notebook or diary can be a useful way of remembering important details about a location or a series of photographs. This can include the direction you were looking while taking a particular shot, weather conditions, temperature, how you accessed a specific area, and any other unique information that you want to recall later on. It does not take very long before I forget unique little details about a series of images. Fortunately with EXIF data we do not have to worry about keeping track of exposure information, resolution, color space, and the time and date an image was taken; however taking note of some of the other details mentioned above can oftentimes be useful later on. These details can be added later to the EXIF file so that the information always stays with the image. Consider placing a small notebook and pen in your camera bag so that you are ready.

Recognize that You May Come Back Empty Handed
Number Eleven: This really does not qualify as tip as much as it is a state of mind. I used to get so frustrated going out to shoot landscapes just to come back with nothing (or only a couple of decent shots). I remember driving five hours to a hiking trail that I was sure would have a great deal of wildlife and landscape opportunities to photograph (from previous experience). When I arrived I spent two hours climbing to the top of a large peak that had a commanding view of the entire valley. After all the work and effort to get to the top, it started sprinkling and then eventually the conditions worsened to lighting and heavy rain (I was in shorts too!).

The deteriorating weather conditions forced me to hike back down and eventually drive home. I was so frustrated because in the end I was only able to capture a couple of decent shots. All of the wildlife had literally disappeared and the extremely poor weather conditions made for mediocre landscape photography at best. As I drove home I was struck by how I was trying so hard to force things to work that I had not truly enjoyed the experience. After considering it for a while (on my five hour ride back home) I came away with the realization that it was ok for me to come back empty handed once in a while.

Most of the time my hard work and discipline are rewarded and I capture wonderful landscape images, but sometimes I end up returning with nothing but another experience. I think as a landscape photographer you have to be ok with that and remember that sometimes you will strike out despite all your best efforts. Planning your outings, having some experience in photography, and taking the proper equipment are important factors, but the weather and conditions are-what-they-are when you arrive. You cannot control everything. Remember this and try to have fun!

Learn How to Use Photoshop (CS2 or Elements)
Number Twelve: As a film photographer, I worked very hard to make sure all of my shots were spot on. I was careful to use the appropriate film for the lighting conditions, to adjust my exposure and shutter speeds appropriately, and to take my negatives to well known and respected businesses for processing (if I was not doing it myself). After switching to a digital camera, it took me a while to grasp the significance Photoshop plays in this new era of photography. Going digital means that you (the photographer) are now in complete control of the processing. We have so much more power and latitude in Photoshop with digital images that we do not have while working with film in a traditional way. On average, I estimate that I spend 30-40% of my time composing and taking photographs in the field and 60-70% of my time later processing them in Photoshop. This means that a great deal more of my time is now spent in front of my computer than in the field. Having a basic understanding of how to use Photoshop can be the difference between simply a good image and a jaw-dropping, incredible one.

Please do not hear me suggest that you can stop worrying about exposure, shutter speed, and composition just because you can "Photoshop" away problems later on in processing. All of the basic principles of photography still apply. It is still important to work hard to get your shots "right" out of the camera, but we are now able to do so much more with the digital photographs in processing (especially if you shoot RAW images) than would have ever been possible just a few years ago. Even if you do not consider yourself technologically proficient or the complexity of Photoshop scares you, take the time to learn how to use a few of Photoshop's basic processing tools and develop a consistent digital workflow. This means gaining familiarity with using adjustment layers for levels, curves, saturation, channel mixer, and others. Layer masks also provide an incredible amount of control in processing selective areas of a photograph.

There are so many free resources available on the Internet to learn from that there are really no excuses for not becoming familiar with Photoshop. If you are a visual learner, look for free video tutorials; if you like to take a slower approach, look for written guides like this one. You might also consider purchasing a book or two on using some of the basic photo processing tools offered in Photoshop from a local bookstore (can you say Half Price Books!). Below is a list of websites that offer (mostly free) tutorials on using Photoshop effectively. Check them out!

Web Resources for Using Photoshop
www.photoshoptv.com/
www.radiantvista.com/
www.tricks.onigo.net/
www.photoshopquicktips.com/
www.picturecorrect.com/
www.photoshopkillertips.com/
www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ps_pro.html
www.lightroomkillertips.com/
www.paxtonprints.com/index.php?x=tutorials

Tip 1: Miss the eyes and you've missed the shot. Getting the eyes in focus is key to capturing a photo of an animal. It's human nature to look at the eyes. It's how we determine emotion and how we connect. When I was in Homer, Alaska, I came across a moose on the move. Given it was early morning and the light was low I knew getting a fast shutter speed to freeze his movement would be tough, so I quickly adjusted my camera to lock the focus on his eyes, and took the shot. The majority of the picture was a bit blurry, but because the eyes are in focus, the shot was saved.

Tip 2: Use a telephoto lens. Getting closer to the action, yet staying a safe distance, is the key to photographing wildlife. By keeping your distance you allow the animal to be in their comfort zone and are more likely to get natural behavior. Safety is also a factor when photographing in the wild. Always keep at least 100 yards distance from wildlife, for your safety and for the well being of the animals. Another good use for a telephoto lens is a trick not many people know, which comes in very handy when photographing animals in the zoo that are behind fencing. If you move close to the fence (keep a safe distance) and use at least 100mm of your telephoto lens, focusing beyond the fence, with a wide aperture, you can "focus out" the fencing and take a photo of the subject with no wires! Now, there are some exceptions, such as, if the fencing is black you’ll have a much better chance of pulling this off. Regular chain link fence is gray and semi-reflective, which in the sunlight can cause a glare and is often too bright to focus out. I’ve also had some successes at trying different angles, so experiment for your best results. I often shoot with a Canon 100-400mm IS USM and a Canon 28-300mm IS USM. If you're new to telephoto lenses, on a budget and not sure what to get, I suggest the Tamron 28-300mm or a Sigma 70-300mm. I've also had great results with the Sigma 50-500 which, as of this writing, I consider to be the best bang for the buck. These lenses all work with teleconverters of 1.4x and 2.0x so you can easily extend your reach even further, often while keeping auto-focus (with Canon L lenses, a minimum aperture of 4.0 or less will support auto-focus. Above that a manual focus is your only option.)

Tip 3: Use a wide aperture. Learning the effects of adjusting your camera's aperture will go a long way toward improving your photographs, especially in portrait style shooting. In a photo of a grazing elk I shot in Yellowstone, I chose a very wide aperture to blur out a potentially busy background and bring attention to the subject instead. As you learn to control your camera you'll also find that adjusting your aperture will have a direct effect on your shutter speed. This will prove especially helpful when shooting in the early mornings and late evenings, when animals are typically most active and the light is warm and muted.

Tip 4: Adjust your shutter speed to stop/show the action. When animals are on the move you need to decide quickly on the type of shot you want to take. If you want to freeze the action, you'll need to shoot at 1/500 or faster and depending on light, that can be tricky. One option, if you're shooting digital, is to adjust up your ISO, which will make your sensor more sensitive to light and give you that needed boost in shutter speed. Now, if you want to give a sense of motion to your image, try shooting with a shutter speed of 1/4 to 1/8 and pan your camera with the animal. Pan steady and remember, keep the eye in focus if you can! For best results, pick backgrounds that are uncluttered and simple, as this will make the subject standout in the image.

Tip 5: Use a flash to fill in shadows. It may sound odd, but using a flash outside on a bright sunny day actually makes a lot of sense. In this situation, you're not using the flash to illuminate the subject, as you would in a dark setting, but rather to fill in the shadows and provide detail where harsh shadows would otherwise be heavy and dark. It's important to use flash wisely and here are a couple of other suggestions:

Be conscious of the animal and whether flash will scare them and,
There are times where your only shoot is through glass -- using a flash behind glass will ruin your shot. The glass will reflect the light back at the camera and you shouldn't be surprised if all you get is a big white picture!

Tip 6: Plan for the best light. There's nothing like a cloudy day to provide soft, even light for wildlife photography. Clouds act like a giant diffuser to the sun, spreading the light out evenly and taking away harsh shadows that are created by a bright, sunny day. Of course, a cloudy day has its challenges as well, such as lower light, which will force you to adjust ISO and shutter speed settings for stopping action and getting sharp, in focus images.

Tip 7: Composition - Framing your shots. Some simple framing advise can go a long way toward improving an image, and for those who are computer savvy, a little trick called cropping (software technique to cut a photo) can help improve composition that wasn't quite right at the time the photo was taken. The best way to think about composition is to picture a tic-tac-toe grid in the view finder of your camera (I've seen some new cameras that come with this as a feature you can turn on!) and use that grid to organize your shots. There is no hard rule, but the general theory behind good composition is that your subject lies in one of the crosshairs of the grid. Setting up your shot to lead the eye is also a good example of composition.

Tip 8: Shoot with two eyes. This is a tip I'm sharing here, but often have a hard time remembering myself. I can't tell you how many shots I've missed because I didn't see the action coming. By keeping both eyes open you'll see the subject in the viewfinder and you'll also see what's going to happen next.

Tip 9: Anticipate behavior. This tip goes well with Tip 8, shoot with both eyes, because anticipating behavior is often key to capturing a rare moment, action and unique situations. Panning the camera to follow an animal can be a tiring process, so often I'll study the animal's behaviors watching for a pattern and then use some anticipatory shooting, and a little luck, to hopefully capture that perfect moment.

Tip 10: Use a tripod. Using a tripod is one of the best things you can do to improve your photography, and wildlife is no different. By mounting your camera to a tripod you reduce camera shake, which is usually the cause of blurry photos. To take this a step further, I use a shutter release cable, which eliminates the need to touch the camera while snapping shots and thus removes almost all potential for camera shake.

Bonus Tip: Shoot. Shoot. Shoot. This tip is a no-brainer for those of us who shoot digital. Shooting digital is cheap -- technology is advancing so quickly that, as of this writing, a 4 gigabyte memory card is selling for less than $100 and you can get A LOT of photos on a 4 gig memory card. The bottom line of this tip is take photos....a lot of photos. Don't be shy. I often take multiple photos of the same scene or subject and then later choose the best from the group. This is also a great way to learn; by adjusting your camera between shots you can experiment and see the results of different settings of your camera. And, don't sweat the details of trying to remember which photo had which settings...another great thing about shooting digital is something called EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format). EXIF data is written to every photo so that later, upon review, you can see every setting your camera used to take that image.