My view is:  Just take photo’s and go with your gut feeling of what looks good!

The below is a photo from Willen Lake that was stitched with…  No not Photoshop, Windows Live Photo Gallery (Free Program).

This is evidence you don’t need the best equipment / settings to get a pleasing photo.

Go download Windows Live Photo Gallery and get some photo’s left to right making sure you move in equal stops overlapping each frame slightly.

Good luck mastering digital landscape photography!  Simon.

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I recommend if you do start shooting HDR, to always use a solid tripod like a Manfrotto, and ensure the subject is not moving.  For action sport HDR, you can shoot RAW and under expose by a 1/3 then output 3x tiff files – Under exposed, normal, and over exposed.  Then layer the 3 in software such as Photomatix.

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As photography becomes cheaper and memory cards larger, many people just take photos like a happy snapper. Back in the days of film it could work out quite expensive shooting off a few rolls of film in one go. You had the initial cost of film, the developing costs and postage or travel costs to get your films to someone who could develop them, then there was the cost of enlarging your images (it’s not easy to see how well focused an image is on a 6×4 print!) These days people aren’t as thoughtful about what they take photos of and don’t often spend as much time setting up as they previously did.

There are many misconceptions about “more is better” and that if you can shoot off several hundred photos, you’re bound to have a good one in there somewhere. How about if you take 10 photos and all of them are worthy of being blown up and framed on your wall? I know I prefer the second option. One benefit of taking your time with your photography and getting a higher percentage of “keepers” is you get more motivation! If I took a hundred photos and none of them came out very well, I would be sorely disappointed. If I took a few photos that I carefully thought about but they came out much better I’d be far happier! Wouldn’t you?

A lot of people treat their camera like a machine gun and literally “point and shoot” in burst mode without thinking about what they’re doing. The trick is to slow down and think before you push the button. Think about when you learn anything in the early days (driving, cycling, swimming) you start slow! Only with experience and knowledge can you speed the process up but you have to get the basics right first. Photography doesn’t have to be a hard or difficult subject but it can be a lot more rewarding when you slow down and apply some basic principles and techniques that are used by some of the best photographers today.

If you would like to improve your creativity and get better digital photos EVERY time you pick up your camera, see the below simple steps:

1. Time – Spend some time observing and analysing your subject and surroundings and you can learn a lot about what can make a better photo. If the sun is in a position that isn’t very favourable for your photo, could you come back another day and take a better photo? Some photographers spend months at a time on projects until they get it right.

2. Choose carefully – Choose to take photos of something you can relate to and enjoy. You can achieve so much more if you have a background knowledge and passion for a subject. Pets, children, family are but a few options for photographic subjects that many people can relate to and take great photos of.

3. Visualise the photo – When you look through the viewfinder, look into the corners and tops and bottoms to make sure you get the photo as you want it! It’s amazing how many times peoples feet get missed off or the tops of their heads are missing when looking back at the photos. You can also try moving people around, or move around the people – try some different angles.

4. Be unique – When taking a photo, is it something someone else has taken exactly the same way before? Make your own unique photos by choosing a different angle, what about taking a photo when laying down on the floor and looking up, how about looking down from a higher vantage point? These can produce some incredible results – all you need to do is be creative!

Digital photography is a great thing to know! Put some creativity into your photos and you’re ahead of the rest of the crowd. Apply the above tips and I’m sure you will see an improvement the next time you pick up your camera and start taking some photos.

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There are many reasons why you may want to learn digital photography, perhaps you want to get some photos of loved ones or maybe of your pets.  Whatever your reason, we have some digital photography tips to help you on your way to taking great photos.

Tip 1: Focusing

Even though most cameras have an auto-focus function, it can often mis calculate the best area to focus on? Spot focusing can be an effective way to improve EVERY photo you take, it gives you more control over what the auto-focus chooses to focus on, whilst taking the hassle out of manually focusing.  Whether you use a compact camera or an SLR, the option to choose spot focusing is very common just look in the menu or consult your user manual.  There is one much overlooked, but great method when taking photos of people. This is to make sure the persons eyes are in focus.  After setting the camera to use spot focusing, aim the centre of the focus area over the persons eyes, there is usually a small indication in the viewfinder to show the area where the camera is focusing.  Hold the shutter release button half-way down so the focusing adjusts to bring the eyes into focus.  Then re-frame the photo whilst still holding the shutter release button half-way down so you have a nicely composed image and take the picture.  The eyes will be more in focus, the image well composed and overall have more quality!

Tip 2:  Fill-In Flash

Most of the time people don’t think to use the flash when taking photo’s during daytime. This can drastically improve your results immediately!  Let’s say, for example, you’re taking a photo of
someone with their back to the sun, most cameras will auto adjust to have the brightest area evenly exposed, leaving the person’s face very dark and under-exposed.  This is when you need to turn the
flash onto manual override (usually when you see the lightning symbol on the screen of your camera), and take the photo – the exposure still measures the same as before so the sky isn’t too bright and over exposed but the fill-in flash provides some extra lighting and brings out the good detail in the face without looking too artificial.  This is excellent also when photographing someone wearing a hat and their face is in shade.

Tip 3:  White Balance

Many people find that after they’ve taken photographs indoors or in certain conditions outdoors, the results are disappointing because of an overall orange, blue or green colour cast.  This is because the white balance is set incorrectly.  To prevent this, set the camera’s white balance to the appropriate setting e.g. flash, cloudy, shade, sunlight etc.  Most of the time the auto white balance is sufficient, but when results are not entirely accurate it is necessary to use the manual settings.  This offers many benefits including creative use of white balance e.g. a warm looking photo for a sunset or low evening light.  Have a play around to find what settings work best and when but the options are there to be used.

Tip 4:  Picture Quality

All digital cameras store the image as a digital file, the most popular of which is a JPEG file or .JPG extension when viewing on a PC.  The most appropriate and useful setting is the highest quality and largest picture size so for example if you have a 10 Megapixel camera there is little point in taking photo’s in 2 Megapixel resolution.  The other setting is the compression, which is how much space the same size image occupies on a memory card.  If the compression is set to low (high quality) it will use more space per photo but this gives the best image quality and is the best setting to use.  Memory cards are very cheap these days so there is no reason to shoot poor quality if your camera can shoot better!  The benefits are when printing you will get a much better result and if you need to email the photo’s most email programs e.g. Outlook express support re-sizing of photos (select photos to send and right click, then send to mail recipient) this will bring up a dialogue on most PC’s to resize for emailing and will use less space, but the original file is still at maximum quality.  If you prefer, you can use a re-sizing program such as the FREE Microsoft Windows XP add-on called Picture Resizer which you can download now from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/learnmore/tips/eschelman2.mspx

Tip 5:  ISO Settings (also known as film speed)

The ISO setting determines how sensitive the digital sensor is to light and can be adjusted for many purposes.  If you want atmospheric photos in low light without using the flash, then shooting at a high ISO will enable this, the only downside however is the amount of grain on the image, added grain however can be used for creative purposes.  For bright light or daytime photography then a low ISO (ISO 100 to 200) will give a smoother image with a fine detail.  If in daylight and shooting fast movement then a higher ISO can be used (400 to 800) and this will enable a faster shutter speed.

Tip 6:  Shutter Speed

Shutter speed can be set as a priority on some camera’s, however if it can’t be there are other ways to force the shutter speed to change.  An evenly exposed photo consists of correct ISO settings, shutter speed and depth of field (aperture).  If the ISO setting is increased the photo will be brighter and if it is decreased the image will be darker.  If the shutter speed is increased the image will be brighter and if it’s decreased the image will be darker, if the aperture is set to a shallow depth of field (low f-stop) the image will be brighter and if set to a deep depth of field (high f-stop) the image will be darker.  Using this knowledge we can have an appropriate shutter speed for what we want to take a photo of.

Tip 7:  Choose the Aspect Ratio

Aspect ratio is the ratio of the height of a picture to its width, expressed in a form such as these actual examples: 16:9, 3:2, 4:3, or even 1:1.  Some cameras offer a variety of options for aspect ratio. The benefit of this is that you can select an appropriate setting for what you want to do with the picture.  If you want to watch a slideshow on your widescreen TV (some TV’s allow you to plug your memory card straight in!) then choose 16:9.  If you want to edit on a standard PC monitor then 4:3 is best, for printing 3:2 is a good setting and will allow you to print 6×4 prints or 12×8 if you want larger prints without losing the tops or edges (with film, 7×5 cuts off part of the photo!).

I hope you enjoyed these digital photography tips and now have a better understanding of digital photography and can get some great digital photos the next time you pick up your camera!  For a complete guide on learning digital photography covering the above and more click here.

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