Memory cards are cheap these days. Well… the super fast ones or super big ones aren’t so cheap, but generally speaking the price of cards has dropped so much that you shouldn’t have much reason to worry about how many pictures you can fit onto a card.

 Still, people like to delete pictures they think they won’t like using their camera. There are a few good reasons why you likely should avoid doing that – not least of which is the time it takes to weed through good and bad pictures.

Here are three reasons you should stick with what you’ve got until you have time to sort through them on your computer. » MORE

Posing a model is a tough thing for some photographers to grasp. A lot of it is technical, of course – and you’ll find that certain angles and certain poses work well a great deal of the time. The trick behind getting the great shots, however, lies in your ability to communicate and work with your model(s). A lot of it has to do with the kind of rapport you can build with them.

This is tied in to your charisma as a photographer (and as a human being), and is something that can’t really be taught, but simply knowing that your banter accounts for a better working environment can dramatically increase your chances at producing the sorts of shots you’re looking for. » MORE

I’m sure you’ve seen light paintings like this one before. Painting with light is a technique that’s been around since the days of film. All it requires is a camera which has a controllable exposure, a dark environment, and some lights. You can paint anything with light. This streaky pinpoint light effect lets you write or create fine lines in the air… similar to streaking tail lights on the highway, and using the same principle. You can also light a regular subject using bursts of light from a flashlight or strobe. » MORE

Objects In Rear View Mirror May Appear Larger Than They Are.

I would have to say that the best advice I ever received as a photographer, from somebody much older and wiser than myself, was to “get closer”. It may seem a little trite and obvious at first, but when I started really listening to this advice while I was shooting, I started to see a dramatic difference in my shots. Pushing myself that extra bit to get just a step closer, to fill the frame just a little more, was giving me much better results.

Depending on the focal length of your lens, getting closer can have a dramatic impact. The image here was shot with a 10.5mm fisheye lens – and within a few inches of the subject. This is pretty extreme, but it’s taking advantage of the space I have to fill and the qualities of the lens I’m using.
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It’s time for a New Years resolution. Say it with me. “This year, I vow to change my dried up shooting angles.”

Let’s be frank. The dead-on angle of view is dead. Very few pictures look good when you pose your subject and take a straight, eye-level picture of them.

By simply changing the position of the camera higher, lower, or tilting it, you can come up with some much more exciting results. » MORE

Everything happens in threes. I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but somebody once said that and it seemed like an appropriate way to start this article, because that’s how a lot of the world’s strongest photographers see the world.

Just about anyone who has taken a photo class or read a photography book knows about the rule of thirds. However, given that cameras these days have come down in price so dramatically, we have a lot more lay people shooting high-end cameras… and not everyone has been exposed to this little tidbit of wisdom.

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I remember my photographer teacher talking about the ‘Sunny 16 Rule’ when I was shooting an old Canon A1. It’s one of those pieces of information you kind of forgot when you make the move to the digital world, where automation rules, and manual exposure tricks are resigned to becoming problem solving tricks. Why remember tricks when matrix metering is so smart?

Well, recently I was asked about taking pictures of the moon, which is when that buried information struck me again. Because of the way a DSLR meter measures light, by trying its best to find a balance of light and dark, you’ll find it’s difficult (even with a spot meter) to properly expose something like the moon. The ‘Sunny 16 Rule’, or more appropriate to this particular question, the ‘Moony 11 Rule’ – is perfect for this type of problem. » MORE

They glow and sparkle and can be virtually irresistable to a photographer. Taking pictures of outdoor Christmas lights is tricky, but it can be done – with some amazing results if you do it right. If you walk through a few steps outlined below, and are willing to get a little creative with your settings and experiment, you’ll be able to get some gorgeous Christmas light shots as well.

As is usually the case with odd lighting situations, there is no particularly right answer on how to approach the problem. I can point you in the right direction, but playing and understanding why you’re doing the things you’re doing is key to getting the shot.

Ideally, we’ll want to try and shoot our lights in twilight. The biggest problem most people face with Christmas light shots is waiting until it’s totally dark. We can do it at night too, but by shooting in twilight, we’ll be able to more easily get some context in the image and balance the lights with our surrounding. To do this, we’ll shoot in a Manual exposure mode so that we can have full control over the settings, and we may use some flash if we also want to see some of the house or the surroundings. » MORE