A great place to practice your photography techniques is right in your backyard. The flower garden is ever changing with the season and the weather, and the blooms are very cooperative subjects. They don’t get bored, or tired of standing in one place, or refuse to look at the camera. What better place for a novice, or even a seasoned pro, to practice a newly learned technique?

1. Pay attention to your depth of field and your focus point.
   Blooms such as daylilies, daffodils and irises have long stamens and pistils, so a narrow depth of field will place either the stamens or the petals out of focus. Decide where you want to focus and check your depth of field to make sure everything you want to be sharp is sharp.
2. Try your macro setting
   Most cameras have a macro setting which will allow you to get very close to the subject and still focus. In fact, this setting is usually indicated with the flower icon. After you are comfortable with technique #1, expand your horizons with the macro setting and see how narrow your depth of field can get.
3. Diagonal lines are more dynamic
   Remember the compositional rule of thirds and place your subject anywhere but in the center of the frame. Then tilt the camera a bit so the subject moves through the frame on a diagonal. This diagonal line will give your subject some energy, and pull the viewers eye along the subject.
4. Make it rain
   I’m not suggesting that you head out on a rainy day (although that does have its benefits if your camera can take the wet), but have you noticed how pretty a dew-kissed flower looks? Before you pull out the camera, spray the bloom with some water-not too much or it may close up-and snap away with the droplets becoming a secondary subject.
5. Stay out of the midday sun
   Good photographers learn early that the best natural light for any type of photography is early in the morning and late in the afternoon and evening. Use the soft golden light of evening or cool serene light of morning to your advantage, but remember polarizers are useless at this time of day and will only reduce the light that is available to you.

A dew kissed Gerbera-always a pretty sight.

As we begin the summer fun season, there is no doubt that many photographs will be captured at the countless celebrations, parties, and scenic vistas we will encounter. As a photographer myself, I view many wonderful images, and also many nice images that would be wonderful if the photographer had taken a moment to check the viewfinder for good composition, and clean backgrounds.

A clean background is not a blank wall. It is a setting for your subject that is free of distractions. The whole point of making a photograph is to remember your subject at a particular moment in time, and distractions in the background pulls the viewers attention away from the subject.  There are several methods of reducing distracting elements in the background. One way is to zoom in to the subject so they fill the frame. The other is to use a large aperture (f/stop) to blur the background. This isn’t always possible with a pocket digicam.

These methods above should definitely be part of your compositional arsenal, but regardless of your ability to zoom and your ability to blur the background, one thing every photographer should do before snapping any photo is to check the edges and the corners of the frame for elements that don’t belong.  Is there a post behind the subject that looks like it is growing out of their head? Is someone’s foot stepping into the frame? Are there dirty dishes on the table? Clean this stuff up! Not literally, of course, but change your position and that of the camera so these distractions are not in the picture.

You can see my point in the photos of a Least Tern below. Which one better shows the bird? Which one has fewer distracting elements?

I think you will agree that the closeup with the fewer stones visible and less of the beach included calls your attention to the subject-the bird itself.

I know it takes some practice to train yourself to check the edges of a photo before taking the picture. But, once you get into the habit of cleaning up your edges, you will find many more keepers in each session with your camera.

Happy Shooting!

A reader recently posted a request for me to recommend at good digital camera for a beginner. I certainly wish the answer were as simple as the question…

The truth is that selecting a digital camera, no matter what your level of expertise is dependent on many things, including your shooting style, the type of photos you want to capture, how you will use the images (online or print, or both), your budget, and the list goes on…

Not quite the answer you were hoping for, I know, but  I will point out a couple of things you want to keep in mind no matter what your level:

Optical viewfinder is worth the compromise:
Look for an optical viewfinder instead of just an LCD screen. If you only have the LCD for composing the shot, then you will be lost in bright sunlight such as at the beach, on the soccer field or on the ski slopes. Unfortunately, optical viewfinders are increasingly difficult to find in the smaller pocket cameras geared to beginners. But this one feature could be the difference between getting a good photo and getting nothing at all.

Manual controls help you develop as a photographer.
Find a model that allows you to manually control the exposure (shutter and aperture), flash, ISO, and white balance. As your photographic skills improve, the ability to manually adjust your camera settings will allow you the creative freedom you will want.

Don’t be dazzled by video and other gimmicks.
Despite the new trend for using a still camera to capture video, still cameras are still best used to capture photographs and video cameras are best for video. It’s fine to have the video feature, and you may find yourself using it, but videography and still photography are still separate disciplines. And for beginnners, your camera should help you capture beautiful images. Period. Adding video to the mix just confuses things at the beginner level.

Other gimmicks:

• Megapixel counts in the 10 and higher range are just too much for the smaller sensors found in digicams. They are great capturing images in good light, but add some under exposure or a dark scene and you will have the dreaded digital noise (red, green and blue specks in the darks areas and shadows). Also, the higher the resolution (megapixels) the more memory each image uses on your memory card and computer. Ideally, a digicam should be from 5 megapixels to 10 megapixels, but not above. More is definitely not better!
• Image stabilization-Another trend to capture the attention, and possibly the hard-earned cash, of the beginner photographer is the image stabilization feature. This promises that you can take photos in low light without using the ugly, flat on-camera flash. Low light and dim scenes require a slower shutter speed to be properly exposed, and a slower shutter means camera shake (blurry images) if you are not using a tripod. The cameras that promise image stabilization often increase the shutter speed by boosting the ISO (light sensitivity of the sensor), which will introduce digital noise (see above)  that will seriously degrade the quality of  the photo. Some mid-level and high end cameras do offer image stabilization through mechanical means without changing the ISO. The bottom line: ignore this feature in the pocket cameras, but seriously consider it in the mid-level units.

Now, with all of that being said, I will tell you my favorite cameras manufacturers for each level of expertise:

Beginner-Olympus Stylus, Panasonic, Nikon Sony
Mid-Level-Canon G11, Sony, Lumix
Advanced.DSLR-Sony Alpha series, Nikon D series

And, in case you are wondering what I use when I am not shooting for hire, here they are:

Concerts, traveling light-Canon G7-has good zoom, good low light, and decent video, for short clips.
Parties, the beach, skiing-Olympus Stylus 760-shock resistant, weather and water resistant-wish it had an optical viewfinder.
Birdwatching, photo hikes-Sony Alpha 550-has live-view on LCD screen, articulating LCD, killer fast auto-focus, and I can use my 500 mm zoom lens to get close to nature without scaring it away!

What camera did you choose when you first entered digital photography? Were you happy with your choice? Or did you find yourself living with buyer’s remorse? Please tell us about it!

To improve the look of your photos, turn off the flash (usually a lightning symbol), and use available light. If there isn’t enough light, use a flash light on the subject!

Welcome! Thanks for visiting-I hope you come back often! This site is intended to be resource for Digital Photography Basics and Learning the Digital Darkroom (Photoshop).  To get started check out posts in “Digital Photography Basics” and “Digital Darkroom.”  If you would like more specialized help, contact us, and we’ll be happy to assist.

Digital cameras require a bit more involvement from the photographer than traditional film cameras do. That’s the bad news AND the good news. More involvement means the photographer has more control over the output of the images, whether they are destined for online viewing or printing.

This slide show is presented in a PDF for universal accessibility.

How to Use Your Digital Camera