Daily Photo Tips Archive

08.Jul.11Despite feeling solid, very large trains, ships and airplanes are almost never suitable for tripod support while idling. Vessel movement and vibrations from the engine will blur your photos.

07.Jul.11An unusual lens, like a fisheye or pinhole lens, can be a great way to spur creativity, especially when surrounded by subjects that don't inspire you.

06.Jul.11If you get poor results from a homemade pinhole lens, consider remaking it or buying a commercial model. The quality of the actual pin hole is of utmost importance, and manufacturing the hole is more difficult that you might think!

05.Jul.11LCD screens, unlike viewfinders, do not have diopter adjustments. If you have trouble seeing your camera's screen, using eyeglasses may be the only solution.

04.Jul.11The sharpest subjects are ones with an abrupt, even exaggerated, transition from light to dark. Subjects with a naturally 'sharp' appearance will usually appear sharper in the final photograph.

03.Jul.11Personal photography sites, being fairly 'niche-market' and low traffic, usually don't earn much money from ads. For all the clutter and distraction they will cause your users, you may earn in the region of 20 to 50 American dollars per year.

02.Jul.11Keep in mind that image stabilizers steady movement of the camera, not the subject. If your subject is moving or vibrating, you will always have to use a fast shutter speed to make it appear sharp.

01.Jul.11High-quality pinhole lenses are far from being an actual pin hole in a piece of cardboard. Precise pinhole lenses have carefully calculated pin hole sizes, often laser etched in pieces of finely cut brass.

30.Jun.11Many photographers like pinhole photography for its unique character. Diffraction limiting, an enormous depth of field, and mild to severe vignetting all remind the viewer that the photograph they are looking at was made with a very simple optical device.

29.Jun.11If you decide to host ads on your website, make sure that they don't take away from the main point of the website: your photography! Ads, particularly large, colourful ones, can clutter the site and ruin the user's experience.

28.Jun.11In some cases, lens vignetting may cause the viewer to concentrate subconsciously on the centre of the frame. Removing the vignetting may cause attention to wander beyond the frame, which may help or hinder communication of your theme.

27.Jun.11Large structures and vessels can support a tripod, but take care not to introduce vibrations. Stand or sit in a solid stance well before you start your exposure.

26.Jun.11Some newer cameras have a face recognition feature which can identify and focus on any faces that appear in the frame. The software can often eliminate the need to prefocus and recompose a scene with people in it.

25.Jun.11Previewing the effect of your chosen shutter speed on a live-view camera can be useful for fine-tuning your exposure. Particularly with moving subjects, the difference between one shutter speed and the next can very much 'make' a photograph.

24.Jun.11In very dim light, your camera may automatically dim its LCD screen. While composing with a live-view feature, this may result in captured photographs that appear brighter than when you composed them.