Browsing all posts in photography 101.

How To Photograph Fireworks

Well, my friends in the U.S., it’s that time of year again! Time for the nearly-obligatory post about how to photograph fireworks for your 4th of July celebration. 1. Location. It’s important to get to your location early so you can scout out a vantage point with uninterrupted views. I personally like to be up [...]

Auto Focus Microadjustments

I just spent a few hours over the weekend performing auto-focus micro-adjustments for three of my lenses. Not the MOST fun I’ve ever had with my camera, but a necessary activity for achieving correctly focused images. Auto-focus micro-adjustments are sometimes necessary to calibrate the focus points of the lens/camera combination. Some lens/camera combinations tend to [...]

Three Simple Tips to INSTANTLY Improve Your Photography

Would you like to see instant improvement in your photography? Here are three simple things that you can do RIGHT NOW that will make a big difference! One – Turn on your viewfinder composition grid. If you’re having a hard time keeping your horizons straight, if you tend to misalign your subjects, or if you’d [...]

Back to Basics: Image Resolution

Image resolution – how much detail an image holds – is measured in pixels per inch, or ppi. It is also referred to by the width and the height of the image as measured in pixels (i.e. 640×427, 1024×683, etc.). The more pixels the image possesses, the better the image quality. Rules of Thumb There [...]

Back to Basics: Fill Light Two Ways

Fill light is used when the subject of the photograph is darker than the background. It is intended to lighten shadows and reveal detail. When you observe a photographer using a flash in the outdoors, during the daytime, often they are using the flash as a fill light. There is also a way to increase [...]

The 5 P’s of Photography

If you’ve served in the military or spent very much time around someone who has, you’ve probably heard of the five P’s. If you have heard of them, the ones for photography are somewhat different. They are Planning, Preparation, Patience, Perseverance, and Photoshop. How much time do you need to capture an image? Unless you’re [...]

Photography 101: Fixed Aperture Explained

A reader recently sent me an e-mail, asking me to explain how fixed aperture lenses work. She was suffering under the misconception that a fixed aperture on a lens means that’s the only aperture that lens is capable of shooting. Apertures tend to be a subject that can be confusing to a beginning photographer. Primarily, [...]

Reacquaint Yourself With Our Features!

By now you may have noticed that we’ve been doing some modifications to the website. Additional features, specialized content, and a new look are in the works, but for now we hope that the changes that we’ve made have improved your experience while visiting Beyond Megapixels. Here are some areas that we’d like to call [...]

Back to Basics: Exposure Explained

Exposure is one of the first, and one of the most confusing, concepts that a budding photographer learns. All of the numbers, abbreviations, settings and relationships can be overwhelming at first. Here is a simple guide to help clarify things. The Exposure Triangle: The three elements of exposure – commonly referred to as “The Exposure [...]

Tethered Shooting With A Canon DSLR

Tethered shooting is a useful photography tool. With the use of a USB or firewire cable run between the camera and a computer, the photographer can instantly review their shots on the computer screen. As the shutter is pressed, the images are recorded on the computer hard drive rather than the camera’s memory card. This [...]