Browsing all posts in "Photography".

Tips for Focusing in the Dark

Taking a long exposure picture in dark conditions can be a challenge, because the camera’s auto-focus capabilities find it difficult to “see” a point of focus. Manual focus can be hard, too, because you can’t see what you’re trying to focus on through the viewfinder! In keeping with this month’s “long exposure” challenge, here are [...]

Lens Nomenclature Decoded

Have you ever looked at the text printed on the barrel or around the front element of your lens and wondered what all those numbers and letters and symbols meant? Some may be clear and obvious, some more obscure. Here’s a “decoder ring” of sorts, to help you sort it all out. Let’s take a [...]

February Photo Challenge

Each month we feature a month-long “challenge”: one photographic “theme” in which participants are encouraged to take photos of a certain subject, and one “technical challenge” in which participants will use a certain photography technique. Readers are encouraged to post their results in the Beyond Megapixels Photo Pool on Flickr. This month’s theme is “motion”. [...]

Composition Tips – Balance

Balance is a key concept when composing a photograph. However, “balance” does not necessarily mean “centered” or “symmetrical”. A photograph can be balanced even when the subject of focus is to one side. A photograph can be off-balance even if the subjects are perfectly aligned. Let’s look at some examples. In the shot of the [...]

Taking Pictures in Public

Last weekend I went to our area Farmer’s Market. As is my habit, I took my camera along with me. There’s just something about the rows of baskets and piles of produce that make me want to capture the color and just plain goodness of fresh fruits and vegetables. A couple of times I got [...]

Summer in Winter

A butterfly at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, Arizona. I thought I would share an image of summer to help us all get through this long winter! A Wordless Wednesday contribution. Photo Credit: Tiffany Joyce Tweet

Food Photography

I have a love that competes with my passion for photography. That love is for food. Actually, my cooking hobby came first – I have a vast collection of cookbooks, a website full of my Grandmother’s recipes (and my own creations), and I’m always messing around with something in the kitchen (and I must say, [...]

Stops 101

When I was new to photography, I was very confused whenever someone said they needed to “stop down” or “stop up” a shot. Basically, all the term “stop” refers to is the change in the brightness of the light, or exposure, of the photograph. Doubling the light is one stop up (or brighter), reducing the [...]

Review: Photo Recipes Live

I recently purchased Photo Recipes Live: Behind the Scenes: Your Guide to Today’s Most Popular Lighting Techniques, the DVD/workbook combo by Scott Kelby. This product goes into detail about how the photographs were achieved in “Photo Recipes That Help You Get “The Shot”” – the final chapter of each of Kelby’s three Digital Photography Volumes. [...]

YOUR January Photo Challenge Contributions

We’ve been seeing some fantastic contributions to our January Photo Challenge. The theme is “beginnings”, and the technique is “bokeh”, and we’ve been seeing some great shots in the Flickr Group that incorporate one or the other, or both! Please keep your contributions coming, we still have ten days left before we initiate February’s theme [...]