One of the worst things fledgling photographers can do is be penny wise and pound foolish in their equipment purchasing decisions. I would strongly advise you to always purchase name brand lenses. If you own a Canon digital single lens reflex body, buy Canon lenses. This holds especially true in the case of Nature Photography. The price difference between an off brand lens could be measured far more than dollars in a few years down the road if it costs you potential clients, time and money. There is nothing worse than reviewing older images only to find gaping holes in the quality of the images simply because you opted to save a few dollars on your lens purchase. Remember to opt for the best quality lens you can afford. This especially holds true for long telephoto lenses or long zoom lenses. You are far better of saving your pennies and buying quality in the long run. It’s kind of like the old story of the hare and the turtle. Remember if there is a substantial difference in the price between a brand name lens and the off brand lens, chances are you are not just paying for the name.

One should have an array of lenses in their camera bag that compliments their camera body. Try to avoid buying super long wide angle to telephoto zoom lenses that offers the coverage of three lenses in one. Your image quality can be seriously compromised, for instance a 28mm-70mm lens will offer far superior images than a 28mm-300mm lens. Although it may seem like a good idea you are taking from Peter to pay Paul by using a lens with such a wide zoom range. Be aware fixed focal length lenses traditionally outperform zoom lenses. If we look at a 28mm f 2.8 lens and compare it the 28mm-300mm zoom, the fixed 28mm lens will out perform the zoom at the 28mm focal length hands down. It’s simply a matter of physics and lens design. Keep in mind all lenses are made up of groups of glass or epoxy elements lined up together making the optical formula of that particular lens. As you zoon in and out the groups of elements move inside of the lens barrel giving you the zoom range or optical formula of the lens. Be aware even the material of the lens barrel can affect the quality of your images. How so? A metal barrel will keep all the optical elements in critical alignment as you zoom in or out far better than a plastic or polymer barrel.

Many have argued the advent of computer designed zoom lenses perform nearly as well as fixed lenses. In some cases this can be true however remember to compare apple to apples. A Canon 100mm-400mm zoom may perform as well as the fixed Canon 400mm 5.6 fixed lens. By the same token there is little cost difference between these two lenses. If you live in an area where you can rent lenses, I highly recommend you do so as opposed to making your decision based upon a review of a competitive lens in a photography magazine. Keep in mind photography magazines do not survive through readership dollars they survive on advertising dollars. Long or short focal length, you do get what you pay for when it comes to lenses. Should you always spend top dollar on your lenses? Not necessarily but keep in mind what your objective is. If you just want to capture moments and images for you to enjoy and share with friends and family then maybe not. For those of you have serious aspirations or intentions of using your images in a commercial or competitive venue then the answer may very well be yes.

Most people see someone carrying expensive SLR cameras at weddings and are immediately struck by a sense of awe and respect, getting out of their way to let them take pictures of anything they like. SLR cameras have a distinctive look; the large barrel, the popup flash. They look like they mean business, unlike the slim point and shoot cameras that are designed to fit as much ability as possible into your pocket.

I own both an SLR and a point and shoot. Personally, I find that with a good enough point and shoot camera, the knowledge of how to use the manual settings is all I really need to produce a picture as good as one taken with the SLR. In some cases the picture may even turn out better, because my point and shoot has auto-focus and anti-shake technology built in. The limited ability to change exposure and aperture manually even helps, because it refuses to allow me to use a setting that will create an overly dim or overly bright picture.

Together, this means I can focus on creating the best frame and composition for each picture without worrying about whether it will turn out blurred, too dark, or too bright. With my SLR, I find myself taking the same picture over and over, adjusting settings minutely each time. Of course, given enough time and a tripod, say with a landscape scene, I can adjust everything until it produces an absolutely gorgeous picture. But in a wedding, where every moment is special and only occurs for an instant, I simply cannot afford the time to adjust my settings between each shot. It’s a balance between leaving the camera on one setting and hoping it works for every shot I take, and risking missing out on something important as I adjust exposure and aperture. With a point and shoot camera, I let the camera worry about the basic settings, trusting it to adjust for light for me, and focus on capturing the events of the day in the best composition I can.

Besides, I would believe most brides would care more about the photographer catching the absolute joy on their face as they say “I do”, than about how exact the light balance is in the background, as long as it is not completely wrong. The point and shoot camera can guarantee that my backgrounds will always look alright.

So why do so many camera companies sell the idea that an SLR is better than a point and shoot? For that matter, why do I own both? Well, as I said, when taking photographs of things that are not going to change significantly in the next 5 minutes, such as flowers or even models in a photoshoot, I can spend time fiddling with settings and produce National Geographic-worthy pictures. It’s also far better when I want to take artistic shots or play with focal lengths and perspectives, because I can force the camera into settings a point and shoot will never allow, creating all kinds of interesting and unusual pictures. Every once in a while one of these pictures will be stunningly beautiful and artistic. But at an event where every moment is different yet important, I prefer to use my point and shoot for the reasons I detailed above.

Camera companies are not completely wrong to say an SLR is better than a point and shoot. The SLR has the potential to produce pictures of amazing quality, perspective and artistry that the point and shoot will only be able to imitate. But that’s all it is, a potential. What it comes down to is the ability of the photographer to maximise the ability of his camera. In the hands of someone who knows exactly what setting to use for every shot, every possible scenario, every possible balance of light and shade, a point and shoot can produce better pictures than I can, stumbling around with my SLR.

Make Money With Your Digital Camera

Turning a hobby or pastime like digital photography into a money making deal can offer possibilities of generating extra income for the person with a creative and entrepreneurial mind. With the current technology and quality of digital cameras, paired with the wide reach of the internet, many photographers can offer their products and services online. Below are some ways to cash in on the digital photography wave.

Follow the People

You must know what people want. Make your presence felt in the places people are. There are many places you can go where people would want their photos to be taken, somewhere memorable. You can offer your service during parades, concerts, competitions, gatherings, parks, and just any tourist attractions people might be compelled to have their pictures taken. It would help if you had your own business card, present your services to the crowd and start taking those photos. Open a legitimate website where people can view their photos and they can just choose to buy what they prefer.

Create Novelty Items

If you have access to software that can create novelty items that allow you to superimpose people’s images to a background, make use of it. Advertise yourself and offer a variety of unique services to companies. Take note of the additional expenses you might accumulate, including time and travel expenses to each item. This could add to your profit margin.

Custom Greeting Cards

Take advantage of the idea that people aren’t as creative as you are. People love sending postcards and greeting cards of the places they’ve visited to family and friends. Remember, there’s always a market for those eager to send Christmas cards, invitations, and special occasion cards. Make it known to your target market that you offer these types of services. There might be hard work involved in these ventures but you might be surprised how satisfying the returns are.

Create Slideshows

One way to advertise your services is to create slideshows. Most people don’t have the knowledge, time, or expertise to create such items. Your know how on this type of software could pay major dividends in the future. There are always organizations and companies in your area who are willing to pay for these services because it saves them effort and time. Offer packages according to the market. Show them a sample of your designs and build your market from there. Building relationships with company decision makers can make or break your business.

Offer a Class

If you’re an amateur photographer, chances are you’ve accumulated enough knowledge to teach others. There are groups out there eager to get some tips about digital photography, people who have the same passion as yours. What they really need is the personal touch, someone who offers a friendly face and helping hand to give them a grasp of the basics. Remember, there’s always someone eager to learn the ropes.

Keep in mind that there are always a number of ways to make use of your passion as an income-generating machine.

There are always a number of people out there who have the same passion as yours. You can plan a proper business model that can ensure a profit. The best business is a business that ensures everyone gets what they want and keeps coming back for more.

In most instances to take professional quality pictures you need an expensive DSLR camera and photography equipment. That though doesn’t mean you cannot take excellent pictures using a point and click digital camera.

It is having the knowledge that is the key to taking good pictures for example if you give Tiger Woods a set of worn out clubs he would probably still be able to out drive most people. It is his skill and the practice that he has put in that makes him so good. It is the same with photography. A good place to start it perspective and composition.

The best composed pictures if you study them do not have the subject placed dead centre in the frame which is what most people naturally do. It is all to do about the “rule of thirds”. The best way to describe this is to imagine dividing the frame horizontally and vertically into thirds. To add emphasis to the subject matter of your picture you should place your subject on these lines and intersections. It will make you shot more interesting as will perspective.

Most people take the same kind of picture they are the ones like “ooh that is nice I will take a picture” then you move on. You need to think about the shot and framing. Try and be creative and think how the picture could be more interesting and what is the best angle. I would recommend getting up close and personnel with your subject matter and fill the frame. For example if you are taking a portrait picture you don’t always have to take a full body shot. If you still want some of the background move the person closer to you but take the picture form a higher angle.

The Color Spectrum
Both the natural light of the sun and artificial incandescent light appear white to the naked eye. However, if you shine light through a prism, it splits into a rainbow of colors. This effect shows how the “color” white contains every shade in the color spectrum.

When light hits an object, the object absorbs some of the color spectrum and reflects back the rest of the colors. The portion of the color that is not absorbed by the object but reflected back to eye is the color that the object appears to the human eye. For instance, a white wall reflects most of the color spectrum black. So our eyes (and the camera lens) see white. While a red rose reflects the red portion of the color spectrum and absorbs the rest, a black object absorbs the entire color spectrum.

Natural Light in Color Photography
Natural light in photography is not as consistent as you may think. At different times of the day, different shades of the color spectrum dominate natural light. For instance, at midday, the blue portion of the color spectrum is dominant, producing a “cool” light. Color photography taken at midday produces the clearest, sharpest pictures in bright light.

In contrast, natural light at sunrise and sunset emphasizes the red portion of the color spectrum. Known as warm light in photography, sunrise and sunset light produces warmer pictures with a softer contrast.

Artificial Light in Photography
When photographers use artificial light in photography, the effect of the lighting depends on the type of bulb used. The warm dispersed glow of incandescent light produces an effect that is dramatically different from that produced by the sharp, narrow, focused beam of a street light.

Photographs taken with incandescent light often have a yellow tinge. A photographer can combat this tint in two ways. One method is to use a blue filter to offset the excessive yellowing. If you’re using a film camera instead of a digital one, you can use tungsten film that is designed for professional studio lights. Although it wasn’t intentionally designed with incandescent light in mind, tungsten film reduces the yellow tones so often found in indoor color photography.

Florescent lights produce a diffuse light that often translates into greenish tinges in color photography. Using a fluorescent or daytime filter helps remove this unappealing color.

Street lamps, like florescent lights, may cause a greenish tint in the resulting pictures. However, a photographer can use this effect to his advantage: in the darkness, this greenish quality can produce mysterious or ghostly effects.

Diffuse and Direct Light in Photography
The direction of light in photography is important: different angles of light produce different shadows, changing the appearance of your subject.

Light in photography may be diffuse or direct. Direct light, such as light from the noon sun, hits the subject from one direction. If you’re looking for high contrast between light and shadows, direct light is a good choice.

On the other hand, diffuse light hits the subject from several directions. Florescent lighting is one example of diffuse light in photography. The loss of contrast that diffuse light produces mutes colors and softens the image.

Digital Cameras and Light in Photography
Digital cameras come with specialized light settings. Here are some of the common settings:

• auto: when you want the camera to adapt to changing light
• cloudy: for outdoor use in cloudy or overcast skies
• daylight or sunny: for outdoors and bright sunlight
• flash: for taking pictures with the flash
• fluorescent: for scenes lit by fluorescent lights
• incandescent or tungsten: for incandescent lighting
• manual: when you want to manage the lighting of each shot. This requires that the photographer aim the camera at white paper to change the lighting settings manually.

Color Photography or Black and White?
While lighting is important for color photography, it is even more important for black and white or sepia photography. While this fact seems counterintuitive, the lack of color means that the key feature of black and white photography is the contrast between light and shadow.

The basic rules of light in photography apply to black and white photos just as they do to color photography. For example, direct light creates a higher contrast than diffuse light. Because the contrast between light and shadow is much more obvious in black and white than in color photography, the photographer should opt for direct light when composing the shot.

The precious opportunities can occur anywhere, like in the bath, tasting new foods for the first time, or during cuddles before bed. Even when out and about, the expression they have while feeding the ducks down at your local park. Keep on the lookout and keep your camera near by.

Other fantastic photo opportunities in your child’s life happen every year, like their birthday parties, Christmas, Easter etc.

These opportunities in the past have not been well represented with amazing photos; the photos are kept because they are your family not because they are terrific photos. Have you ever had anyone exclaim, that the birthday photo you have of your child is amazing? Potentially yes though in most peoples realities the answer is unfortunately no!

Yet they happen every year so it can be mastered.

What are some ideas that can help to shoot great birthday shots; these can be applied for any party or event.

Preparation for the party is important, if you have planned the party you will already know the room layout or where the majority of time is going to be spent. Look around before the party starts and mentally note down some angles that the lighting would be great for shooting photos from and that there are no ornaments or obstacles in your line of shot.

Know your obstacles, as mentioned above. Though in reality are you going to a have the time to take the photos as well as organising everything else for the party? Maybe have someone else as the photographer? Or someone else brings the cake in? Can you manoeuvre into the perfect place or is it easy access for you? These are all things to think about prior to the party starting.

Where is the main table set up? Is it rectangular or not? If it is rectangular then take the photos from facing the long end of the table, this way all the children will be in focus.

To use flash or not! Try some with the flash and some without, if organised ahead, try different ISO settings on your camera to see how high it can go before the shots become grainy looking.

For the really key photographs take many shots, you can always erase them afterwards. For blowing out the candles on the cake, set your camera to continuous shooting, that way you will have a shot of the candles going out, not a just missed shot of prior to or after the fact.

Consider the background. What colour scheme is it? Neutral? Dark? If it is unfortunately ugly, minimise your depth of field so that it blurs the background. It is the smallest possible F-stop.

Don’t bother checking the LCD screen, other than to make sure you haven’t beheaded someone from the shot. Just wait to after the party to go through the pictures and look at contrast and image quality.

Equipment: Plan the day before and get the batteries all charged up, and the memory cards empty with enough room for the new photos. Other accessories if you have them like tripod, different lens attachments, external flash, chargers etc. Have them all ready just in case you choose to use them, then you know where they are, without having to remember where they are kept in a rush at the time.

It pays to have a list of photos you want to take: e.g. blowing the candles out, opening presents, etc

The candid moments are always to be looked out for during the birthday day. The looks of joy whilst playing a game, or the look of excitement at the bowl of lollies are truly special shots when they are caught.

If you are really organised and have some time before the guests arrive then use that time to take some “posed” pictures of your child, they will look clean and lovely in their “costume” or “party frock/clothes” they will never look better than this during the party. Pick a spot in front of the cake and get some big smiling photos, remember the younger the child the less likely the smiling is, so don’t push it.

Just have a fantastic time taking pictures of your children as they grow up, you never need an excuse to pull out the camera, so just have fun and snap away.

Film or Digital
This debate can get quite lengthy, and I use both film and digital. But I will make this easy for you: Unless you’re buying a camera for a professional photographer, go with digital. Digital is more convenient and there are no film costs. If your dad or grad falls in love with photography, he or she may eventually want a film camera as well. At that point, you can congratulate yourself for introducing someone into the wonderful world of photography. You can also be certain that from that point forward, your dad or grad will never be shy about letting you know exactly what he or she wants when it comes to photography equipment.

Digital Features
The first thing I advise you to do is to figure out what features your gift recipient will want. Here are some important features.

Resolution
In digital photography, this is determined by how many megapixels the camera has. Megapixels do not determine the quality of the image; rather they determine the quality of the print size. The more megapixels, the bigger the enlargement can be without losing clarity. A three-megapixel camera will provide good prints up to 8 x 10. That will probably be sufficient for most dads and grads. However, getting more won’t hurt.

If your gift recipient is likely to use the photos online, you can get by with fewer megapixels.

Size
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that small and sleek might be ideal for a recent grad. If you hope to see photos of their new life, make it convenient for them to take a camera with them. It’s a lot easier to stick a camera in a pocket or purse than it is to carry it over your shoulder or around your neck. Cameras that need camera bags tend to stay in closets or under beds unless someone has a real passion for photography.

On the other hand, if you’re getting a camera for a dad who loves taking photos of kids playing sports or family vacation photos, a larger model might work better. The features are larger and easy to find and manipulate, and larger models often offer more options. (There are only so many options you can pack into a little bundle.)

If this is the first digital camera your recipient has had and he or she hasn’t ever shown any strong interest in photography, I’d avoid buying a 35 mm digital camera with interchangeable lenses. That could be overwhelming. On the other hand, if your recipient has shown a strong interest in photography and is forever e-mailing photos to friends and family members, it could well be time to get the 35 mm/interchangeable lens camera. You’ll be a hero!

Ease of Use
You know your recipient. If he or she simply wants to point and shoot, make sure you get a camera that has all automatic settings and will make every decision all on its own. On the other hand, if your recipient likes to fiddle with things and is a techno freak, make sure you get something that give him or her the ability to make manual adjustments.

Options
Digital cameras have a variety of options. The ones I would make sure the camera has are:
• Optical zoom lens
• Ability to use rechargeable batteries
• Removable memory card (vs. strictly storing photos inside the camera)
• An ISO range of up to at least up to 400 (more if the person is likely to shoot in dim light) Note: ISO determines how light sensitive the camera is.
• A built-in flash (with a red-eye reduction feature)
• An LCD screen for viewing pictures
• A glass lens (rather than a plastic one)

Other features to consider include:
• Ability to set the camera to manual mode. This allows for much more creativity. Personally, I’d never give anyone a camera without this. It’s like giving someone a coloring book and insisting they “stay inside the lines,” vs. giving them a sketch book and inks, pastels, watercolors, etc.
• Video capability to make short movies. You aren’t going to get high quality here, but it can be fun.
• Close up mode. Nice feature that allows the user to take super close-ups of things like flower petals, stamps, bugs, etc.
• A timer. Nice to make sure the camera is steady if it’s on a tripod and useful it the photographer wants to jump into the picture.
• Ability to release shutter once and have it take a series of pictures within seconds. Great for someone who is going to be shooting sports or other action photos.

How to Choose
Do your research. Go online and do a search for Web sites that compare digital cameras. Ask someone you know with a digital camera whether or not they like theirs. Find out what they say they could live without and what they’d never give up. If they are knowledgeable, maybe they could help you decide. Go to a store and hold the cameras. What feels good?

Make a list of the most important features the person you are giving the gift to will want. Prioritize the features. Then search for cameras within your price range and match as many features as you can to a price you can afford.

Stick with brand names you trust. You can’t go wrong with a Nikon or Canon. (Personally, I have always used Nikons and wouldn’t trade them for anything.)

Look at the complete package. Some packages include memory cards, cables to hook the camera up to the computer, and rechargeable batteries. Some digital cameras have “ports” you set your camera in to recharge the batteries.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for a grad who isn’t interested in learning all about photography, you’re well advised to consider appearance. Slick and sleek might be way more important that one with more features but that isn’t as cool looking.

Think of the ability to exchange the camera. If you buy a camera that doesn’t have a feature the recipient MUST have (and of course never mentioned to you), you will want to be able to exchange it for something the recipient will be able to use to capture the photographs he or she has in mind.

Price
Digital cameras with 3 megapixels can start as low as $100 and go to thousands for professional models. When comparing prices, make sure you take into account the entire package that comes with the camera.

Shop around. You can find some great deals on the Internet from highly reputable camera stores. Watch inserts in the Sunday paper as well. Visit some camera and electronic stores.