1. Shoot in continuous mode – If you’ve ever had trouble taking crisp, clear photos of a constantly moving subject, a child or pet for example, try changing your camera settings to a continuous burst mode. Several frames per second will increase your chances of catching your subject just the way you want. If you have Subject Tracking, you’ll have an even greater array of features to help you capture that perfect shot.

2. Flash forward – Using a flash ensures all your photos are crisp and clear, especially in darker lit settings such as a dinner or dance party. And don’t stop there – be sure to use flash outdoors as well to help balance any dark contrasts.

3. Work with what you’ve got – Take advantage of your camera’s settings whether it’s a low-light sensitive capability such as a broad ISO range, or automatic setting selections for taking pictures in various environments. Learn the features your camera offers and use them to create impressive images you’ll be proud to put on display.

4. Shutter finger – The beauty of digital is the ability to review any photographs you take instantly and decide which you would like to keep or re-shoot. With this in mind, don’t hold back. Take more pictures rather than fewer and sort through them later. This will help you focus on the photo opportunities at hand, giving you a better chance of capturing that perfect shot.

5. Exposure is key – Any good photo has an intended balance to the amount of light used when the picture was taken. Experiment with your camera’s exposure settings, bracketing the brightness levels for different effects. Sometimes an over or underexposed photo can be a creative expression of an otherwise normal photograph. Just remember, when in doubt, underexpose – these images can be brightened later on, whereas an overexposed image won’t pick up all the details and not much can be done to correct it.

6. Get to know, be a pro – Take into account who or what your subject is. If you are photographing a person, learn what their personality is like and what they are comfortable with; if you are taking photos of an animal, you will need to know what its temperament is; and taking pictures of an object requires you to identify the best features to highlight. The more you learn and understand, the better you will be able to model your photograph in its best light.

7. Wherever you will go – Take your camera with you so you never miss a moment. When selecting a new camera, consider how you will transport it. If you select a smaller unit, this will be less of a concern, but if you purchase a larger, heavier camera with additional lenses and flash attachments, consider investing in a good camera bag to protect your equipment and make it more portable. When on foot, take advantage of a camera strap around your neck – many of today’s digital SLR cameras feature rapid start-up times, so you’ll always be ready if a picture opportunity arises.

8. The more the merrier – Challenge your skill level. Investing in a few accessories can make photography easier and help to produce better photos. A tripod can help to steady a shot, while additional lenses provide various zoom options, macro options, wide-angle, and more. Adding an external flash can make a photo more dynamic. Digital SLRs are great because they are customizable to every photographer’s needs.

9. Don’t forget to touch up – Make life easier by performing simple image corrections right on the camera before uploading them to your computer. This makes picture development a snap.

10. Have fun! Be creative – Get up high or down real low to capture that perfect shot, creating dimension, angles and a personal flare to all your photos. Develop your own style of photography to set yourself apart from the crowd.

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Gregory Flasch is Advertising & Communications Manager in the Consumer Products Division of Nikon Canada Inc.

The key to choosing a camera is to consider it a tool. Your challenge is not to find the perfect camera because it doesn't exist. Instead, we're looking for the best tool for the job. So to begin, we'll divide the digital camera marketing into three categories: Pocket, Compact and SLR.

"I'm using a Canon S3. It's a simple SLR so and I'm a beginner. Is it a good camera for me?"

I haven't tried that camera, but from the specs it certainly appears to have all the features you'll need to learn photography.  As I often say, "It's not the camera, it's how you use it." If you haven't signed up already, please consider joining 12 Weeks to Better Photography!

I've tried recently to photograph lightning but with little success. Is there a basic set of rules to follow for this? Or some sort of guideline where I can try to find what works best for me?

I personally haven't tried lightning, so for this one I turn to the National Geographic Photography Field Guide by Burian and Caputo. They recommend as follows:

]]> http://myphotosucks.com/2009/09/photographing-lightning.html http://myphotosucks.com/2009/09/photographing-lightning.html Technique Tips Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:16:00 -0500 Adrian writes,

I notice a lot of professionals always use their flash no matter the conditions. I've tried this but sadly poor results. Why do they do it and why do most of my flash photos suck!?

Photographers often use their flash for "fill", especially when photographing people. Rather than blinding them with the sun and getting a photo of a squinting subject, it is often more effective to put them in the shade or even with their back to the sun and then use a reasonably powerful flash to light the subject. It's just another technique to control the light falling on your subject.

I get the impression from what I have read so far about digital photography that all pictures have been somewhat modified in a photo editing program before being displayed in magazines. I would have thought that a picture taken by professional photographers would not need photo editing.

It depends upon how we define "modified". Technically, you are quite correct. At minimum, basic adjustments such as white and black levels, contrast, saturation, etc. are usually required to produce a good magazine print. But that's not really any different than what we had to do with film. it is also normal to crop images, especially if the camera aspect ratio is different than that magazine page or other space in which the print is required.

I took a bunch of photos at a party over the weekend. They looked fine on the back of my camera, but when I posted them to the web I noticed that a lot of them were blurry. Why doesn't my camera do well with quick movement?

As we love to say at MyPhotoSucks, the problem isn't your camera, it's how you use it. The simple answer is that you should have used your flash.

Lightroom takes a workflow approach that is quite different from traditional image editing software. Once you have imported your images into Lightroom, you can use it to select and/or rate your images, perform adjustments like cropping, levels, and minor retouching, and output the images to various file formats, a printer, or web galleries. While Lightroom has many great features, I love it because it is easy to use, very flexible and completely non-destructive.  It also cut my postprocessing time by more than half.

"I'm thinking of entering [an image in a competition]. The rules state that I can send jpg images on a CD but that they must be in RGB format and not CMYK format. When I capture images on my Canon S2IS what colour format does the camera use? If I use Picasa as my photo program does it use CMYK (I know most printers use these colours)? If I have a jpg image, can I use something like Photoshop to convert from CMYK to RGB?"

Virtually every digital camera on the market produces image in the RGB colour space, so the good news is that you don't have to do any conversion.  People are often confused by the fact that their inkjet printer uses a CMYK process.  However, the printer appears to your computer as a RGB device, as does your monitor, so you should continue to work in the RGB colour space unless there is a specific reason for you to convert to a different colour space.

"What program or programs are recommended for captioning digital photos? I want to be able to choose the location of the caption, the font, and the colour of the text."

Most photo editing packages allow you to add text to your images. I seldom add captions to photos (and SmugMug automatically watermarks my uploaded images for me there), but when I do I usually just add a text layer in Adobe Photoshop. I just checked Photoshop Elements 6, and it supports text layers as well. Just click on the "T" in the toolbar, click on the image,and it will create the layer for you.

Many companies have downloadable trial versions online. For example, you can download Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 here and see if it meets your needs.

Perhaps you want to take a photo of a friend standing in front of another object. If you have a narrow (or short) DOF, your friend may be in focus while the foreground and background appear out of focus. At the other extreme, a wide (or long) DOF could result in the entire image appearing to be in focus.

There's a good example of effective DOF control here.