Tip 1
Shooting an animal at far distance doesn’t have much impact. Lure the cat/dog with food to get closer. If you are not alone you have more chances to shoot a playful dog: the other lures and you get yourself the perfect shooting position.

Tip 2
Sometimes they come closer to play not to eat but this is an even more complicated situation: they move fast, and most of the time, don’t even look towards the camera. Therefore, some compact digicams come with a shooting mode called “kids and pets” that comes in handy in this situation. The camera will be set to a fast shutter speed and everything else to ensure that the moving subject won’t turn out blurred (like for example the image stabilization on).

Tip 3
When using flash, be aware of the pet eye (a concept similar to the redeye only it’s not red but shiny white). For compact cameras, the best you can do is not to use the flash, or, maybe your compact has on-camera software to remove this effect. For semi-pro and pro cameras, this problem is solved by the pre-flash light.

Tip 4
Stay tuned for the right moment. A good example is the yawn. But similar situations are the sleeping, the caching of a ball or stick, the licking, the scratching.

Tip 5
Is it close? Close and still enough for a macro? Look at that eye, that tiny cat nose and the mustache.

Tags: cat photo, dog photo, how to shoot pets, pet photos, pet photography, cat photography

No matter if you are above the mountains, the hills or on the field, a large panorama will always be impressive. A tripod will give you the possibility to merge the pictures precisely. There are some tripods on the market made especially for panoramic shooting. (Actually there are some cameras that shoot only in panoramic mode). Some camera manufactures include a panoramic shooting mode which I find very useful: you can see the previous shoot and continue the next shot approximately where the other one ended. Canon cameras allow a bigger number of shots (I haven’t tried to find out the limit since I could easy make a 360 out of 13), while Nikon and Olympus only allows a few number of shots.

If the sky is interesting, like for example with more types of clouds on different highs, you can try a vertical panorama. A vertical view is also recommended for vertical cliffs.
When shooting horizontal pictures for a horizontal panorama, make sure the horizon line is not in the middle. Be careful at the exposure compensation (decrease it a bit like 1/3 step) or otherwise you will end up hawing a burned (white) sky.

Depending on what you’re shooting, you can have between 2-3 shoot and 5-7. In the examples below, the rainbow view was blocked by a tree, so the panorama is no longer than 2 photos. The other examples begin and end with the hills/rocks nearby, resulting in around 7 shots.

Later on, you can merge the images in a variety of programs. I use Photostitch software that came with my Canon digital camera. It’s easy to use and very precise.
If everything around you is interesting and you want a complete memory of the place, nothing stops you from making a 360 degrees panorama (this would be like around 10 shots). Photostich has a nice viewer for 360 panoramas, going round and round it. For webpages check this out.

Tags: panorama, panoramic view, landscape panorama, phototitch, vertical panorama, 360 panorama

Tip 1
Use your best telephoto and macro lenses. Some little creatures won’t allow you to get very close and since you don’t want them to be scared away and chase them all over the place for a long time, you may consider a telephoto lens.

Tip 2
Be very patient, move slowly and silently. Try again and again; don’t get angry because this is one of the subjects that are hard to get right from the first time. They move fast and unexpected.

Tip 3
Surprise your little bug in the middle of an interesting action (like feeding time, reproduction time, fighting, and so on).

Tip 4
Know with what you are dealing with. Maybe it’s a deadly spider, maybe it’s a friendly butterfly that will even settle on your camera. Also, learn their habits so that next time you encounter that creature, be prepared to shoot better.

Tip 5
These creatures are usually very small meaning that the camera will hardly find the right focus point. I suggest using manual focus (set it to the minimal possible distance when you can get close enough – about 3-5cm).

Tip 6
Try every angle: front, side, above. Study the physiognomy of your subject without interfering with it. Don’t touch it (supposing you could do that), let it stay and do whatever it desires. Of course, don’t kill it: you are a photographer not a bug criminal.

Tags: bug photo, insect photo, bug macro, macro photography

Tip 1 – Foggy Day

Tip 2 Sun rays

Tip 3 – Focus on contrast areas

Tip 4 – The “lonely tree” subject

Tip 5 – Try monochrome or duotone

Tip 6 – Try radial blur and soft spot

Tip 7 – Close up on the leaves

Tip 8 – Details of the roots

Tip 9 – Details of the tree stamp

Tip 10 – A forest path (road)

Tags: photo tips, photography tips, forest, tree photos, forest photos

Digital Photography School came up with an interesting tutorial on…
Spider’s Web!
One subject that presents photographers with wonderful opportunities but also a lot of challenges is the spider’s web. There’s something about their delicate nature (while also being incredibly strong for their size), flexibility and beauty that draws me to them every time.
The 11 proposed tips for this subject are:

• Shoot on a still day
• Be an environmentally friendly photographer
• Find a dark background
• Narrow your Depth of Field
• Shoot from head on
• Use Manual Focussing
• Tripods Please
• Dew on the Web
• Fill Your Frame
• Shoot from both sides
• Experiment with a Flash

I highly recommend reading this article, I found it very interesting and useful.

Here’s a pic I made last summer. It’s not as sharp as I would have wanted it to be. Focusing is deffinetly the hardest thing about this.

Tags: photography tips, spider web photo, spider photo

What do you have in mind when taking pictures on a highway? Maybe the road signs. Yes, it’s a good idea but here I’m not talking about that.
Road construction requires the creation of a continuous right-of-way, overcoming geographic obstacles and having grades low enough to permit vehicle or foot travel. This means you will find interesting sinuous shapes of roads.

Notice that in most of the cases the road should be free of cars and walkers. Two exceptions are noticeable: the pictures depicting intense city traffic and the night roads when a car leaves behind a rail of light.

As for the composition, it’s always a good idea to start the road from a corner of the picture up to the middle or the other corner. In most of the cases it will appear larger in the starting corner and thinner at the end. However, sometimes, when symmetry allows, you can start and end your road line in the middle of the picture.

As I said many times before, following the weather helps a lot: fog or rain give special effects, and, in the case of train rails, sunrise is also creating a mystical atmosphere.

Tip 1 Forest Road

Tip 2 City Road

Tip 3 Mountain Road

Tip 4 Desert Road

Tip 5 Night Road

Tip 6 Train Rails

Tip (1) Wake up early, very early. You may find lower clouds and fog as well as water droplets at macro level. In summer 6 am will do, in winter around 8 am.

Tip (2) Always carry your camera with you. Sun rays truth clouds are short moments you don’t want to miss.

Tip (3) If it’s autumn, it may even be foggy all day long and shooting towards the sun and distant objects will give special effects in sepia and B&W, even colored filter effects.

Tip (4) Instant lightning requires much more: a steady tripod, continuous shooting and big summer storm.

Tip (5) Rain is interesting to shoot on streets when some people are walking by – that’s what you think. But weather is more than just that: in summer get ready to hunt rare sun rains like this:

Tip (6) Ice formations and snow flakes form an entire world that photographers can explore with powerful macro lenses during winter.

Tip (7) Are you asking for adrenaline? If you live near stormy lands like Florida, there’s much to see and live about the weather. Hurricanes and tornados are like candies for journalist photographers.

All these are known as common snapshots because basically nature does the hard job and the photographer does the easy job. Still it’s also more than point-and-shot to get the right composition and most of all exposure, and I recommend using a polarization filter to enhance the sky. This snapshooting will still be delightful for human eyes as long as nature continues to be the supreme force over mankind.

Tags: weather, fog, rain, sunrise, clouds, storm, lightning, snow, ice, photo, photography, snapshot

Abstract art is now generally understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses colour and form in a non-representational way. Abstraction is based on sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking.
But it’s a missconcept to believe that nature can not offer abstractions without human touch. The easiest way of understanding is by following this example:
Look at a tree in a way you usually do and your first thought will probably be the so called “lonely tree” theme for your shoot. But then look again at the details of the tree: the patterns of the leaves, the texture of the tree stamp, sometimes the shape of the roots. Once you look only at the picture of such parts of a tree, you begin to understand what an interesting network of colours and shapes you got. Eye caching, is it not?

Tags: abstract art, abstraction, nature, texture, sensation, pattern