Most of us try to take good care of our camera, but there are plenty of ways people accidentally damage their photographic equipment. Many of these sound obvious, perhaps it is because they are obvious that they can be easily forgotten or overlooked, and end up in an expensive accident for your camera.
Horror! Camera Carcass by Orin Zebest on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
Strictly speaking, a Photo montage just means a composite photo created from two or more separate photos. In this article I want to look at a specific type of photo montage, known as panography, where multiple photos of a subject are combined into a single image.
The technique is similar to that used when capturing photos for a panoramic image. But rather than stitching the photographs together seamlessly as you would for a panorama, the images are often purposefully offset from one another, and no blending between the images is used.
London Eye Panography by Gary Nisbet on flickr (licensed CC-BY-SA)
Image noise appears as blotches and speckles on your photos. It can appear distracting and reduce the clarity of a photo. In this article we'll look at what causes image noise, how to prevent it, and how to remove it from existing images.
Read the rest of this entry »Seascape photography is really a subtype of landscape photography, with the emphasis on the sea and coastline. Most landscape photography tips also apply to seascape photography. However, there are a few things you should pay particular attention to for eye catching seascape photos.
"Captain of Kincaid." Kincaid Park, Anchorage, Alaska by Paxson Woelber on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
Although most professional photographers use interchangeable lens cameras, many also carry a compact camera with them. Why would they do this if they already have a much more expensive, and presumably better camera?
When you understand how to use your camera, you can get professional results whether with a compact camera or a DSLR. Sure, there are some shots that would be very difficult to get with a compact, and easy with a DSLR, but there are also some shots that are easier to get with a compact.
IMG_0340 by Ole1981 on flickr (licensed CC-BY-SA) - compact cameras are small and quiet making them great for street photography
The camera can be a limiting factor, but with a bit of work you can turn out excellent shots from a compact camera (or even a phone camera).
Read the rest of this entry »Sometimes you might read advice about using the ProPhoto RGB color space for editing. Or to make sure you convert your image to the sRGB color space before posting an image on the web.
But what's the difference between these color spaces, and why does it matter what color space an image has? How do you change the color space of an image? That's what we'll look at in this article.
In the previous article I looked at the different ways you can set your camera up to capture a lightning strike. In this article I'll cover some more tips on how to get great lightning photos.
Ka-boom (lightning) by Leszek.Leszczynski on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
Storms that generate lightning aren't something that you see every day. But when you do get a thunderstorm, the flashes of lightning can make for some spectacular photos.
Eclairs by ComputerHotline on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
Have you ever wanted to extract a subject from one photo and then place them in another photo? For example, taking a photo of your child in their sports kit, and then making it look like they're playing in a full size stadium.
This process of mixing images together is known as compositing, and is becoming increasingly popular. While it might sound difficult, it can actually be very easy. The trick is taking the photo of your subject against a background that makes it easy to extract the subject from the background.
Private School Girl by "PictureYouth" on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
For this purpose a green screen (also known as chroma key) background is often used. In this article we'll look at how to take a photo using a green screen, and then how to use photo editing software to remove the green screen and composite the image.
Read the rest of this entry »Bokeh is a word used to describe the out of focus areas of a photo. It does not really mean how out of focus an area is, but rather how the out of focus areas are rendered.
A Cup of Bokeh, please? by Shermeee on flickr (licensed CC-BY)
You will find that some people are very particular about bokeh, while others aren't really bothered. Just like one person might love a particular photo, while another person might think it is nothing special, the bokeh characteristics of a photo can be quite subjective.
Camera lens reviews, particularly those in Japan, now often include photos with out of focus areas particularly so that viewers can judge the bokeh.
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