Moon Photography

1. Use Tripod – Although it’s a quick exposure, you’ll get the best results setting your camera on a tripod. Remember that you want detail and any kind of motion blurring can ruin the shot.

2. Use Telephoto lens – For a good moon shot you’ll need a telephoto lens. You don’t need an expensive one but for good detail a minimum of 300mm is recommended.

3. Use Shutter Release cable – Recommended. The pressure of your fingers on the shutter button will increase the motion blur. To avoid this you can get a shutter release cable and use the shutter delay feature of your camera. A 2 sec delay is more than enough to get your hands of the camera.

Start with the following settings:

- Aperture at f/11

- ISO 100 (you don’t want any noise on your photo and it’s so bright there is really no need to go above 100)

- 1/125 – 1/250

Now set your auto focus to point, aim at the moon, focus and turn the auto focus off. Don’t touch that ring anymore.

For good measure bracket your EV 1 or 2 units (if your camera allows you can get a few sequential shots with different EV values).

An example is shown below.

Nikon D90 DSLR: ISO 200, Aperture f/11, Shutter Speed 1/250.

Canon EOS Rebel XSi: ISO 100, Aperture f/11, Shutter Speed 1/125.

Read more: http://photographylife.com/how-to-photograph-moon#ixzz2FVhHtabW

Pet Photography

Tips by: Simon Bray

1. Focus on the Features: One of the first things to consider is how you want to portray your pet in your photographs. Consider whether your pet has any particular traits, habits or physical that you could capture. This may well affect what posture you’d ideally like the pet to have in your shot.

Try and maximize the affect of the animals facial features, such as teeth or eyes. Maybe you can try and evoke a particular reaction from the animal, but a good rule to start you off is to focus in on the eyes.

2. Direction: It’s difficult to make a pet shot look natural, as they don’t necessarily follow directions and will behave unpredictably. But there are a few things you can do in order to get your pet to respond and make your life easier.

Try and get their attention – either call their name or use a treat or biscuit to get them to focus on you. If you’re not the pet owner, try and ensure the owner is present, as the animal will be far more receptive to their direction than yours.

If you like, you can try getting the pet to interact with the owner or other animals – this can produce some wonderful moments, but could also prove a major distraction, so it’s your call!

3. Get to Their Level: Make sure you've got a nice quick lens, as undoubtedly your pet will move around quite a bit. Try and be as mobile as possible, so don’t burden yourself with loads of equipment. You want to be able to respond to your pet’s movement.

Get down (or up!) to their level, and consider it the same as taking a portrait shot, you want to capture the face of the subject and any expression or posture that they hold. Also, if you can, try and get in close, so you can capture the detail of the fur or skin and fill the frame with your subject.

4. Environment: It’s also important to consider the context and setting in which you’re taking the shots. Try and get the pet to a place with a decent amount of light – this could either be out in the park, or at home near a window or strong light source.

You could also trying using props, positioning your pet by a particular piece of furniture or even in someone’s hands depending on how small it is! Remember that the environment you choose will affect your pets behavior. Somewhere familiar indoors will probably lead to them being quite subdued, but out and about, or even somewhere new to them, may lead to more excitable shots.

5. Doing Something Different: Hopefully you’ve gathered a few ideas together of how and where you might construct your shoot, but don’t be afraid of trying something creative or different.

Think about the context in which you usually see your pet and maybe try removing it from that setting and trying a new location or environment. I’ve got nothing against capturing a really detailed face on portrait shot of a pet, but please don’t forget there is the potential to be creative!

Portrait Photography-2

13. If you are traveling in a foreign land, learn at least a few phrases of the local language. Your reception and ability to make photographs—and your whole experience—will be enhanced.

14. Practice in your neighborhood. Go out into the street and make frozen, blurred, and panned images of passing cars.

15. When making environmental portraits, take the time to find out what your subjects really care about and have them show it to you.

16. When you first arrive at a new location, make note of any features that strike you. Try to find ways to incorporate them into your composition.

17. Be careful if you are using a wide-angle lens to photograph a group. The people at the edges may get distorted.

18. If kids want to look through the camera, let them. They will be more relaxed and cooperative. Just watch out for dirty fingers on the lens.

19. Anticipate kids' behavior. If they are playing tag, set up near the base, compose your image, and wait for them to come running in.

20. To avoid being too anatomical when photographing the human form, try using soft focus or a little blur.

21. When you are in people's homes or workplaces, carry as little gear as possible. You want to minimize the disturbance your presence causes.

Portrait Photography-1

1. Work your way into a situation. If you see something interesting, don't be satisfied with just a wide shot. Think about the essence of what you are photographing and work closer and closer until you have isolated and captured it. Don't be shy. People are usually happy to show you what they do well.

2. If you use objects other than your main subject in the foreground, be careful of placement. You don't want to obscure or detract from your subject.

3. Every time you hold your camera to your eye, look for leading lines, foreground elements, frames—anything you can use to lend dynamism to your image. Photographs are two dimensional but it helps if they look and feel three dimensional.

4. If you don't have a tripod and want to shoot with a long lens and slow shutter speed, use your camera bag to cradle the camera. If you're using a really slow speed, use a self-timer to avoid shake.

5. Don't just stand there—sit, squat, lie down. The angle from which you make a photograph can make a dramatic difference.

6. Create a catch-light in the subject's eyes with a small reflector, such as a dulled mirror, to add a bit of glimmer.

7. When using an electronic flash indoors, move your subject away from walls to prevent harsh shadows.

8. A piece of very light orange gel over the face of your electronic flash can warm up the light and give it a more pleasing cast.

9. Be patient. Street scenes change by the millisecond. Find a spot you like, get comfortable, and wait, watching all the time for the elements to fall together.

10. When photographing people interacting with each other or with pets, observe their behavior and think about what they might do to express the essence of the relationship.

11. While looking through your telephoto lens, scan around the scene looking for patterns.

12. Portraits of people from other cultures have to do double duty—they have to be honest about the exotic nature of the people while conveying our common humanity.

Shooting people: http://bit.ly/mQYZN0

Bird Photography

Bird photography is a constant challenge since the subject is usually small, may not stay still, moves rapidly, sits in less than favorable lighting conditions and is extremely aware of you approaching. However, here are some tips that might help you in clicking photographs of birds:

1. Passion for the Birds:

Since birds are a very tough subject to photograph, you must have a passion for birds. Bring along a pair of binoculars to locate and enjoy the birds. Even if you don't get that one great photograph, at least you'll get a day of bird watching in.

2. Bird Language: By learning bird language, you will see more, understand more and you will be able to have better bird photography opportunities. It will help you progress in your pursuit of bird photography.

3. Using Your Five Senses: Make mental notes of each day you go into nature and store them in your memory cards. Recall those memory cards when it is necessary to improve your bird photography opportunities.

4. Photograph Birds Near Where You Live: Practice first in your own backyard.

5. Photograph Birds Early & Late: Birds are active feeding early in the morning and late afternoon. Once you understand the rhythm of nature and the habits of the birds, you won't be anticipating bird photography opportunities that will not exist due to the time of the day.

6. Understanding the Light: You will have the benefit of more lighting in the early morning and late afternoon, which happens to coincide nicely with the activity of the birds.

7. Use the Longest Lens Available: Birds are small and you have two options for bird photography: Use the longest lens available to you or learn how to approach birds without scaring them away.

8. Treat the Birds with Respect: The safety of the birds is a prime goal to all of us. Do not put any birds at risk or in danger for the sake of a photograph as it will eventually hurt some birds as well as ruin your reputation as a photographer. Obey all the rules of the land and the laws of nature.

9. Go Alone: If you really want to increase your chances of bird photography opportunities, unfortunately you must go alone. The birds observe you in the same way as you observe them. However, the birds pick up more about you than you will ever pick up about them. If they observe body language that they don't feel comfortable with from the other person, no matter how good you are as a photographer and an observer, and you will not have the same bird photography opportunities. It will always be less.

Water Drop Photography

1. Change your viewpoint: Positioning the camera almost level with the surface of the liquid allows you to capture more of the drop’s reflection for an arty look.

2. Before the splash: You don’t have to capture the splash to create stunning images. Capturing the water droplets mid-flight can also result in beautiful images.

3. Inject some colour: Adding a food dye to the liquid is an easy way to add striking colour. You can also try adding different colours to the drop and static liquids.

4. Create multiple drops: Once you’ve mastered single drops you can try to capture images of the collision between two drops, with amazing results.

5. Try milk instead: Due to the very different viscosity and characteristics of the liquid, using milk instead of water will produce softer shapes.

6. Camera settings: With the camera on a tripod we used manual focus and exposure. Some test drops were used to set the focus by placing a ruler in the position where the droplets fell, then carefully pre-focusing on this point.

Photography by: Patrick Lindsay

The World’s Smallest SLR

Pentax’s Q-Black is the world’s smallest SLR.

How small exactly? It’s so small you can put it on your key chain (see pictured).

Not bad for a 12.4-megapixel camera that can shoot high-dynamic range, 1080 hi-def video and even in RAW (there’s also a JPG option). In addition, 

the camera has sensor-shift-shake reduction, Bokeh control filter and a 3-inch LDC monitor. This little sucker seems like a full-fledged camera even 

for dimensions of 3.9-by-2.3-by-1.2 inch.

The camera will arrive in the fall for about $800, according to Consumer Reports.

Note: This blog does not produce and market these products.

The intention is just to make you aware what's new and latest in the market.

This blog is not responsible for any of the merits and demerits of any individual product or technology.