Beginner Photography aka Photography For Dummies

Welcome to the Beginner Photography section of this blog. I’m guessing you’ve recently bought a digital SLR. If your experience was anything like mine then you probably feel you should be congratulated at this point for that feat alone. I certainly do. I’ve spent the last nine months incubating this camera into existence. It took me that long just to save my

How To Mod Out Your Tamrac Velocity Bag

Last month I did a review of my Tamrac Velocity 7x camera bag. I thought I would write a bit about the accessories available for this bag and for other Tamrac bags and show you my most recent photo geek purchase. Tamrac have a range of lens cases, flash cases, filter packs and side pockets that can be added onto the Tamrac Velocity bag. You can add a total of two modules to

Master The Art of Holiday Photography With 50 Must Take Photos

Holiday Photography is the perfect combination of two of my favorite pastimes – traveling & photography. Lets face it, we all love to take photos when traveling. If your anything like me then sometimes you take far too many! Yet so often I would get home and review my photos and still feel like the essence of my holiday hadn’t been captured. I would show my friends

10 Ways To Use Shutter Speed Creatively – Inspiration Gallery

Last week I posted a tutorial on understanding shutter speed. I thought it would be good to give you an idea of what you can achieve by showing you some pictures in which people have used shutter speed for creative effect. Long Exposure Slow shutter speeds are great for night photography and blurring the action.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/spencerstarnes/ / CC BY-SA

Selective Coloring – Photo Editing for Beginners

Selective coloring is a simple technique used to change the color of a portion of your photo. Its pretty easy to do once you know how and it can have dramatic effects. We can use selective coloring to change the color of an object in order to make an image more compatible with a color scheme. We can also use it to draw attention to an object by creating a photo that is

Understanding Shutter Speed – A Beginner’s Guide

The “I Don’t Want To Spend Days Understanding Shutter Speed” Guide To Understanding Shutter Speed When your new to photography there are a number of confusing terms that you need to get your head around. Understanding shutter speed needn’t be rocket science. Nor should any other part of photography. It should be fun! I know first hand how easy it is to

What Can World War 2 Pictures Teach Us About Modern Photography?

Two World War 2 Pictures – Two Very Different Reactions World War 2 pictures prove to us that art lies in the hands of the photographer not in the sensor of our camera. I came to this conclusion after reading a great book by photographer Bob Krist titled Travel Photography. I wish I had read before I bought my camera. Not because his knowledge and advice would have

Convert To Grayscale – 3 Ways to Create Great Black & White Digital Photos

If you have a color photo that you would like to convert to grayscale there are number of ways to do it. In this tutorial I will step you through the process I use to convert to grayscale in Photoshop. I’m using Photoshop CS4 so my screen shots may look a little different to yours if you have another version. The method will still work in previous versions of the

Camera Lenses Explained Part 5 – Manual & Autofocus Lenses

There are three main types of lens focusing systems; focus free, manual focus and autofocus lenses. Autofocus Lenses Autofocus lenses are the most prevelant these days and rely on one or more sensors in the lens to determine the correct focus. Correct focus is, of course, still controlled by the photographer to a certain degree by the focusing mode and point of focus

Camera Lenses Explained – Part 4 – Image Stabilisation

What is Image Stabilisation? Image Stabilisation is the name given to a collection of techniques that are used to help prevent digital photographs from being blurred due to camera shake. Image Stabilisation technology reduces the effects of camera shake caused by hand movements, slow shutter speeds or the use of a telephoto lens without a tripod. Some camera manufacturers such

Camera Lenses Explained Part 3 – Aperture or “What the heck is a fast lens?

In Part 3 of “Camera Lenses Explained” we are going to talk about aperture. If you have heard the term fast lens before and wondered what it’s all about, don’t fear, by the end of this tutorial we will having you talking fast lenses, slow lenses and f-stops like a pro. Shown in the image below are three different lenses. If you have read Part 1 of the Camera Lenses