Wildlife Photography: Tips to Learn the Basics of Wildlife Photography

If you really want to learn the art of wildlife photography, then you should be aware of the basics of wildlife photography. It is rightly said that wildlife photography is one of the most challenging but rewarding hobby or career. It takes honest practice, persistence and hard work to master the real art of wildlife photography.

For mastering wildlife photography you have to have the basic knowledge of camera handling. As majority of the photos you take will be captured with the help of telephoto lens. This will test your patience and dedication as you have to wait a much longer time for the animal to come in the range and taking right pictures through right angles before that wild animal leaves from the site. Many of the times the animals you want to shoot will be yards away from you so that you have to take your pictures with more precision and care with zoom lenses.

While shooting wildlife you always have to watch out for minute movements happening around you. And for that purpose you have to be attentive for the longer time. The sunlight also plays a very important role in taking these wildlife pictures. For this purpose your camera should have the proper adjustments according to the various angles of sunlight so that pictures will be much clearer without any fuzz.

Also wildlife photography is all about capturing a particular moment of the wildlife. It makes or breaks your photography style. Many of the best wildlife photographers out there are really skillful in shooting the exact speed and momentum of the particular animal they are watching. But to be the best wildlife photographer out there you should first master the basics and you can begin this process by starting to shoot your own home pets. If you learn to shoot their natural movements and habits in their natural style then you can say that you are ready for outdoor wildlife photography.

There are no shortcuts to learn the basics of wildlife photography. Rather you have to practice it religiously and with full devotion. You should have to pay a special attention to your cameras. You have to take care that your camera has a quick shutter speed which is very necessary to take more than one shot as you roam around the wildlife to take pictures. In this type of photography most of the times you have to follow your subject to shoot many pictures at a time in one shot. This process is mainly known as "panning" which consists of taking faster pictures in one snap as you mover closer to a particular animal you want to shoot.

Thus wildlife photography is all about your patience, persistence and shooting skill where you need to wait a longer time to take the perfect picture. But at the end of the day it is also the most satisfying art where you get the really thrilling and enjoyable experience to cherish for.

Camera Buffs: Why Are You Still Using Film? Go Digital With Rechargable Batteries

If you're one of those people caught riding the fence between using your favorite standard camera and the new digital camera you have sitting around, it's time to climb down off your mount. Unless you're one of the rare people who makes a living snapping photos or you do almost exclusively very artsy types of photography, your standard film camera may not offer you anywhere near as many advantages as even a lower-end digital camera of today.

But, whether you realize it or not, the failure to move to almost exclusive use of your digital camera is costing you - and the environment around you - in far more ways than one. Actually, the list of differences between the two platforms can go on for pages, but let's tackle the ones apt to make the most positive difference to you.

1. The cost of film - and the limited number of pictures possible per roll - often limit the number of shots you take. Think about it: how many times have you missed a great scene just because you wanted to save room for more pictures later? The same holds true for film processing; we avoid taking all the pictures we could because we don't want to make the costs to develop our vacation pictures cost more than the trip itself.

2. Related to the first issue, many cameras let you take anywhere from 30 to 100 shots before you either have to transfer the images into your computer or change your Flash or other storage medium card. Also, it's usually much faster and easier to change the card than it is to insert a new roll of 35 mm film.

3. Film only lasts so long. While we often try to be prepared by keeping an extra roll or two in our bags, we may not realize that extremes of heat or cold - or other less than ideal situational factors - have made the film and the pictures we take with it sub-par. Plus we have no idea how long a roll of film has been sitting on a store shelf when we buy it. Sure, the film usually has a date on the package, but if we rarely check that date when buying food, what's the chance we'll double-check it before we use the film?

4. If your big excuse for not moving entirely to digital is that you know such a camera eats batteries faster than a chocoholic can consume her way through a Ghiradelli shop, think rechargeable. Good quality rechargeable batteries and a proper recharger are much less expensive than they were a few years ago and can save you a fortune (as much as a $100 per month per household).

5. It's much easier, as well as more cost efficient, to store a huge volume of digital images than it is to store developed photographs. Your recordable CD or DVD drive can become your best friend for archiving your photos or making a quick album you can share with friends and family.

6. Without having to worry about the cost of film, you can experiment with your photography to your heart's content. This will help you develop your talent far faster than being nickel and dimed having to process bad shots taken with a standard camera.

7. Software available for use with your camera - including third party commercial packages like Microsoft Digital Image - let you do some very interesting alterations to your photos. You can retouch, enhance, crop, rotate, and add special effects at the click of a mouse.

8. Even more inexpensive digital cameras offer corrective features like red eye reduction and auto focus that you normally have to become skilled to overcome with a standard camera. Many also automatically adjust for light levels better than standard cameras can.

9. Film-produced photos can age rapidly; colors fade and the image can crack. Even storage of negatives can be a problem. But a digital image you can all up and reprint again and again.

10. Not only is the cost of film development quite expensive, the chemicals used are toxic. All too frequently, these toxins end up in waterways or pollute the ground water. Use rechargeable batteries with a digital camera, however, and the environment will (practically) thank you.

And the final bonus? You can just delete your really bad shots. No one ever has to see them or gets the opportunity to tease you about them. That's a great plus all by itself.

Christmas Photography Tips and Advice

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For Christmas photography tips, or any sort of photography, we want the best results to come from our time and effort. Christmas photography captures special moments, especially when children are involved. In fact, this leads to my first Christmas photography tip:

(1) Focus on the children first. This admittedly is a bias of mine, but Christmas foremost should be a children's holiday. This applies to gift-giving, and also to photography. If you disagree and/or if adults are at the center of your Christmas, fine, that's just my opinion. Just think of ol' Art Linkletter: "Kids Say the Funniest Things." Kids also make the best photo subjects, and regardless, Christmas (like Trix cereal) is for Kids.

Our Top Ten Christmas photography tips are going to relate to the strategy of taking the best photos, not to the type of camera. That's a whole 'nuther topic. In fact, yours truly is not even a shutterbug. My advice comes from working as a local daily newspaper reporter, among some of the best professional photographers, going back to the 1970s when they still used darkrooms, up to today in the digital age. These Christmas photography tips are geared toward how you interact with your subjects, once the camera is chosen and the lighting adjustments are made.

(2) Don't be one of these photographers who is constantly out front and interrupting things, asking people to pose. For your best Christmas photography, be the fly on the wall. Stay in the background and take candid photos of what's happening, photos in which the subjects don't realize you're taking their photos.

(3) A lower angle (shooting "upward" toward the subjects and the scene) often yields better results. Don't hesitate to sprawl on the floor.

(4) In your Christmas photography, look for sequences of events. A photo is just one moment in time and to capture a sequence, many folks nowadays prefer a video camera. Still, there's nothing like a series of photos. For example: (A) Child awaits anxiously for gift-giving to begin. (B) Child receives wrapped gift. ( C ) Child tears wrapping off of gift. (D) Child reacts to gift.

(5) In fact, your sequence of events could begin hours earlier. Child helps decorate tree. Child puts on Christmas outfit. Etc.

(6) Just because you're staying out of the spotlight with your camera, that doesn't mean you can't be persistent. Patience is a virtue in waiting for just the right moment, just the right shot.

(7) Be a minimalist. Don't try to illustrate the whole scene of the Christmas event at once. If it's a party, take turns focusing on individual participants, or no more than two or three in one frame. If your Christmas photography involves a group of carolers, go ahead and photograph the whole group, but also aim for closeups of one caroler, or a small group.

(8) If you still want some posed Christmas photography for the archives, that's fine. Try to do the posing at the conclusion of the shindig, not at the start or during the middle.

(9) For posed photos, try to keep the number of subjects small. Let's imagine the group of Christmas revelers is 20. Go ahead and shoot the group of 20, but keep in mind that with so many folks in there, their faces are going to be the sizes of dimes. Also shoot "subgroups" with three, four, five people.

(10) When people pose in groups, have them put their heads as close together as possible. This may seem like a minor point, but when you see the results, you'll understand. Faces can be 20 percent larger and up close if we eliminate the wasted space between their heads.

SOURCES

Personal experience

http://digital-photography-school.com/16-christmas-photography-tips

http://www.best-family-photography-tips.com/Christmas-pictures.html

http://photography.about.com/od/christmas/Christmas_Photography.htm

How Baby Talk Helps a Baby's Language Development

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Adults speak to babies in a distinctive way in all cultures, in baby talk.  In some ways, baby talk cannot be helped, some adults are not even aware they are speaking differently with a baby.  The face of a baby appears to inspire adults to speak in a slow, high pitched, singsong voice.   In a different context, in which a baby is not involved, it often sounds silly and out of place.  It is not the voice that adults generally use with other adults.  Why is that that we as adults distinctively use baby talk with babies?

One might be tempted to say that it is a cultural phenomenon.  After all, we see other people coo-chi coo-chi coo-ing to their babies, and we were also coo-chi-ed at when we were babies.  Perhaps using baby talk is a latent memory of our own early days as babies.

These are all possible theories, however, some clever social scientists have found reasons to suspect that we are, in essence, programmed to engage babies in baby talk because it helps them to develop their own language skills.

Babies are fascinating people.  They are born with the ability to soak up knowledge like a sponge.  They have an innate ability to watch, listen, and imitate the people around them.  Yet, if you watch the preference of a baby in the crib, they will pay more attention to the person speaking in baby talk than the person speaking in a normal voice.  Why is that?  Do they prefer the voice of the mother and the caretakers, the people who will speak the most baby talk?

Tests have shown that babies not only prefer baby talk, but they prefer any kind of baby talk to a regular voice.  Baby talk in French or any other foreign languages will be preferred over the normal voice of the mother.  We can then deduct that they like to listen to the certain pitch and tone that comes with baby talk of all languages.  Why the preference?  Babies are not susceptible to cultural phenomenon just yet, and baby talk is distinctive different than how adults interact with each other.

As it turns out, baby talk is not just the way we happen to speak to babies, but it is a mechanism of helping babies learn language.  Analysis of baby talk shows that the vowels are lengthened, and speech is slowed down, and more articulated.  It is an exaggeration of adult speech.  What appears to be an unconscious effort is actually a lesson plan in language.  Even mouth movements are exaggerated for the baby’s benefit.  One would press their lips more tightly together to say “baaaaaaaaaaall” to a baby.  In fact, when the full length baby talk is written down, it has the look of a grammar lesson, repetitive, but varied by description and structure: “Look at the ball, look at the bouncing ball, look at the pretty bouncing ball”.

As silly as it may sound, baby talk has all the important components of language.  It is an important part of a baby’s language development skills because it provides them what normal adult speech lacks, a methodical way of providing the basic building blocks of language.  So baby talk is not just an unconscious effect of babies on adults, but rather, the unconscious way people teach babies how to use language.

DIY Wedding Photography: Shot List for the Traditional Couple

Photo Credit: celtics baby clothes

How can you save money on photography for your wedding? Do it yourself! DIY wedding photos won't sacrifice your precious wedding memories. Just make sure you are doing the wedding justice by creating a shot list before the ceremony.

As a traditional couple, you will want "classic" wedding portraits. Make sure you get the following shots for your do it yourself wedding album.

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Pictures of the Bride and Groom

Have the bride and groom stand in front of the church. Stand back from the couple so you can get their entire bodies into frame. Make sure to get the entire wedding gown in the picture.

Take a few steps forward, use your zoom, and take a close-up portrait of the bride and groom facing forward.

Have the bride and groom turn their heads and look into one another's eyes. Take a close-up.

Snap a photo of the bride and groom standing in front of the church on their wedding day.

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Photos of the Wedding Party

Every wedding album needs a picture that includes the entire wedding party. Line up the bridesmaids and groomsmen with the bride and groom in the center. The flower girl and ring bearer can stand in front of the attendants, but do not place them directly in front of the bride and groom. Doing so would block the bride's wedding gown.

Take some wedding photos of the bride with her bridesmaids. Then take some pictures of the groom with his groomsmen.

Make sure you get a picture of just the flower girl and ring bearer. These cute wedding photos will turn out great!

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Pictures of Family Members

Family plays an important role in any wedding. Make sure to include them in the wedding photographs.

Shoot the bride with her family and the groom with his family. Marriage unites these two families, so get a shot of them all together as well.

Make sure to get a picture with the grandparents as well.

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Photographs of The Ceremony

The ceremony is the most sacred part of the wedding. Don't be too intrusive while getting your shots. Here are some wedding photos you must get:

Each bridesmaid and groomsmen as they walk toward the altar

The flower girl and ring bearer as they walk down the aisle

The bride walking down the aisle and being given away

Close-up of the groom when he sees his bride

The bride and groom standing at the altar (from behind and from in front if you can manage)

The entire wedding party during the ceremony

Bride and groom's first kiss as a married couple

The couple lighting the unity candle

Bride and groom exchanging rings

Bride, groom, and attendants as they walk back down the aisle

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Reception Photos

The reception offers many opportunities to capture the spirit of celebration. Take a lot of journalistic style photographs during the reception of guests dancing, eating, and laughing.

In addition to these spontaneous photos, remember to snap the following pictures:

The bride, groom, and attendants in the receiving line

Groom removing and tossing the bride's garter

Bride tossing her bouquet

The wedding cake being cut and fed to the bride and groom (protect your camera from flying cake!)

The couple's first dance and dancing with their parents

The Most Important Tip for DIY Wedding Photography - Be Creative

This wedding photography shot list will get you started. It is not intended to limit your creativity. These are only the basic poses and wedding pictures a traditional couple would like to have in their wedding photo album. Take these basics and add your own ideas to create a unique wedding gift -- the gift of memories.

Sources

DFM Photography, Wedding Shotlist Helper, http://www.dfmphotography.com/wedding_shotlist.shtml

Personal Experience

DIY Wedding Photography: Shot List for the Traditional Couple

photo source

How can you save money on photography for your wedding? Do it yourself! DIY wedding photos won't sacrifice your precious wedding memories. Just make sure you are doing the wedding justice by creating a shot list before the ceremony.

As a traditional couple, you will want "classic" wedding portraits. Make sure you get the following shots for your do it yourself wedding album.

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Pictures of the Bride and Groom

Have the bride and groom stand in front of the church. Stand back from the couple so you can get their entire bodies into frame. Make sure to get the entire wedding gown in the picture.

Take a few steps forward, use your zoom, and take a close-up portrait of the bride and groom facing forward.

Have the bride and groom turn their heads and look into one another's eyes. Take a close-up.

Snap a photo of the bride and groom standing in front of the church on their wedding day.

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Photos of the Wedding Party

Every wedding album needs a picture that includes the entire wedding party. Line up the bridesmaids and groomsmen with the bride and groom in the center. The flower girl and ring bearer can stand in front of the attendants, but do not place them directly in front of the bride and groom. Doing so would block the bride's wedding gown.

Take some wedding photos of the bride with her bridesmaids. Then take some pictures of the groom with his groomsmen.

Make sure you get a picture of just the flower girl and ring bearer. These cute wedding photos will turn out great!

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Pictures of Family Members

Family plays an important role in any wedding. Make sure to include them in the wedding photographs.

Shoot the bride with her family and the groom with his family. Marriage unites these two families, so get a shot of them all together as well.

Make sure to get a picture with the grandparents as well.

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Photographs of The Ceremony

The ceremony is the most sacred part of the wedding. Don't be too intrusive while getting your shots. Here are some wedding photos you must get:

Each bridesmaid and groomsmen as they walk toward the altar

The flower girl and ring bearer as they walk down the aisle

The bride walking down the aisle and being given away

Close-up of the groom when he sees his bride

The bride and groom standing at the altar (from behind and from in front if you can manage)

The entire wedding party during the ceremony

Bride and groom's first kiss as a married couple

The couple lighting the unity candle

Bride and groom exchanging rings

Bride, groom, and attendants as they walk back down the aisle

DIY Wedding Photo Shot List - Reception Photos

The reception offers many opportunities to capture the spirit of celebration. Take a lot of journalistic style photographs during the reception of guests dancing, eating, and laughing.

In addition to these spontaneous photos, remember to snap the following pictures:

The bride, groom, and attendants in the receiving line

Groom removing and tossing the bride's garter

Bride tossing her bouquet

The wedding cake being cut and fed to the bride and groom (protect your camera from flying cake!)

The couple's first dance and dancing with their parents

The Most Important Tip for DIY Wedding Photography - Be Creative

This wedding photography shot list will get you started. It is not intended to limit your creativity. These are only the basic poses and wedding pictures a traditional couple would like to have in their wedding photo album. Take these basics and add your own ideas to create a unique wedding gift -- the gift of memories.

Sources

DFM Photography, Wedding Shotlist Helper, http://www.dfmphotography.com/wedding_shotlist.shtml

Personal Experience

Upgrade Your Digital Photography Studio on a Budget

source,photo credit

Digital photography is progressing almost as fast as the computer industry. Mega-pixels are multiplying faster than you can count them. As with all advances in technology, a higher price tag is attached. So, how do you upgrade your digital photography studio with out breaking your budget?

Let's go over a few ways to do just that.

Upgrade your Digital Photography Studio - Don't Buy New

The more mega pixels the better, I know. But, if you are using a 5.0 mega pixel camera now, wouldn't a 6.0 one be an upgrade? There is no need to spend the extra $3000 to get the newest 10 mega pixel digital camera.

There are plenty of used camera stores to find newer equipment that will fit your budget as well. KEH offers a huge selection of both new and used digital camera equipment, all of which has been cleaned and tested.

Let's not forget about eBay either. The deals there on new equipment are sometimes better then buying older used equipment. You never know when some college kid is going to sell off his $3000 digital camera just so he can make rent.

Upgrade your Digital Photography Studio - Compensatory Upgrades
Find way to stream line your business. Odds are, you don't have a lot of people working at your digital photography studio. So, you probably wont be buying equipment that saves you money by eliminating workers. Still, there is always new software coming out to help you stream line your business.

Such software may be expensive at first, but will be worth the price. Even if the software does nothing more than free up two hours in your work day, that is two more hours to make money. That is two more hours to see customers. Those customers could then turn into lifetime customers who bring your repeat business and great word of mouth advertising. All because you freed up two hours in your work day.

Upgrade your Digital Photography Studio - Upgrade Only What You Need
Upgrading your digital photography studio doesn't mean you have to spend a fortune on new gear, lights, printers, computers, and what have you. Take some time to really identify what it is in your digital photography studio that needs to be upgraded.

Lets say you bought an expensive sub dye printer years ago to start printing photographs in house. 60,000 prints later, it's just not what it used to be. This doesn't mean you have fork over a huge amount of money to buy a new one. You could out source your printing for a while or you could even look into getting the printer refurbished by the manufacturer.

Upgrade your Digital Photography Studio - Upgrade Your Staff
Not every digital photography studio upgrade is a piece of expensive new gear. Invest some of your budget by training your staff. If you have other photographers working for you, try spending some money on a training workshop. The more your employees know about their job, the better they are at it. These workshops will help increase your staffs skills, but it will also help them get a better picture of what you want. Being on the same wavelength with your employees will also help them operate more efficiently

If you have complicated software programs, consider having a sales rep come out and teach your staff about the software. This goes back the same point, the more your employees know, the better they operate. Often, sales reps will be more than happy to come out and teach refresher courses or how to use new programs free of charge. After all, the happier you are with their product, the more you will buy from them in the future.

These are just a few ways to upgrade your digital photography studio with out breaking your budget. There are always ways to pinch pennies if you think about. The biggest obstacle to get over is the, must have the new stuff, mentality. You almost never need the new stuff, it is almost certainly nothing more than a want. Think before you buy and you are sure to save money in the now and make more in the future.

Six Tips to Help You Clean and Organize Your Photography Studio

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1. Photography Studio Organization - Use good old fashion hanging files.

Believe it or not, in this digital age, the classic green hanging folder is still a great organization tool. Using manila folders to organize your photography studio's bills, invoices, and receipts is a good start. It is a lost cause however, if you don't have an organized place to put them. The hanging folder is the perfect place to put them

Don't have a filing cabinet to put the hanging folders in? Not a problem. There are several options available at your local retail store. I prefer the clear Rubbermaid bins. They are about 8 inches wide. This means they are easily stored in closets or on a bookshelf. Since photography studio space is usually valuable real estate, these smaller file boxes might be the way to go.

2. Photography Studio Organization - File your files

A great way to keep your files organized is to keep a file of all your files. What do I mean by this? Keep a piece of paper in your photography studio with all of your file folders on with their names. If the folders have sub-folders, list those too.

This will let you see if you have folders that overlap so that you can condense your folders. For example, there is no point in having studio file and a studio equipment file.

You could have this list written on a piece of paper, but that would just be one more piece of paper to file. Try keeping this record in a word or excel document. That way you have one less piece of paper in your office and you can update it much easier when you add new folders and files.

3. Photography Studio Organization - Throw things away

For some reason most photography studio owners have a fear of throwing client paperwork and photos away. There are certain things that you just don't need to hang on to. If you are a digital photographer there is no reason to hold on to basic prints. Create a varity of back-ups and toss the prints. You can always re-print them. If you aren't a digital photographer and have a traditional photography studio, invest in a scanner. This way, if you must hold on to prints for color purposes, you can scan them and toss the print.

There are some things you need to hold onto though.

Tax items are one thing you should hold onto. You should save your tax returns forever. The rest of your tax reports and receipts should be saved for no longer than six years.

Throw away papers that you don't have an immediate need for, can get a copy of easy, or that don't have any tax or legal reason to hold on to.

If you feel like you need to hold on to all your photography studios paperwork, than try scanning it all onto a portable hard drive. Then you can throw all the papers away. It will take more time than growing through all the papers away, but at least the hard drive will take up less space in your office.

You can scan model's head shots for reference later. You can scan pose ideas from magazines so you don't have clipping all over your photography studio.

4. Photography Studio Organization - "Assorted" Folders

How many other, assorted, or misc files do you have in your photography studio? You know, the folder that you put everything in that you just don't know where else to put it. That isn't organization. Odds are you can just throw it away altogether. A good rule of thumb is, if you haven't needed it or touched it in a year then toss it.

5. Photography Studio Organization - Get rid of business cards

There are so many ways to organize all your business cards, model head shots, and contact information. There are plenty of ways to get rid of it altogether as well. A simple approach is to take the business card or headshot and tape it or staple it the file folder it is associated with. At least then it is filed away instead of in a pile on your desk or in a drawer.

There are lots of gadgets out there made for scanning in business cards to your computer. If you are a digital photography studio, you probably already have a scanner, put it to good use. If you don't have the money for one of these than just take some time to enter the contact information into your electronic address book. Outlook has a great address book or you could even use your email clients address book. Anything is better than having them just laying around waiting to get lost.

6. Photography Studio Organization - Use the computer

Try using your photography studio's computer as much as possible. Use it to make your to-do lists, create address books, file documents, and more. The more you keep or put into your computer the less you have in your photography studio.

As I mentioned before, there are plenty of gadgets out there that can help you scan your files into the computer. Take advantage of them!