Just like there's a writer’s block, the same goes for photographers as well. You know, you just don’t feel like picking up your camera and going out to take pictures. You've just lost your drive to do it. But don't worry! There are some easy ways to tackle your block and get back on your feet. Read on to learn how!

Take Your Mind for a Walk

There's nothing like some fresh air to get you energized to start the day on a good note. Sometimes just a mere 15 or 30 minute exercise can do wonders. It will help to get your blood rushing and your brain going. It also helps to be in a new environment. The feeling of expansiveness opens up your tired mind and gets your creative juices flowing. If you take your camera along, you never know what great shot may come along next!

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Challenge Yourself

You should challenge yourself to simply get out of your house and try to take three pictures within a half mile radius. What's the catch? Well, the pictures have to be unusual and interesting. The more off-beat, the better! When thrown into such a challenge, most people’s minds tend to start working almost immediately. From picking out of the ordinary subjects to experimenting with new camera angles to juggling with the exposure settings, you end up taking some great photos and at the same time, you feel inspired to keep going.

Go on Photo Walks

It's sometimes best to just gather two or three fellow photographers and go on a photo walk. Don’t pick the subject, just go with the flow. You never know what you can accomplish with such an open invitation. Another way to beat your block is to give yourself weekly assignments. You have to promise yourself you'll do it and just embrace whatever comes up. That will get you going!

Maintain a Visual Diary

Whenever you spot a great photograph, a great setting for a photograph or a great idea for a photo project, simply jot them down in a diary and refer back to them when you need an inspirational idea. Make it a ritual and you'll thank yourself later.

Flickr Your Way Through

Nothing beats the Internet when it comes to inspiring the photographer in you. Just visit www.flickr.com and browse through all of the photographs. You can do that in one of two ways: either browse through all of the categories or stick to your favorites (sports, people, wildlife, etc). Doing that will get your mind going and before you know it, your block will be beat. Happy shooting!

Do you tend to take even more pictures in the summertime? Do you take a lot of landscape shots? If so, you might as well add some spice to them by choosing alternate perspectives and compositions. Don't you agree? Then let's take a look at our options!

The first example below shows a typical landscape photo:

How boring! To add some pizzazz to your landscape photos, here are five things you can do:

1.) Get Down – So many good landscape shots miss the chance of being great, simply because you lift the camera to your face and shoot. That may capture some inspiring scenery, but it's exactly the kind of shot we're all used to. By getting low to the ground, you can improve your results and make your photos stand out.

2.) Tilt Forward – You can enhance the impact of your immediate location by tilting your camera forward and focusing on what's immediately in front of you. The rest of the landscape can make up the background.

3.) Shoot Through – Shooting from just inside a treeline or through a patch of tall grass or flowers will heighten the sense of actually being in the landscape.

4.) Seek Contrast – Include strong elements of light and shadow to achieve a more stunning lowest price for propecia effect.

5.) Frame – Look for opportunities to frame your landscape photos in dramatic ways, such as breaks in the foliage or open portals like glassless windows and open doors.

Following these five rules will give you some of the best landscape photos you've ever taken. Happy shooting!

As you can probably figure out, photographing the wild comes with many challenges. Yep, capturing wildlife on your camera is a completely different type of photography. It requires tremendous patience, it's a little daring and most of all, you need finely tuned instincts. So, without further ado, below are a few things you can do to get beautiful wildlife photos with ease!

Start Early

Most insects are late risers, which means they can't fly until they're warmed up enough. Because of that, you have the advantage of capturing them in their sleepy state before they fly away. That also means you can get much closer to them to take better photos.

Hide Yourself

It’s best to hide yourself while you wait for your subject to arrive. That way, you won’t disturb its natural habitat just for the sake of photography. It also helps with your own security, especially when you're in the middle of a large national park where potentially dangerous animals live.

Be Stealth

You also need to be very stealth. Move at a slow pace and stay close to the ground. A sudden movement could frighten your subject and you could miss a once in a lifetime shot. Also, make sure you don’t move in too close. You just need to be close enough to fill your frame with the subject. Similarly, when you're done taking your pictures, move back out with the same motions. After all, animals do deserve their privacy and you have no right to alarm them once you're done.

Keep Your Distance

It's agreed that you can get the best detail when your camera is as close to the subject as possible. Yes, that's great, but if you get too close, you're putting your own safety at risk. Wild animals are masters of surprise and you never know what could trigger them to attack. You can still get great photos from a safe distance!

Nesting Principle

If you find a bird nesting in a thick cover, do not try to uncover it! The best thing to do is wait until the bird emerges from the nest. Of course, that demands patience, but you already know that's a requirement of wildlife photography. You can’t make things happen. You just have to wait for them to occur. Wildlife photography gives you the chance to observe and learn. Yes, it may take awhile for you to get the photo you're looking for, but if you're patient and you simply slow down, you'll get what you want.

Rules of Composition

You should also strive for balance in your images. Try to incorporate different elements into your picture that have equal weight. For example, something at the edge of your picture will have more appeal than something in the center. Similarly, an element in the foreground has less weight than one in the background. Elements with higher contrast to their surroundings also have greater attraction. Colors play an important part as well, so while you're composing your image, always make the most of compositional lines. They could be a row of trees, a shoreline or a rocky hillside in the background. Special effects like that can really make a photo.

See Better and Think Faster

Wildlife photography requires you to think on your feet and be far more observant than ever before. Some of the things you need to keep in mind include: the direction of light and its effect on your picture, the colors you can balance in your frame and the textures in the scene that could form your foreground/background or the subject itself. You should also think about the animal's direction in the frame. For example, while most photographers are happy with a bird in the center of the frame, it might be even better to capture the bird leaving the frame so that you can convey dynamism and movement.

Focusing Principles

No wildlife photograph is good if you can't capture the eye of your subject. Therefore, it’s important to do that with precision, care and skill. You should use either the manual or auto focus on the eye and then use the focus lock to recompose your image. If the eye isn’t sharp, your photo will be lifeless. For instance, when a bird is in flight, focus on its head and you'll get one of the best images you've ever taken.

Time of Day

Photographers will tell you it's not wise to go on wildlife shoots in midday when the sun is directly over you. During that time of day, the sun has a nasty habit of forming harsh shadows over your subjects. The best time to go is either early in the morning or past 4 p.m.

Catch the Light

Light is essential in bringing life to your wildlife pictures. If you use flash without forming shadows of your subjects, you are on your way to creating a "catch light" in the final image, which is a localized edge contrast boost that gives a perceived increase in image sharpness. It can also be used to balance the exposure of a back-lit subject.

Watch Your Shadow

It’s very easy to get close to an insect, but you should also bear in mind that your shadow how can i get propecia can easily fall on the subject. If that happens, your picture will look a little odd and you won't be happy with the result.

Eye Level

Wildlife photography is just like taking pictures of people. Therefore, the same principle of shooting at eye level applies here as well. Not only will it connect with the viewer, but the subject will look far more down to earth and less intimidating. Now, go out there and take some wild photos!

When people talk about lenses, they talk about focal length. This is basically a measurement that will help you determine how far your zoom can "reach" or how much of that great scenery your wide angle lens will encompass.

For those who wonder how it's figured out, it's the distance from the "optical center" of the lens to the point where it is focused when set to infinity. (No, we're not talking luxury cars here. Setting a lens' focus to "infinity" simply means to focus a lens at its furthest distance). Don't worry, you don't need to know or understand any of that to figure out how this works! 🙂

Here's the practical application: the smaller the focal length of a lens, the more it can "see" and the more "stuff" you can get in the photo. Small focal length lenses are commonly referred to as "wide angle" lenses.

On the other hand, the higher the number, the less the lens is able to "see" and the closer your subject looks. These are usually referred to as "long" or "telephoto" lenses.

Back when 35mm cameras ruled the roost and digicams were only cute "toys," focal length made it easy to compare one lens to another. If it was a 28mm lens, it was a wide angle lens. If it was a 300mm, it was a telephoto lens. It was simple because the size of a 35mm negative was the same from camera to camera. A 50mm lens on one camera "picked up" the same scene as a 50mm lens on a different camera

Now that digicams are taking over, the game has changed. This is because of the size difference with the various image sensors out there.

You see, a smaller sensor doesn't "see" as much of the scene as a larger sensor does. In essence, it's cropping in, which is called the magnification factor. Since sensor sizes range all over the board, the image you get with a 28mm setting on one camera will probably look completely different on another.

Note: In the photos above, although the lens sees the exact same thing, the camera with the red sensor captures more of the scene than the camera with the blue sensor. Both were taken with a 28mm lens, but the results are very different.

Fortunately, a lot of manufactures are starting to give the 35mm equivalent ranges when they discuss their equipment. So, instead of saying a camera has a 7mm/28m lens, they give you the 35mm equivalent of 28mm/112mm.

So, if you see a camera that has 35mm equivalent focal lengths listed, here's a chart to help you decide if you have enough lens.

35mm Lens Chart:

12-20 – Ultra Wide Angle

24-35 – Wide Angle

40-80 – Normal lens

90-135 – Short Telephoto

150-250 – Medium Telephotos

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Okay, if you're shooting with a regular digicam, that's about all you need to know. However, if you have a digital SLR (you can take the lenses on and off), you'll want to read on.

Most digital SLRs do not have a full frame sensor. This means there is a magnification factor with any given lens. Normally, this is around 1.5, so we'll use that for our example. Check your owner's manual for the exact number.

Anyhow, here's what happens with this magnification factor. Let's say you have a 200mm lens. If your camera has a mag factor of 1.5x, that means you take the focal length of the lens (200) and multiply it by 1.5. In this case, your 200mm is now equivalent to a 300mm. Cool!

Now the bad news. If you like taking wide angle shots, this works against you. For example, that 24mm lens you liked so much on your 35mm camera now looks like a 36mm lens (gasp!) In order to get back to 24, you'd need to fork over lots of dead presidents for a 16mm lens! That pain you just felt was from your wallet.

So, if you're into long lenses, you'll probably like the magnification factor. If not, you may need to start stitching images together. Short of that, most manufacturers now have special "digital only" lenses that don't cost as much as the standard 35mm equipment (won't work on it properly either). They aren't necessarily cheap, but it may be worth looking into.

Oh, there are cameras that have a full frame CMOS sensor, so there is no magnification factor. Unfortunately, they sell for $7,000+ so it's probably cheaper to buy some new lenses. 🙂

Geez, I talk too much! Happy shooting!

Sun spots, also known as lens flares, can make or break a picture. In most cases, photographers are happy to create an artificial flare using Photoshop, rather than risking it with sunlight. The thing is, directing the lens toward the sun can be damaging to your eyes and it could possibly blot your image. Of course, you can use Photoshop to minimize or even remove the flare, but it’s best to avoid it while shooting. Also, even if there is a flare, you can use it in such a way so that it complements the picture you're taking. Here are some surefire ways of achieving that in just a few steps. Let's go!

Special Lenses

First things first: Technology has improved so much that things are only getting more convenient with each passing day. Today, there are lenses specifically coated with a filter that blocks the sun’s rays, which then prevents a lens flare. If you have money to burn, you may want to look into getting a professional lens like that.

Filters

Poor viagra uk sales quality filters can sometimes be the reason for lens flares. Therefore, if you're really investing in good camera equipment and accessories, ensure that you have the best. Even a small amount of penny pinching could cost you a lot. You could also use a star filter for some great effects. Not only does that hide the flare, but it also gives you a great output.

Crop It Out

It sometimes pays to shoot a picture up close and personal. That becomes even more critical when you have to shield your lens from sunlight. If the sunlight is unavoidable, you could zoom in on your subject until most of the flare goes out of the frame or where it doesn’t distract the viewer from the subject.

Angle It Well

At other times, the best way to avoid lens flares is to hide the sun behind trees and so on. That's what we call changing the angle of the scene. Not only will you be able to shoot without the flare staring you in the eye (and occupying your frame), but it also makes the picture look more artistic. You can achieve that by either changing the location of your subject or trying a new angle (bottom up, top bottom or sideways). Just do whatever it takes to avoid the flare. If that means using elements within your image to block it, so be it! Those could be trees, bushes, buildings, peoples' heads or other objects that not only block the light, but also add a certain something to the beauty of the image.

Make It Part of Your Subject

When the flare is unavoidable, make it look like part of your subject. To begin, frame your subject differently. For example, if the flare is seen just behind the subject’s head, it could give the impression of a halo, which could make for a pretty cool photo!

Shield Your Lens

The easiest way to avoid flares is to use a lens hood. Most professional cameras offer you the chance to attach a lens hood to its body. They come in all shapes and sizes and offer you a lot of room for picking and choosing. The hoods block direct sunlight and they allow indirect sunlight into the camera. Not only does that block the flare, but it also enhances the general look and feel of your pictures. After all, no photograph looks good without natural lighting. The hoods are bulky and can be a bit stressful, but if your main subject has the sun in your frame, it’s best to use them for a greater effect.

Use Your Hands

If you prefer to travel light, you could use your hands for special effects as well. However, if you're using a single reflex camera that uses wide angle focal lengths, be sure your hand isn’t part of the frame. The best way to test that is to take a preliminary shot, check the result and then go ahead with the actual shooting.

Have fun with this one!