• Clear your memory card. Just do a Format from the camera menu.
• Charge your batteries, for the camera and flash. Be ready with a spare set too, just in case.
• Do a pre-flight check of your camera. Check all the settings for AF, ISO and image size and such.
• Clean your lens. Remove any fingerprints, dog nose prints, etc.
• Plan where you’ll stand for shooting photos. And remember to get down to the kids level for their shots.

I’m going to use the Creative Lighting System on my D70 and have 2 flashes bounced off the ceiling. this should light up the whole room with soft light and I can shoot from anywhere I want.

You may want to plan a few shots also. A family photo in front of the tree before the present opening. Maybe a shot outside in the snow, if you live in the chillier parts of the country.

Here’s hoping you have a Merry Christmas and that all your pictures are keepers.

Using a tripod will be essential for these shots. You shutter speeds will be rather long, especially for the outdoor shots. For clear and sharp pictures you’ll need your 3 legged friend.

Manual focus and manual exposure will work best for Christmas light photos. You’ll also want to set your White Balance to Tungsten (or Indoor) in order to properly record the colored lights. And you will want to turn off the flash.

Outdoors, start with ISO 200, F5.6 and 1/2 second. Shoot a few at longer and shorter exposures and then review your shots on the LCD. Proper exposure will vary depending on how many lights you have up, whether its dusk or dark, etc.

Everything you need to know is in the NYIP Holiday Lights article here. They also have some great ideas for shooting by candlelight and using HDR for the outdoor photos.

A couple of basic tips for good Halloween photos:

• Shoot at dusk with (maybe) a little fill in flash at -2 stops. Get a nice balance with the ambient light.
• Use your tripod and longer exposures, especially of your pumpkin art. Boost your ISO to 400 or more if needed.
• Be creative. Use the wrong white balance for shifting all the colors.
• Use your flash off camera and to the side of your subject for hard shadows. Spookier.
• Use high or low angles and get close with a wide angle lens. Use the distortion to your advantage.

NYIP (New York Institute of Photography) has a great article on their website on capturing your best Halloween photos. Following their guidelines should help you make the most of your photo ops tonight.

Also check out the photo tips at Halloween Photography and pay attention to the sample images. These should give you some new ideas for creating your own memorable photos.

Lastly, review all 13 Halloween Photo tips over at Photokaboom. I especially like the idea at number 8, Light Painting. Grab your tripod and a strong flashlight or spotlight and go to town. You may want to use more than a 2 second exposure; maybe 10-15 seconds at f5.6 or so would allow you more time to light the area.

Have fun and be safe tonight. Don’t wind up like this!!

Whether you’re shooting the huge 6 foot snow drift in your backyard or that early morning snow capped mountain scene, getting the proper exposure can be a challenge. Back in May I wrote about proper exposure and when your camera can be fooled. Snow scenes are one of those times.

Since your camera’s light meter is calibrated for medium gray, your snow pictures may tend to be underexposed. The snow won’t be as bright as it should be. You’ll need to override your camera settings. Also, a UV filter will help remove that blue cast from the snow, especially at higher elevations.

If you’re lucky enough to have a Beach and Snow scene mode, use it. This tells the camera you’re shooting a bright scene and it adjusts the exposure accordingly. You can also use Exposure Compensation to add more light. Go to +1 or +2 compensation, depending on how much of your picture is bright snow. Better yet, take 2 shots using each setting.

Winter snow scenes are the type of photos where you need to be smarter than the camera. With a little experience, you’ll quickly be able to look at a scene and know just how much compensation is needed.

So go out and shoot something!

A true fisheye lens has an angle of view of at least 180 degrees. Stretch your arms straight out to each side, as if you are describing that huge fish that you caught last summer. That’s how much picture area a fisheye lens covers. Impressive!

One lens I know of, and perhaps there’s more, has a wider angle of view. The Nikkor 8mm fisheye lens covers 220 degrees. It can actually see behind itself!

People buy fisheye lenses for the super wide view and inherent perspective distortion. There’s definitely a look and feel to images shot with these lenses. Unfortunately, most Digital SLR owners can’t get the full effect due to the magnification factor of their sensors.

Canon and Nikon users who have invested in a full frame Digital SLR like the EOS 5D and the Nikon D3 will get every bit of what the fisheye sees. The rest of us have to live with the crop factor an APS size sensor imparts. It’s just part of the game.

However, both Canon and Sigma make full frame fisheye lenses so we’re not totally left out. These lenses give the 180 degree view, not the circular image some folks associate with a fisheye lens.

It’s quite easy to use the Rule of Thirds. Imagine a Tic-Tac-Toe board drawn upon your picture or viewfinder screen. Two horizontal and two vertical lines that evenly split each dimension into thirds. Some digital cameras even have an on-screen grid you can turn on to help guide you. If your camera has it, try it. Mine is on all the time.

As you can see here, it’s easy to imagine these lines as you’re shooting.

Note the placement in this photo of the flower buds.

I managed to get them at opposing Power Points.

Don’t you think this is a more pleasing photo than if the lower bud was dead center?

That would have pushed the upper bud almost out of the photo.

Having something cut off at the edge of a photo is not pleasing.

Small changes make big differences.

Some of the guidelines to follow are:

• The four points where the lines intersect are called Power Points and are good places to place your subject. It’s also good to have something on the opposing side for balance.
• Place your subject in any section but the middle one. Dead center is a compositional No-No.
• Use the lines for placing your horizon. Your photo will show more foreground or sky instead of being cut in half.
• Place your subject on the horizontal or vertical lines, again getting away from dead center.

Making simple shifts up, down, left, or right when you’re shooting can mean the difference between a snapshot and a photograph. Small changes can give you big benefits. Try using the Rule of Thirds and Leading Lines that I talked about last week. You’ll like the results.

Research the Zoo itself - Go to their website and get a map. Figure out sun angles before you even get there. Also check for a feeding schedule. Everyone’s active when they know food’s coming. See if they’ve posted about new baby animals as they make for great photo opps.
Take advantage of free admission days if they’re offered. It’ll be a bit crowded until all the little kids get tired and Mom decides to pack it in for the day.

Shooting through glass barriers - The real secret is to put your lens on the glass. Look for a clean spot with no scratches. Be sure your lens shade is on (a rubber one is best as it gives a bit) and don’t press too hard. As your lens focuses, the front will rotate or move slightly in and out. You don’t want to impede that movement.
Look through the glass first before you decide to use this technique. If you see a distorted image through curved or angled glass so will your camera. And some of the viewing areas (gorillas perhaps) have laminated or sandwiched glass for extra strength which results in wavy or textured glass. No sharp images thru this stuff.

Shooting through fences - If possible, just like with the glass, get right up next to it and place your lens so that no fence wire is in front of it. If it’s too far, try using a wide open aperture and shoot subjects that are ten feet or more beyond the fence. The minimal depth of field will render the fence as a blur. Shots of animals right next to the fence will also show the fence; can’t really help it.

Camera support - Check with the zoo first as some don’t allow tripods. Causes too much of a hazard for pedestrians and stroller Moms. A monopod is perfect for that extra bit of stability for your 80-200 or 70-300 lens. A pocket or tabletop tripod, or a beanbag, may prove useful at times. There’s usually lots of posts or railings to prop it up on.

Bring a flash - A fill flash will make a huge difference in many photos. Shooting dark furred animals with fill helps bring out the details on their coat. Set you fill for -1.5 or -2 stops; you don’t want it to overpower the existing light. Good also for shots of the family when everyone is wearing a hat!

Off camera flash for fishtanks - … and for terrariums with lizards and snakes. Use the wireless capabilities of your DSLR flash or an off camera cord. Get the lens on the glass again and use the flash off to the side, angled at your subject. Very effective.

Prepare for your next photo trip to the zoo and have a great time.

Remember that these are rules and not laws. They can be bent or even broken. If you want to add more impact to your photographs you should think about these rules, and today we’re talking about Leading Lines.

Just like it sounds, Leading Lines guide the eye of the viewer into the picture. They lead toward the subject, toward the focal point of your image. They draw the viewer in. A road, a fence line, the limbs of a tree, the petals of a flower, the sections of a hot air balloon, are all available for you to use.

Whether you use straight or curved lines will mostly be dictated by where you’re shooting. Either is effective, but they differ a bit. Straight, and especially diagonal lines, evoke power and dynamic flow. They ’speed’ the viewer to the focal point.

Curved lines are more subtle, meandering a bit before they arrive at their final destination. Curving leading lines slowly guide the eye into the picture. They’re more peaceful and subdued than their bolder and straighter counterparts.

The next time you’re out shooting take a number of photos specifically using Leading Lines. See if these images ’speak’ to you more so than others. If so, add this technique to your photographic bag of tricks.

Any digital camera can do panoramas. It’s the software that stitches the images together. Having a panorama mode just simplifies things a bit. The camera locks exposure, gives you guide lines on the LCD screen, and tags each image 1,2,3 so the software knows which order they go in.

For best panorama results, do the following:

• If available, use Manual exposure. Consistent exposure makes blending images easier.
• Don’t use Auto White Balance. Use the Daylight or Cloudy or other preset value.
• A superwide lens is not needed, and will actually create more problems for you when you try to stitch the images together.
• Shoot all the pictures vertically to include more foreground.
• Use a tripod and swing through the shot before actually photographing.
• Overlap images at least 30 percent. Give the software lots of room for shifting and tilting when blending the final image.
• If your camera has a Grid option in the viewfinder (many Nikon’s do) turn it on to help align the horizon.

Remember that you are creating a multi-mega-megapixel image. These can be printed quite large. I have a shot that’s five 6MP images stitched and it’s printed to 12×44 inches. Looks superb.

Inspiration from Photo Mags

Articles in photo magazines are a great catalyst for you to try new camera techniques. A subscription to Pop Photo, PC Photo, Outdoor Photographer, Natures Best or any other photo magazine is well worth the small cost. When you’ve read the issue, rip out the articles that interest you and file them in manila folders. Your local library is another source for photo mags you may not see on the bookstore shelves. They frown upon people ripping up their magazines. Just make copies of what you need.

A number of magazine publishers post popular articles on their websites in PDF format. Downloading these files may save you from cutting up your own magazines. Look in the Table of Contents or Advertiser Info pages of your magazine to find their website.

Online Swiping

The Internet can be a great resource also. Digital photography websites like this one are quite prevalent. You can bookmark websites and individual articles to return to later. Printing out articles will let you access the information without having to be online. Visit the TeachMeToShoot Links Page for a list of many of these resources.

Using one of the online bookmarking services will let you access sites you’re interested in from any computer. You can get a free account at Yahoo, Google, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and many other sites. All your links are stored at the online service and are accessible through any computer and web browser. Also check out Google Notebook as it lets you store and categorize pages of info.

Using one or all of the methods here, your swipe file will soon be full of ideas and inspiration. You’ll find it to be a great resource for the future.