12 Things You Didn't Know Your DSLR Could Do

3. View your pictures remotely with tethered shooting.

The tidy tethering setup above uses the TetherTools Tether Table Aero System (www.tethertools.com), which can be bundled with the shown Manfrotto 131DDB Accessory Arm and Manfrotto 496RC2 Compact Ball Head for mounting on a single tripod or other stand.

Tethered shooting isn’t limited to high-end DSLRs. You can use a computer (or TV) for playback with any DSLR that has a video-out terminal, which is virtually all of them. Playback on a big screen is a boon for studio portrait shooting or tabletop still-life work—any static situation where detail is critical.

Even better, many current DSLRs (most Canons and Nikons, and Sony Alpha 700, 850, and 900 models) allow true tethered shooting: You operate the camera using the computer, which displays a live view on the screen. (Software for this is bundled with Canons and Sonys; Nikon shooters need Nikon Camera Control Pro 2, $145, street. Or try Adobe Lightroom 3 or Apple Aperture 3; both have built-in tethering for Canon and Nikon.)

Tip: With a long cable, you can use a tethered camera for wildlife shooting in your backyard.

4. Zap dust with software using dust mapping.
Yes, your sensor shakes to remove dust, and you carefully use a blower to loosen dust from the glass plate in front of the sensor, but you may still get persistent dust spots in your photos. Many cameras allow you to map the dust spots and rid your images of them later in software.

The mapping entails photographing a blank white surface; the manufacturer’s image-editing file uses the data to fill in the dust spots by interpolation.

Tip: Continue to exercise due diligence against dirt. Change lenses carefully, and never leave a camera body or rear lens element uncapped. {C}{C}{C}{C}