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tips and tricks

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  • How To: Exaggerate Curves Using a Fisheye Lens

    Fisheyes offer the perfect opportunity to get creative with your framing
    • By Peter Kolonia on August 11, 2011

    The cityscapes in Chin Boon Leng’s Flickr stream offer more than 100 colorful and evocative depictions of urban Southeast Asia. Among this Singapore native’s most successful techniques: framing background subjects within the lines created by bridge trellises, columns, highway overpasses, and, as pictured here, monorail tracks.

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  • How To: Bracket a Shot for the Perfect HDR Exposure

    Try exposing for various parts of your image, then combing them later when editing
    • By Peter Kolonia on July 26, 2011

    Camera makers extol metering systems that deliver perfect exposure every time, but here’s the reality: Often there is no one correct exposure. That’s why Las Vegas shooter David Thompson makes a habit of bracketing all the important pictures he takes. It lets him, if necessary, produce high dynamic-range (HDR) composites in the editing stage. As a result, his best photos always show plenty of highlight and shadow detail, even with high-contrast scenes. As habits go, it’s a keeper.

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  • How To: Capture the Beauty of Early-Morning Light

    One great reason to hop out of bed
    • By Peter Kolonia on July 5, 2011

    Are sunrises prettier than sunsets? Virginia pro John Henley thinks so. “They have a charm all their own, if only because of the mist.” His tips for better sunrise photos include:Arrive early. Make sure to get to your shooting location while it’s still dark. Set up and be in position (on a tripod) as the first glimmers of sunlight break over the horizon.Look for ground fog. It can add a soft, romantic character. “In this shot, the rising sun shining through the mist added layering, color, and mood,” says Henley.

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  • How To: Get a Perfectly Panned Image Every Time

    A veteran automotive photographer shares his secrets for success
    • By Peter Kolonia on June 1, 2011

    Rick Dole, a Florida pro who specializes in automotive photography in most of its forms, says the secret of a good pan is like that of a good golf swing—it’s all in the follow-through. “In golf, a smooth swing is key. You don’t hit a golf ball without following through. The same is true with panning.”Panning your camera with a moving subject, he reminds us,serves at least two purposes: It conveys a sense of velocity ormotion by adding streaked lines to the scene, and it cleans up clutter by blurring everything that’s not moving in your composition.

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