The golden hours are two hours in a day that are very good for photographers. These two hours occur right after sunrise and right before sunset and are generally longer in the summer and shorter in the winter. You, may be wondering why these two hours are known as the best for great shots, however, during the early morning and late afternoon, the sun is positioned for dramatic lighting, but will not create harsh shadows or blazes of light, especially when shooting with people.

You may have noticed that if you take a subject outside to shoot a little bit before noon one of the three possibilities. First, your subject trying not to squint into the sun could ruin your picture. Second, your subject is too dark because they are standing with their back to the sun, creating a silhouette effect.

Lastly, your subject’s face and features look distorted because standing with the sun at one side creates awkward shadows. None of the options can product a good produce a good photograph. During the noontime hour, all the shadows will totally disappear, giving the picture a flat appearance. Sunrise and sunset provide just the right kind of lighting and shadows, and also a beautiful photographic opportunity in many cases, since the colors are so beautiful in the sky.

When it comes to a cloudy day or overcast, you can still get some great pictures. The clouds in the sky diffuse the light so that the subject is illuminated with natural light, but the harsh shadows are gone. You will want to use a flash if the pictures look to flat, but you may also want to shoot in black and white, instead of color.  Black and white photography works very well on overcast days when the colors would look washed out.

For all those rainy days you may not realize, but you can still get some shots. Rain will add an interesting element to the image and you will still be able get to a good picture. However, you will find that the wet ground will make you want to protect your equipment from water. You will also want to consider bringing some other people to hold the umbrellas or carry the bags so that they do not have to be placed on the ground. You will also want to consider getting all your shots and use the rain to make a great and stunning effect on the pictures. However, you will want to make sure that you try your hardest to keep an positive attitude so that you can get some great shots

Just about everyone has a camera with them, all the time thanks to the cell phone camera. They are notorious for taking bad pictures. It doesn’t have to be that way. Most of the new cameras are capable of achieving good results, due to the fact that cellphone manufacturers are putting better cameras in the phones.

You probably will not be able to take an image that you could print out at 13×19 and frame. You have to know the limitations of the camera. There are still some techniques you can put in your arsenal to get the best cellphone images possible.

Have Good Light - Lighting is the most important aspect in photography. Without light you don’t have a picture. The more well lit your subject is the better the quality of the image. Outside pictures are usually better lit than indoor pictures are.

Know Composition Rules - Know them, use them, but don’t be bound by them. The basic rules of composition are a guide not something to be shackled to. The are there to help make your images more interesting but don’t let your artistic ability be confined by them.

Brace Yourself & the Phone - Sharpness in photos is always a good thing. If you are shooting in low light conditions then the shutter speed of the camera will be slower to allow enough light in. That slow shutter speed will increase the chances of your images being blurry. You can counter act that by holding the phone against a wall or table. Anything stationary will work. You can put your back up against the wall to stable yourself to achieve similar results.

Break Those Stick Arms - A lot of people when taking pictures hold their arms out straight in front of them. This is a big no-no. It is not a sturdy form for photography. It will incorporate movement into the image, especially in low light situations. You should bring your elbows into your side which will add support to your arms. This will create stability which will give you a sharper image.

Avoid the MySpace Look - This is the distorted face look you get by taking self portraits with your cell phone close to your face. Cell phone cameras have wide angle lenses on them. When you take a picture with a wide angle lens close to your subject it will distort it. If you want to take a self portrait try to hold the phone as far away as you can to lessen the distortion.

Have Fun!!!!! - This is the most important tip. Photography is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. Capture those great times, and interesting moments you experience. Move around, try different angles, get different perspectives of your subject. Variety is the spice of life. Experiment, don’t take the same old boring photos.

Using a lens cover is one of the simplest things you can do. Covers protect the lens and can be removed easily when you’re ready to start shooting. Most cameras have a string attached to the lens so you don’t lose the cover.

You can use canned air, but be sure to keep the nozzle about 12-14 inches away from the lens and at an angle. Avoid pointing it straight at the lens. Ear syringes work just as well and something I recommend keeping in your camera bag.

Microfiber cloths can be used to wipe the lens, consult the manufacturer for recommendations, and remember to use a gentle circular motion when using a cloth. Never, under any circumstance, use any kind of solvent on your lenses.

Some useful tools you should keep handy in your camera bag at all times are a microfiber cloth, an ear syringe and lens cleaning fluid. Ask the manufacturer of your camera to recommend cleaning fluids.

A final tip for times when you are shooting in dusty or wet environments is to keep a B+W UV filter on the lens, which is a lot cheaper than buying a new lens.

Again you don’t want to have to clean your lenses too often so taking steps to keep them clean is your best defense.

Waiting for the right time. The biggest mistake beginners do is to set their camera up and take a straight on shot of the sun in the center of the frame. This only produces dull images that any one can take.

To get professional looking photos ddo what the greats do. You have to try and capture the atmosphere of the scene. Like mountains, trees or anything that can add depth to the scene. By doing this you create a silhouette of the foreground, which gives the photo a dark and moody effect. Most camera have an option for taking sunset pictures built in, which will give you the correct exposure. Consult your owners manuel for detail instructions.

Wait for the sun to be out of view. By obscuring the sun with an object in the scene you will create the silhouette effect. This creates less extreme lighting and will give you better flow between the background and foreground.

When taking portraitures, faces will look better if you use a flash. Try to use white balancing techniques in this situation. Setting your white balance to daylight manually will create warm tones with reds and yellows, which is the effect you want.

As always if you’re using a digital camera take several pictures and use different techniques. Move the camera to different positions especially keeping it at ground level, which will capture more of the foreground a make it appear as if you are in the photo.

We trust these wonderful machines (computers) that we use day in and day out with all of our data and pictures, and most of that trust is blind trust. Just because all is well with the world and our computer is functioning the way it’s supposed to, doesn’t mean that it always will.

All it takes is for the hard drive to crash and all is gone! No more pictures, no more data. That’s the problem of not backing up. It seems that in the times we live in more and more of our lives are on our computers and they do crash.

A hard drive failure is equivalent to losing everything in a fire or flood now because all the precious information that we keep on our computers.

So how do you prevent it?

Well the sad thing is you can’t, but what you can do is back up the information you have on your computer in case something does happen. Most people do not back up, at least not until they lose everything.

Imagine you just had a new baby. You just bought a nice, new digital camera to take a ton of photos of the baby, documenting every day of her life. After 1 year your hard drive crashes and on that hard drive was every single picture you took of the baby…gone.

A whole year of memories are gone. If you backed them up your OK. If you didn’t then they are probably gone forever. If the thought of that is enough to scare you into backing up then let’s get into how to back up.

The first thing I do when I upload the photos from my camera to my computer is make a backup copy first thing. (note the technique will be slightly different depending on how you upload images to your computer and what operating system you are using). I use Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom to upload and edit my images. Lightroom it gives you the option to backup your images at the moment you upload them.

I have an external hard drive that I connect to my computer through it’s USB port and I select it then lightroom does the rest. It puts a copy on my computer and one on my external hard drive.

You can find external hard drives here:

If you don’t use Lightroom to upload or edit your images, you can still use the external hard drive. All you have to do is after you uploaded your images to your computer, plug in your external drive and copy the images over to the hard drive or burn them to a CD, or DVD.

Now your images are all safe because you have 2 copies of every single one right? Wrong! In theory your images are safe and sound if your hard drive does crash, but now they sit on a CD or DVD or another hard drive.

All of this media is still fairly new and we are starting to learn the limits of this media. for example CD’s or DVD’s don’t last forever. There are limits to the lifespan. Those limits are based on the quality of the dye that is used on the disk. They need to be stored in a cool, dry place in a protective covering.

You should probably store those disks or the external hard drive somewhere else off site in case something happens (which I hope never does) to your home. If the hard drive or disks are in your house and so is your computer and there is an accident, a fire or something else then both copies are gone.

Of course you could put the disks or hard drive in a fire/water proof safe to protect them if you can’t store them off site.

You can find Fire Proof Safes Here

Am I being paranoid? Perhaps, but you have to be. Once you’ve lost your images you will be too. There are a lot of different ways to back up data on a computer. The problem is if you don’t use them then they don’t do you any good. Don’t wait until it’s too late and you’ve lost all your images from the last year….

So which do you choose? What do they mean? What is best for me? That is why I am here to help answer those questions you might have about those mysterious file formats.

Let’s start with a basic definition of both:

RAW-An image format on some digital cameras. The images are large, usually uncompressed files.

JPEG-Joint Pictures Expert Group. The committee which set standards for a file format for graphics. The JPEG file format is a compressed format, with some loss of quality during compression. A popular web format do to the generally small size of pictures. File formats of .jpg, .jpeg.

In other words a RAW file is straight from the sensor of the camera…it is what the camera sees, the raw data. Where a JPEG is compressed by the camera, which means the camera throws away data in the image it thinks is useless to get the file size down. JPEG also processes the images for you, not giving you a lot of control over the look of the image.

So what does all that mean to me… the beginner photographer? Well for starters I guess you need to ask yourself some questions.

1. Do I want the best possible image I can get?
2. Do I want complete control over my images?

If you answered Yes to those questions then you should consider shooting your images in RAW. Now I will say that by shooting in RAW you are setting yourself up for a little extra work but it is worth it in the long run. What kind of extra work? You will be getting the RAW data from the camera you will need to process it into the final image. To do that you will need software like Adobe Lightroom, Nikon Capture, Photoshop (Photoshop Elements too), Apple Aperture. These are the most popular.

If you answered No to those questions then JPEG is the route you want to go. When you shoot JPEG it is all automatically processed for you and doesn’t require any extra work on your part (unless you want to make changes to the image). The camera handles it for you. If you just want to take snapshots and make prints then JPEG is for you.

Just about all professional photographers shoot in RAW. RAW is a little more lenient then JPEG. In JPEG the settings (white balance, exposure) are set in stone, but with RAW you can adjust those settings after the photos have been taken.

So to sum up it is truly the choice of the user on which format you want to use. Only you can say which one is best for you and your use. The important thing is that you enjoy your photography.

So here are some tips for those who can’t afford to buy a higher end camera, but want to learn how to reduce lag time.

Reducing Lag.
Lag time is caused in large part by the focusing functions that are being performed by the camera between the pressing of the shutter button and the actual snap of the picture.

One thing you can do is press the button halfway down and hold it prior to taking the picture, this will help the camera focus before taking the picture. Once you’re read to take the picture, depress the button completely and the camera will respond with almost no delay. But for this to work you must plan and be prepared before taking the shot.

Reducing Delay Between Shots.
The time it takes a digital camera to write an image to the memory card is usually the problem with lag between taking one picture immediately after the first one.

One technique is to use a lower resolution, but this can effect the quality of the image. So if you don’t want to compromise your photo the second thing you can do is find a memory card that has a faster write time. These cards are especially important if you have a 5 pixel camera or more. But make sure the camera can accommodate this type of card or this technique will not be effective.

“Click Here To Finally… Learn How To Work That Darn Digital Camera Like A Pro”

The number one reason for this is usually lighting. The secret for perfect pictures is to do it right the first time, so that you don’t have to use photo editing software. To achieve this you simply have to understand how light can effect your images.

Using the latest digital camera will not guarantee a good photo if you are not making use of the right strategies.

Professional digital photographers have come to realize that the digital camera is just one element. Another important element is lighting, which once learned can be used to maximize the impact of your photos.

Below are some tips for digital photography lighting:

1. During Sunrise and Sunset.

It is during these times that color is at its peak for taking photos. The colors that appears in the sky during these times adds a deeper dimension to the colors that your digital camera is capable of producing. Shooting at during sunrise and sunset will add another element of brilliant colors.

2. Sunlight.

You can use Sunlight to your advantage once you know how to modify your shots. Trying different angles and see if they look perfect once frozen.

When you learn to use the nuances of light your photos will take on a deeper and richer element, which will result in not needing to use too many tools or steps to clean up your shots in photo editing software.

Simplicity - Remove any clutter from the scene you are shooting. Zoom in to capture the part you want to emphasize.

Rule of thirds - You will find this rule mentioned a lot and it’s a great way to capture a moving object. Just imagine a tic-tac-toe frame and capture the subject from one of the two sides.

Shapes and lines - Move five to ten feet away to the side to capture a straight line at an angle.

Vantage point - Shoot a picture at a lower vantage point. Increasing the height away from the object can reduce its significance.

Balance - However, unbalanced or asymmetrical objects are often more visually stimulating than balanced objects.

Framing - Use the frames of windows to capture an outdoor scene. Use doors and walls of a building to capture a walking person.

Indoor photographs - Natural lighting can produce excellent candid shots instead of the flash, but be sure to use a tripod.

Camera adjustments - The aperture allows light to enter. You must learn how to adjust this properly and appropriately so that images will not appear as either very bright or very dim.

Lowering the shutter speed allows the image to be more exposed to light. You must learn the proper length of exposure so that images will not appear as blurry.

ISO speeds - Digital cameras have ISO speeds ranging from 100 to 800. The higher the ISO, the higher the camera’s sensitivity to light’s exposure. Be sure to master using this element along with the camera’s aperture and shutter speeds.

Lens/Filters - Just about all digital SLR cameras allow you attache different lenses.

Lenses can be categorized as follows:

a. A macro lens allows you to get closer to objects like insects and flowers

b. A wide angle lens is used for capturing landmarks, and large and wide sceneries

c. A telephoto lens allows longer zooms that let you get close to objects that are far away, like birds in trees.

Filters can be used to:

a. soften the effect of the image
b. provide blurring on the edges for portraits that have sensitive moods
c. add light flares for the image to be more dramatic
d. to reduce glare so that pictures appear more saturated, crisp, and vivid.

Once you have understood and mastered the important points on digital photography and capturing pictures, you will soon see that it is easy to capture great images with even the simplest of cameras.

It’s OK not to expect to become an expert at flash photography, because it does involve a lot of trial and error, but be persistent and observe your results, because it will help you achieve the best results over time.

Flash photography has a very limited range so it should only be used when the subject is fairly close. Fill flash can be used to help lighten up a subject which is in deep shadow. To add fill flash to a photo just toggle the flash to go off when it normally would not be needed.

Try not to use flash indoors unless you really have to: it tends to “burn out” subjects and can create harsh shadows. Most photographers don’t use the built in flash that comes with cameras, but instead use an additional flash that mounts to the camera and can be pointed upwards to bounce the light.

Use fill flash when there’s enough light in the scene but your subject isn’t well lit.

If you’re using a Digital camera you should move close enough to the subject for the flash to be effective (no more than 10 feet away). Some digital cameras have accessory flashes or studio-type lighting.

If you’re indoors and want to cast light on a group of people for a portrait photo, you want to throw light into a room for an architectural photo, or you need to cast light on certain objects in a room that is too dark for a good exposure, then you probably shouldn’t hand-hold the camera or the photo will come out blurry. Most photographers simply use their flash bulb for these types of situations.

So if you’re using flash and want it to be effective then do not point it directly at a mirror or glass that will create a lens flare. Standing about four to ten feet away is the most effective distances. Try to make sure your main subjects are about the same distance away from the flash as each other or some that are closer to the flash will appear brighter than ones that are farther away.

The best thing to do is practice using flash even when it is not needed and pay attention to your results. Doing this will help you become better at flash photography. Analyze your photos and try to figure out what you could have done differently in order to create a better flash-filled exposure.