Tips 3

Embrace the grey day
Don't let an overcast day put you off heading out with your camera. The softer light you get on an overcast day is perfect for shooting plants, flowers and foliage as it dampens the contrasts.This allows the camera to achieve a more balanced exposure and really bring out the colours in petals.

 Travel without a tripod
 If you're pushed for space, though, check out this trick. Balance your camera somewhere sturdy and safe, disable the flash and set a slow shutter speed of two seconds or more. Now set your self timer, fire the shutter release and let go off your camera so that you won't cause it to wobble. By the time the self timer countdown expires, any residual movement caused by your hand letting go should have evened out, so your camera will sit still and steady throughout the exposure for a crisp, sharp result.

It's not always possible to find a flat surface on which to perform this trick. Try and find a flat surface on some castle battlements and you'll see what we mean. Combat this by packing a small beanbag in your camera bag.

Get 100g beanbags (a pack of four costs less than £5), which can be pressed into shape on uneven surfaces, with your camera snugly settled on top. It's more stable and less likely to either fall over or wobble during the exposure.

Professional tripods use quarter-inch screws to fix your camera in place. You can easily source a screw of the same size from a normal hardware store. To avoid travelling with a bulky tripod, drill a hole in a standard bottle top (the type you'd find capping a 500ml drinks bottle) and thread the screw through it, fixing it in place using strong glue.

Keep this in your camera bag as you travel, but don't bother carrying the rest of the bottle, as these are easily sourced wherever you happen to end up. Fill an empty bottle with grit to give it some weight and screw your cap to the top. Instant tripod.

 Banish long-arm self portraits
Self portraits are great for capturing holiday memories, but if you can't find somewhere suitable to balance your camera while also framing the scene behind you, the only way you can take them is to hold your camera at arm's length and press the shutter release. The results are rarely flattering.

Invest in a cheap monopod and use this to hold your camera away from you while keeping your hands in a more natural position and the great scenery you want to stand in front of behind you. Use your camera's self-timer to fire the shutter 2 or 10 seconds later.

 Look at the eyes, not around the eyes
Ever wondered why so many magazines have faces on the cover? It's because we identify with such pictures, which in turn helps us identify with the magazine. Art editors know that our inclination is to connect with the eyes staring out of the cover, and the same is true of your portraits.

When shooting a person, if only one part of your image is in focus, make it the eyes. That's the first place your audience will look. So long as they're in focus, they'll consider the whole image to be accurately shot, no matter how shallow your depth of field and how blurred the rest of the frame.

Use burst mode when shooting pets
Pets are unpredictable, so don't wait for them to pose before shooting. The chances are you'll miss the crucial moment.Don't wait until you've attracted their attention -- start shooting while you're trying to do it, as they don't understand the concept of cameras and will move at the worst possible moment. Switch your camera to burst mode and start shooting while you're trying to attract their attention towards the lens for a better chance of capturing something close to the picture you wanted.

Make use of scene modes
Your camera knows better than you on how to use its own settings to create special effects. Don't be afraid to use its in-built scene modes for punchy monochrome or high-key effects. If possible, set your camera to save raw and JPEG images side by side so you also have a copy of the original unadulterated scene should you later change your mind.

How to shoot fireworks
Frequently the most impressive spectacle, fireworks are nonetheless tricky to shoot. For your best chance of capturing a display, set your sensitivity to ISO 100 and compensation to 0EV so that you don't unnecessarily lighten the sky, which you want to keep as black as possible.

Mount your camera on a tripod and set your shutter speed to at least 8 seconds. Zoom out so that the fireworks just fill the frame, preferably without being cropped by the borders and be careful not to wobble the camera during the exposure or you'll end up with blurred results. All being well, the result should be pin-sharp streaks of light falling to the ground.

How to shoot moving water
Short shutter speeds do a good job of capturing a waterfall and its surroundings, but you'll achieve a far more attractive result by slowing things down. To do this without overexposing your image, start by switching out of auto and reducing your camera's sensitivity to its lowest setting (usually around ISO 100 or ISO 80), then either use a neutral density (ND) filter or, if you don't have one or can't fit one to your camera, dial down the exposure compensation to its lowest level (usually -2EV, -3EV or -5EV).

Mount your camera on a tripod, half press the shutter release to fix the focus point and exposure and then press it all the way to take the picture, being careful not to shake the camera while it's taking the shot. It'll take some experimentation to get this right, so don't be put off if you don't get the perfect results first time around.

Source  www.cnet.com