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More and more these days, I see landscapes – especially sunsets and sunrises – as a background, not a whole photo. Of course you can be lucky and have a great foreground object to add the extra interest the photo needs. But without it you might have a background desperately in need of a subject. In these situations, I will often look for a way to introduce a human element into the image. People can add interest to a photo […]

It can be hard to handle bright lights in a photo. It’s difficult to correctly expose the rest of the photo without overexposing the lights – which often appear as a huge burned-out blob spoiling the image. But there’s an easy technique that can turn a problem area into the sparkling highlight of your photo. When you close your aperture down to a smaller size, small points of light begin to show this star-like effect. Remember that F-stop numbers are […]

There are few subjects that have such universal interest as the moon. We are all fascinated by it from time to time. As photographers, it is often one of the first subjects we try to tackle as soon as we have a telephoto lens powerful enough to bring it a little closer. But the moon in the night sky can be a difficult subject because it comes with an inherent exposure problem. How do you photograph a white object, lit […]

Whenever we meet/greet a person in the real world, we seek to make eye contact – even if we’re not aware of it. But did you know that viewers do the same thing when they look at a photo of an animal or a person? Eye contact is what creates a personal connection with the subject, and it can be the difference between a so-so ordinary shot and something really special. So here are a couple of tips to help […]

It’s almost impossible to explain how to shoot lightning, as no two events are ever quite the same. And I don’t just mean every storm is different – every flash of lightning is different, so the perfect settings for one flash might be completely wrong for the next. But I got a pretty good shot of my own recently, so at least I can tell you how I managed to get this one. FOR THE RECORD, THIS SHOT WAS TAKEN […]

Almost every day (in my role at Ted’s Cameras) I meet someone who has a DSLR camera, and is wrestling with a difficult decision we all come to at some time. Do I upgrade to a newer/better DSLR, or do I make the big jump to a mirrorless camera? Just like many old-school film photographers were suspicious of digital cameras at first, many people now just aren’t sure about the new mirrorless development, even though it’s been going for quite […]

My recent Western Australia Wildflower tour was not quite like any other tour I have done. Most of my tours are about landscapes and wildlife, so flowers are usually not a feature. This is the first time I have really concentrated on photographing flowers for a long time, and it was a great reminder of some of the challenges. One challenge in particular, is busy/messy backgrounds that can be very distracting in a photo, especially when dealing with very delicate […]

A wide-angle lens is one that has a focal length shorter than a standard lens. On a full-frame camera, that means shorter than 50mm. On most crop sensor cameras it’s shorter than 35mm and on a micro four-thirds camera like mine, it’s shorter than 25mm. The smaller that number gets, the wider you lens becomes. No matter what sort of camera you use, there are a few things that all wide-angle lenses have in common in terms of what they […]

In an age when all the camera brands emphasise the amazing dynamic range of their latest models, it is possible to capture unprecedented levels of light and shadow in ever-increasing detail. You can add to that the ability to lighten shadows up in post-processing. And who can forget that awful phase about 10 years ago when HDR photography took the landscape world by storm, producing some truly bizarre images in the name of ‘natural’ photography. Here’s a link to some […]

Of all my photos from the 2022 Tanzania tour, this is the one that seems to be getting the most love from followers on Facebook and YouTube. It’s definitely at the top of my list too, it was the very first photo I posted on return from the tour. So what is it about this photo that makes it so appealing. The lion is only a small part of the picture…the trees are not remarkable…there’s no one thing about the […]

One of the first things we learn in photography is that aperture affects depth of field. Unfortunately for many people it’s the ONLY thing they learn about depth of field. But there are three factors involved and the only way to really get control of DOF in your images is to understand all of them. FOR A MORE DETAILED LOOK AT THIS TOPIC SEE MY NEW VIDEO ON YOUTUBE: CLICK HERE DISTANCE FROM THE SUBJECT. The closer you are to […]

Macro is one of the most challenging fields of photography… And a big part of the challenge is about depth of field – there isn’t any! Consider that with bird photography, you can zoom in on a bird, get the subject in focus and the background out of focus. But with macro, you can focus on the head of an ant and get the…rear end…out of focus. The closer you get, the harder it becomes to keep your photo sharp. […]

It’s been a pretty wet Summer on the East Coast of Australia… So this could be the perfect time to brush up on your waterfall photography skills. Here are my three simple tips for better waterfall photos. PICK THE RIGHT DAY AND MAKE SURE IT’S CLOUDY. When it comes to waterfalls, the weather obviously plays a big part. You want to go after some rain, but if you have just been through a big rain event, give things a few […]

HELLO SUBSCRIBERS AND WELCOME TO MY TIPS PAGE! This is a special treat I am reserving only for my newsletter subscribers. Check the home-page, you won’t find any links to tips there. The only people who see this page will be those who read my monthly newsletter. I’ll try to add something new every month, and as each new post appears, earlier posts will shuffle down the list but remain on the page. So you can treat this as your […]