LENS CAPTURE

ISO200 18mm f/14 1/160sec

ISO200 20mm f/5.6 1/200sec

ISO800 18mm f/6.3 1/15sec

ISO200 35mm f/14 6sec

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The weather is starting to improve. There's more daylight available. The digital camera you acquired during the holidays is now several months old.

Now get out there and make some photographs!

The best way to improve your photography skills is to shoot. Experiment with the settings. If you have a point and shoot camera, switch through the "auto" settings. Try these various settings while you are out shooting. They are marked with symbols and help to simply optimizing the camera settings based on specific subject types.

Mix things up. Try the low-light mode on fast moving objects. See how they blur. Your camera slows down the shutter and opens up the aperture to let more light in to deal with low ambient light conditions. Through this experimentation, you'll learn what these auto mode settings do. This type of knowledge will help you to become more creative with your camera.

Once you're done trying the "Auto" settings, experiment with the priority settings. These priority settings allow you to set either the aperture, or the shutter. These are usually marked with an A or Av (Aperture value), or S or Tv (Time value). When you select one of these priority types, the camera automatically adjust the setting of the other. So if you choose TV and set the camera's shutter speed to 1/500 sec., the camera chooses the aperture for the best exposure. I'll cover more on these priority modes in the near future.

If you're shooting with a digital camera, and you are not paying to develop film, there's no excuse to get out there and experiment.

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It's March already! Where does the time go? I thought it would be a good opportunity to point out some interesting video resources on the photography
scene. With the financial situation the way it is, the good news is these videos are FREE! There's something about free that warms my heart.

Attention: Nikon shooters
Scott Kelby and his trusty sidekick, Matt Kloskowski, over at Kelbytraining.com have done it again. They have created a new weekly video Podcast for Nikon dSLR owners called DTownTV. Each week, Scott and Matt bring you cool tips and tricks, news and accessories for Nikon's Digital SLR cameras. If you own a D-series Nikon camera, you won't want to miss an episode.

Visit DTownTV


The Basics
In searching the iTunes Store Visual Arts section, I ran across several excellent photography video podcasts. Ted Forbes publishes a great weekly video podcast that covers equipment, technique, shooting and a wealth of information for beginners to intermediate users interested in photography. I definitely recommend everyone view Ted's coverage on the Rule of Thirds. His presentation is easy to follow and understand.

Visit The Art of Photography on iTunes


The Longest Day
If you're into photography and reality TV, then I have a video podcast for you! The Longest Day splits 24 top photographers into two teams charged with writing, shooting and editing an original short film about photography. Additionally, each team has to produce a public service announcement (PSA) for their chosen charity. It definitely shows these superstar photographers as real people. I just finished watching the first few episodes and I definitely want to see the result of their efforts culminate into the final videos and Team A & B's PSA.

Visit the Longest Day on iTunes


If you don't already have iTunes, you can download it here: Download iTunes from Apple.com

And remember, you don't need to own an iPod to watch these free podcasts.

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