The most basic tip is to learn to correct your mistakes in photoshop.
That gets me out of trouble most of the time I use Photoshop
Elements which is fairly basic but a few tweaks of the shadows and
highlights can fix most problems.
Yes indeed. I am often able to reduce exposure levels. I use Pixlr (free) not Photoshop. It seems to have a good range of editing options.
Does your camera have a metering gauge built in? Mine has a really
nice simple one on one of the display settings which can make it much
easier to get close to the right settings. On a sunny day I can set the
ISO to 100, pick the aperture that suits the lens and subject (f.8 to
f.11 usually) and then use the shutter speed setting to get the metering
to the right spot.
These are currently rather beyond me at the moment. (Long story). I have a second hand Canon DSLR 700D, so yes, no doubt I can choose these settings.
White flowers or shiny insects are
almost impossible to photograph in the sun without using some kind of
diffuser shade to reduce glare though. It's easy enough to knock up a
DIY diffuser to give it a go.
Interesting. Thanks very much. I kind of wondered if there is commonly held to be the best time of day to try and get the best pictures when it's very sunny. Perhaps high light levels without bright sun is easiest? (No idea).
This type of setup is ideal for flowers in bright sun but obviously it's not the most portable solution. One thing you can do if you're sticking to auto mode for now is use the camera's automatic HDR mode or the bracketing mode which takes 3 photos (one dark, one normal and one light) and then they can be blended to make one photo with the best points of all 3 photos. Like this. I use a free program to blend mine called Photomatix Essentials which is a plug in to Photoshop but there must be other versions. The auto HDR blends them in the camera though and may give you better results than normal for little effort. It does work handheld if you keep fairly still but a tripod is ideal.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Not a great photo and as far as tiny beige moths go this one is as beige as they come but worthy of note just because of the name. Behold the Timothy Tortrix.
For those with curious minds (like me who didn't get to bed until 2am because I was looking up moth names...) the Timothy moth is so named because Timothy grass is one of the larval food plants. Timothy grass is named after Timothy Hanson, a farmer who is said to have introduced it to the US in the early 18th century.
I haven't been able to stick a name on this one yet though. Answers on a beige postcard please.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
All my insect photos are handheld but I can often find something to lean on to help keep things a bit more stable. In this case I was holding the camera in one hand, my LED lamp in the other, holding the tip of the leaf up against the base of the lens with one finger, and focusing one handed which takes a bit of practice. This lens is good for handheld shots down to about 100th of a second shutter speed which is just about ok if the insect is sitting very still.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
These eggs are all over my car this morning. 3mm long with a silk anchor holding them on. There's maybe a hundred or more all over the bonnet, windscreen and roof. I'll probably put some in a box to see what hatches out but I need to know what food they'll want first. At the moment I'm assuming whatever laid them thought the car was water so they might need aquatic plants to survive.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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