You can make a blue sky even more blue and enhance other colors in your photographs in a couple of ways. I prefer using the color controls in Lightroom or Camera RAW but not the saturation sliders. Instead, and especially for the blue sky enhancements, I use the luminosity slider. Subtracting luminosity makes the blue more pronounced without looking unreal. If a universal change affects other parts of the photograph I can open it in photoshop and isolate the sky by selecting and masking or loading the original and the altered photo in layers and masking to show only the altered parts I want.

Resolution, chapter 2: If a client asks about the resolution of the images I'm shooting I have to say my images are "unresolved". I shoot digital negatives that have dimensions and size. They don't have a resolution until I develop them as JPEG or .PNG or anything else the client may want. The composite below shows meta data of a finished JPEG, left, and the original digital negative, DNG, right. Note the absence of a resolution in the DNG meta data. The JPEG has a resolution because it has dimensions in inches. danmilhamphotography.com #commercialphotographer #conventionphotographer #eventphotographer #neworleansphotographer

The truth about photo resolution: RESOLUTION is the number of pixels per sq. in. Resolution isn’t sharpness. It’s pixel density. It is NOT the dimensions, i.e. 1200 X 900 (I don’t care what you’ve read elsewhere) It is NOT total pixels, i.e. 50mp. HIGH RESOLUTION is 300 ppi. (pixels per inch) All my clients get JPEG images @300ppi. so they can make large prints if desired. The combination of dimensions and ppi will determine how much you can enlarge an image and retain sharpness or avoid “pixelation”. If you’ve read this far you’ll be interested in my further discussion of resolution later today. #commercialphotographer #conventionphotographer #eventphotographer #neworleansphotographer #neworleansconventionphotographer

If you want to make impressive photographs you can't have one and not the other. In my view the equipment makes your ideas possible. Technique makes them reality. In the .gif below you can see how far away the eagle was from me, about 300 yds., I'm guessing. That wide shot is at 400mm. The lens and camera are sharp enough that the resulting extreme close-up looks pretty good. The daylight was enough that I could use a very fast shutter and small aperture, 1/320 at f/9.0 which gave me a good depth of field at that distance. My Canon 5Ds made those 50mp. very handy for this finished product.

Your camera has (probably) 2 settings that will help you stop action without the need to change each part of your exposure settings. On your mode dial look for a Tv or just a T or, possibly S. That's the setting for the "shutter priority" mode. In that mode you set the shutter speed, high for stopping action, and the camera changes the other settings to match the light reading it gets through the lens. Another way is to use the "sport" setting on your mode dial, if you have one. It's usually a silhouette of a runner. In it the computer in the camera will pick the correct settings for stopping action. If either selection isn't on your mode dial, check your instructions. You should note that the settings in either of these modes may not be just right for the shot you want but you can use them as a starting point. Look at the shots taken in the mode of choice with the metadata showing in your LCD. Then you may choose to go Manual and fine tune those settings.

Sounds like some of the worst advice you've ever received unless you're waiting charge your LI batteries. The Lithium Ion battery is a great development but must be understood. If you charged it up and put it in your camera a month ago it's probably lost some charge in the interim. The best practice I've found is to charge batteries all the way up right after use and then recharge them to top them off shortly before you'll need them. That usually means overnight before a job. The other part of my best practice is to have several spares on hand. Even if the battery gets below 50% of its charge you may find performance starts to disappoint. Specifically I find that my Wi Fi cards stop transmitting when the battery gets below 50% even if the camera seems to be operating normally. I've also found that the batteries will gradually recharge less and less over time. You may find that a battery you've owned for over a year just won't charge to 100%.

I wanted to crop this shot of a quiz bowl during the IFT convention in New Orleans in 2014 to put emphasis on the contestants while using the judges in the foreground for depth and perspective. For that reason I used the crop on the right. The crop on the left puts the judges closet to the center and, to me, puts more visual emphasis on the front row than the contestants. You may find that trying a few cays of cropping a photo gives you a new idea of what will work best for your intentions.

I've learned to have a long lens, usually Canon's 70-200, with me when shooting speakers at conventions. It allows me to get farther from the podium and, thereby, reduce the angle between my lens and the speaker. With that move plus the long lens plus a little developing I can make my shot of the speaker look more like I was close and at eye level.

The image your DSLR shows you in your LCD should be used mainly to check your framing and exposure. Even so, as the image I've used in the composite of the camera below shows, your LCD can fool you. My goal shooting that presentation was to get the stage lighting under control. That could easily be blown out, loosing detail. Bracketing shots was not a good option because nobody was standing or sitting still. I knew I could bring out some details of the audience in developing and the finished image is what I had in mind. Creative use of good equipment will lead to satisfying photos.

I've found that the best way to hold a camera for shooting (of course) is with my left hand supporting the lens and turning the zoom ring and my right hand operating the buttons. I frame 95% of the time through the viewfinder because it's much easier to hold the camera steady while pressing it against my forehead than while holding it away from my body to frame through the LCD. I will frame through the LCD screen for some shots like holding the camera high for the angle.

I'm guessing that you focus your shots using the shutter button. That being the case I want you to consider a method that lets you focus independent of the shutter button. By so doing you can then re-frame your shot confident that your focus point hasn't changed. Check your manual to see if your camera has a few programmable buttons. If so I recommend my favorite method, back button focusing. I've programmed the button indicated in the image to be my focus button. I still use the shutter button to start metering but once I've focused on a point that point remains unchanged as I make other adjustments.

"...the taking of opportunities as and when they arise" is a key part of great photography and one that is difficult to practice. Some opportunities are obvious but others require enough knowledge of the elements of a situation so that the shooter can anticipate some possibilities and be ready for them. A simple example is the shot below of David Toms at the 2011 Zurich Classic. He's on the tee box. I'm already in burst mode, quiet shooting, long lens, press and hold the shutter button. I don't enter contests but I often look at their results. I'll see a great shot of something and know that what the photographer accomplished was a reaction with camera settings and composition that captured not just the action but also the moment.