I have to admit that I am sometimes completely out of ideas for the 365 Day Project and this is usually at around 9 at night when I only have 3 more hours to get an idea for a decent photo of the day. And then I try one of the following tips to manage a last minute good photo.

1. Look around you.

Some of the most impressive photographs that I’ve seen are of things that we use in our daily life taken from a different perspective. Going down to macro level on random things lying on your table can make them look surprisingly good. Try and get some sort of symmetry/perspective with the object and there is a high possibility of getting a good shot from a simple object. Most Point ‘n’ Shoot cameras have a macro mode with a minimum focus distance ranging from 0cm to 5cm. It is usually denoted by a flower symbol and can be enabled either by a button on the body or in the menu depending upon your model.

For dSLRs, you can either get a dedicated Macro lens like the Canon Macro EF 100m f2.8 or Nikkor Micro 105mm f/2.8 VR or alternatively, you can get a lens which can deliver results close to a true macro. A dedicated macro lens like the ones mentioned can give level of 1:1 magnification which means that the size of the image on a full frame sensor will be equal to the size of the object. Lenses like the Sigma 70 - 300mm Macro f/4-5.6 can give you a ratio of 1:2 which means the size of the image will be half of what it is in real life. This ratio is probably enough for most users and the lens also doubles as a telephoto zoom lens.

For people who dont wish to buy a new lens for macro, you can get some extension tubes which are placed between the lens and camera. Since they move the lens away from the sensor plane, it increases the size of the image, thereby creating a pseudo macro lens. The downside is that you cannot focus on infinity with the extension tubes in place and it also reduces the amount of light hitting the sensor so it would be advisable to use a tripod for the resulting long exposures. The 50mm f/1.8 is the recommended lens for using extension tubes but you can also try it with other lenses that you already own. You can also get some close up filters which can be fit on the end of the lens and they reduce the minimum focusing distance of the lens. For the more adventurous, you can try a reversed lens technique which involves reversing a lens and placing it infront of another lens which is on the camera body. Personally, I’ve never tried it but it apparently results in some interesting macros with a magnification higher than 1:1.

Here are a couple of shots that I took of my speakers and a pound coin, both were impromptu and turned out better than I expected.

2. Go for a walk

A short walk around the neighbourhood with the prime objective of taking photographs can yield good results and make you notice new things. You’ll look at the same place that you see everyday with a different eye and observe small details that you may missed earlier. These small details can possibly make a nice photo, either in macro or just as a landscape shot with unique aspect.

Go to the local park and you can get some nature shots of flowers, trees and the greenery there. You can also probably spot some kids playing in the playground and get a few playful photos of them. However, make sure you ask their parents for permission or they might get offended by this stranger with a camera snapping photos of their children.

You can get the best landscape shots at twilight so depending on your location, start off from home about 30 minutes before the sun starts to set and you should be able to take some nice landscape photographs of your locality. You can use your kit lens but if you do have another walkaround lens or all purpose zoom lens, take that one with you, just to be ready for all types of opportunities.

I got this shot at a stroll in the evening and this one at a walk in the night.

3. Browse Flickr.

Flickr is one of the largest photo sharing websites used extensively by many photographers, both professionals and amateurs. Due to its huge popularity, you can find thousands of photographs on any subject that you like. You can find a lot of shots which will inspire you and give you ideas to recreate the shot and maybe modify it to your liking.

You can start off by going to ‘Explore‘ which is a day-by-day catalogue of Flickr’s most popular photos for that specific date. You can choose to surf to a specific date of the year and see the popular photos for that date, I usually start by going to the date of my birthday but you can always chose any date that you wish. You can also select a ‘tag’ that you find interesting and it will show all the popular photos with that tag. Another new option is to surf the geo-tagged photos, so for example, you can see all the geo-tagged photos which have been taken at the a specific street in Paris, etc.

Another thing which I like to do is to go through the photo pools of several groups. You can search for a group and most of the time, there always exists a group filled with similar ideologies like you. You can then surf through the various photos in the group and try and find something interesting. You can also go through the photostream of the individual photographer who took a photo that you liked to see more of his work.

All of the photos that you find interesting can serve as inspiration to you and give you new and fresh ideas for photos that you may not have thought of by yourself.

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Shutter lag might not mean much to the casual photographer but to a professional photographer, it can be the difference between a good and bad photograph.

Shutter lag is the time delay between the pressing of the shutter and the time the photograph is taken. This time is usually measured in milliseconds and even a few milliseconds of difference can have a remarkable difference in speed.

Shutter lag is caused by the number of calculations that the camera makes in those few milliseconds. The camera has focus on the subject, decide on the right level of exposure by giving a correct combination of the aperture and shutter speed, the white balance, the ISO and whole lot of other things in that small period of time.

We can reduce the shutter lag by reducing the number of calculations the camera has to make. The easiest way would be to set the white balance since one can easily estimate by observing the lighting conditions. The shutter speed can also be set at certain situations when we know that the subject might be similar. The aperture can generally be left to the camera but we can set it if required. The factor which can reduce the shutter lag by the highest amount would be setting the focus manually. The ISO can be left to the camera unless you are under low light situations.

In newer cameras, you have a half-press feature where you can ‘half-press’ the shutter button and let the camera set all the required settings and therefore, there isnt much delay when you press the shutter fully from the half-press mode. This is useful when you are anticipating a certain event and can keep the shutter half-pressed and press it fully when the event occurs.

Another interesting method is to use the ‘Burst’ method in the camera. Good cameras can have a speed of upto 3 - 5 fps (frames per second) and you can generally take upto around 7 -10 photographs while holding down the shutter and this would remove need for pressing the shutter at the right moment. The fastest camera right now is the Canon EOS 1D Mark III which can take upto 110 photographs at speeds of 10fps and at a resolution of 10 Megapixels.

Point and shoot cameras generally have a longer shutter lag and DSLRs are known for their minimal shutter lag.

I have outlined all the methods for reducing shutter lag and you can try experimenting with various methods on your own to reduce it. Thanks for taking time to read my article, please feel free to post your own ideas in the comments.

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Ever wanted to make your own Economist Covers? Now you can with the Economist Cover Template which is completely free!

Just download the attached ZIP file and you can create your own cover in a few minutes!

The file contains a .PSD file which has been tested with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and the relevant fonts needed. A readme file is also there to guide you.

It’s designed to be as simple as possible for everyone. If you still face a problem, post in the comments.

Download Link (546 KB)

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This is my first Photoshop tutorial. Its a pretty simple tutorial on how to make your photographs look like they’ve been taken from a thermal imaging camera. I will illustrating each step with screenshots.

Step 1
Open the image you wish to modify. I am using a random image I took of my friends.

Step 2
Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur

Step 3
Apply a Gaussian Blur between 5 - 10 pixels depending on the image resolution. I used a Gaussian Blur of 7.

Step 4
Go to Image > Adjustments > Gradient Map

Step 5
Open the Drop Down box by selecting the arrow next to default black and white gradient. In the drop down box, select the ‘Transparent Rainbow’ gradient which I have encircled below.

Step 6
Thats it. You now have an image which looks like it has been taken with a Thermal Camera. You can play around with the Gaussian Blur values and can invert the gradient for different looks.

Thanks for taking time to read my first photoshop tutorial. Feel free to give your feedback in the comments.

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