Photo How To

Achieving a correct exposure is the first step toward capturing a great image, and on Monday we explained how to do that by bracketing your shots. In today’s tutorial, you’ll learn another way to get things right, by using your camera’s histogram.

The autofocus system in a modern DSLR camera is truly a wonder of technology. And there’s a lot going on under the hood that you may not totally understand. But fear not, because the quick video below explains everything you need to know to achieve optimum results.

You’ve probably heard the term “lens diffraction” to describe how image sharpness suffers as you use smaller and smaller aperture settings. While depth of field increases as you stop down a lens, the amount of fine detail a lens can resolve decreases at smaller f/stops.

Let’s say you want to try your hand at close-up photography, but you can’t afford an expensive macro lens. Or maybe you’re not short of cash, but you don’t plan on doing enough macro work to justify the investment. 

Earlier this week we featured a video demonstrating how to customize your camera by tweaking its AUTO default settings. Today’s helpful tutorial takes things a step further by explaining how to shoot in the Manual exposure mode for maximum creative control.

Even the best photographers mess up on occasion, and the trick is to not get lazy and make the same mistake twice. The video below illustrates three common composition errors, and explains how to avoid them.

Before you do something you will seriously regret without watching the video below, we need to point out that there’s a filter on the lens that’s being doused with honey in the photo above. As for that shiny, metal claw hammer you see in the third photo below, it’s being used to create interesting reflections—not to destroy a lens.