I asked my friend Emily to do a guest post in the Using Your Camera series this week. I actually did a call for guests posts on the Blog Frog and no one jumped in so I had to email a few friends and beg. Emily recently got a DSLR and her pictures have blown me away. Eggs. Chickens. Children. It seems anything she photographs is stunning. So, I asked her to share what she has learned about photography since she began shooting with a DSLR. Here’s what she had to say.

Melissa is risking it all this week by asking me to jump in and do a guest post. I know very little, but hey…I’m willing to share the little that I do know.

In February I was blessed with a rockin’ camera. A Nikon D300. At the time I had never even looked through a viewfinder of a DSLR camera….uh, I also didn’t even know what a DSLR camera even was! (or what a viewfinder was.) (psst…it’s the little square that you look into, not the screen)

I knew that the ladies taking fabulous shots of their kids all had one, so that was the direction I wanted to go!

BTW: DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex camera. Clear as mud? Good. We’re all on the same page.
I just wanted to take pretty pictures…So, I started from ZERO and now I’m pretty comfy with my Big Daddy camera. (Big Daddy refers to GOD, who gave me my camera and the fact that it’s carpal tunnel syndrome heavy)

A few things that I’ve learned that seem basic, but are really important…

1. It’s super hard to take fabulous pictures in direct, bright sunlight. Shade is your friend.
Why? It’s because of these things called eyeballs. They don’t appreciate direct sunlight and end up getting scrunched up and make the person look, well, scrunched.

The best…BEST….absolute best time to take a lovely portrait is in the early morning or late in the day. To test this theory of mine try this little experiment. Place your child near a tree in your yard that has different amounts of sun exposure. I would bet you a box of Andes Mints that if you compare the photos of your darling at 1pm and 7pm~dusk…you’d be surprised that indeed…your child’s skin is a totally different color! Oh, and they have lovely color in their eyes at dusk.

I’ve learned that I practice on inanimate objects during peak sunlight hours at my house. I save the great shots of kids for after dinner. (where I say cheerily, “Who wants to be my model tonight?” and hordes of children literally RUN to me….or not.)2. DSLR cameras use 2 kinds of lenses. Prime and zoom lenses. I have both, and I switch them out often. If you got a kit lens with your camera, it’s a zoom.

~Prime lenses are also called FIXED lenses.
~Zoom lenses zoom. (Told you I wasn’t an expert)

Zoom lenses allow the photographer to stand in one spot and the camera will do all the work and as long as you can focus on an object/person…it’ll get you there. Zoom lenses are fun for trips and days when you don’t know what you might be photographing.

Prime lenses make the photographer move because the lens is fixed at one focal length on your camera. The photographer (you) MUST move and compose your shot in your viewfinder. It’s work ladies. It’s not for the lazy, but for portraits they’re amazingly clear so I try and only use a fixed lens when I’m taking portraits.

I’m the proud owner of 3 lenses, so I’m not an expert. Some photographers have dozens of lenses, but do research for YOUR camera and find out the top 2 lens choices of great photographers…what do THEY use. Then, save your pennies (…and scout Ebay, I did!).3. Get Photoshop. The End.
Photoshop takes a great snapshot and intensifies and revolutionizes it! (Oh, and 98% of professional photographers use photoshop. Dirty Little Secret that I didn’t know until I started digging into this camera business. I felt lied to! It’s part of the industry and it’s totally legit. )
You can do tons of fun things to your photographs like this….This is simply a quick snapshot taken in 5 seconds. I liked her smile in this, so I took it to photoshop and added a cool texture to the background and sharpened the picture and voila…much more scrap-worthy.

To show what Photoshop can do, I would have to come back and blab on and on another day. Thanks for letting me ramble. If you enjoyed my rambling you can read my blog HERE.

Melissa here. Thanks Emily! If anyone is interested in a few Photoshop tutorials I might be able to talk her into doing a few here. Express your interest in the comments below as a means of persuasion.