Get the best results from stunning scenery There’s few things worse in the world of photography than being able to visualise how a shot should look, but being unable to achieve it. Although the average digital camera will be able to take a snap of a beautiful sunset or breath-taking landscape, without the correct settings or framing the majesty of the situation may well be lost. Over the next eight pages we’ll show you how to set up your DSLR or compact in such a manner that t

Photography has never been one technology but a development of one medium to the other. Even now in the digital age photography is advancing at a rapid rate that what we take to mean photography can literally change in a second. Manufacturers push the boundaries and develop innovative products that reinvent what we want from a camera. This leaves a questionable argument in our heads - what is the future?  To see the future we must examine the past and present and what better time t

Take breath-taking images of fast-moving objects Trying to take an image of a fast-moving object is one of the most difficult skills in photography. Not only are there the settings of the camera to contend with, but being able to react to the subject fast enough is a skill in itself. At Digital Camera Essentials we’ve taken our fair share of blurred images due to not being ready for the subject hurtling past, and as a result have learnt a fair few tricks to insure even if what y

Whatever genre of photography your favour, chances are it will sometimes lead you outdoors. Sports, portraits and wildlife photography can certainly produce stunning results inside, but there really is nothing like getting out into the big wide world to really open you up to some wondrous photographic opportunities. Landscape photography is the best-known facet of the great outdoors shooting list, but this does not mean it is the easiest, far from it. The landscape is not static, but cons

Digital camera sensors work by converting light energy (photons) into electrical energy (electrons). This energy forms a signal that’s transferred to the camera’s processor. The sensor is made up of millions of individual photosites, each one corresponding to a pixel in the final image. A six-megapixel digital SLR has six million pixels on its sensor. Actually, there are a few more than this, but many pixels around the edges are used for calibration and other purposes. T

Compact digital cameras always have an auto-everything point-and-shoot mode, with autofocus, auto-exposure, auto white balance, auto flash and auto ISO. You might imagine that these would take care of every conceivable picture-taking opportunity, but manufacturers also include ‘scene’ modes customised for specific types of photo. Many beginner-orientated DSLRs include scene modes too, though semi-pro and pro cameras don’t have them. The makers and the users probably fe

Whether you’ve got an entry-level camera or a professional DSLR, your camera is nothing without a lens. Photography, by its very nature, requires light in order to generate an image, and your lens is the means by which your camera gathers that necessary light. While contemporary compact digital cameras and ‘bridge’ or ‘superzoom’ cameras are improving their fixed optics all the time, a digital SLR offers you the option of choosing which lenses suit your indiv

We’ve all had great shots spoiled by blur. One of the first jobs most of us do with any new set of images is work through them to discard the technical failures – and poor focus is one of the main reasons for failure. Some images are blurred because of bad focusing or insufficient depth of field. Many more are blurred, though, because the camera moved during the exposure. The popular theory is that there are ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ shutter speeds for handhe

Given the scale, number and ambition of the effects that can be generated in Photoshop, you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s nothing it can’t do; that there’s no photographic filter effect that can’t be reproduced digitally. However, that’s not the case. Many special effects are better done in Photoshop, but many more conventional filter effects are more difficult, less effective or impossible when they’re attempted digitally. First, there are th