Photo Tip Tuesdays

Every Tuesday we post a Tip to help you improve your photography or just make you think a little bit differently next time you pick up your camera. Below are all the tips we have given so far. Keep checking back for the latest tips.

Do you have a tip you think other photographers should know, send it to us and it could be listed here. Please use the contact form here.

• Photo Tip: Don't Use New Gear for the First Time on a Shoot             So this is by no means new advice, it is just a lesson I had to recently re-learn. Here at PhotoComment we get the opportunity to review a fair amount of products and to date - in my experien...
• Tips for Shooting Motor Sports Motor sports photography can be one of the most technically challenging types of photography there is. Even when you know the theory behind the right technique, that award winning photo is, many of the times, just impossible to get. Add to that the hi...
• Photo Tip: Quick and Easy Photo Resizing without an image editor! So, you have a bunch of photos you want to resize to email or upload to a website. (PhotoComment's Photo Friday Competition for example) However you don't have access to PhotoShop or the like and need to do them in a hurry. Well here is a simple yet often...
• Wildlife Photography on a Southern African Safari - Photographing Buffalo The Cape Buffalo has the reputation of being the most dangerous animal in Africa as they have apparently killed more people th...
• This Week, Next Week, A Request and a Health Tip It has been a rather busy week here as we are wrapping up the August issue of the magazine. There are some great images inside this one with the Student Portfolio coming from an award winning Vega student, a review on a Canon DSLR and... I think I might b...
• Do You Have a Photography Bucket List? I have finally sat down and done it! I have created my ultimate photography bucket list. It is something that I have been meaning to do, but never had the time. WHY IS A BUCKET LIST IMPORTANT Taking the time to brainstorm and compose a bucket list h...
• Reader Question: Monitor Calibration Confusion We like it when you - our readers - ask us questions which we consult and work our hardest to answer. Recently we got a question which raised a debate among all that we spoke to. Carolyn Gregorowski asked us: I thought I needed to calibrate my screen in...
• Back Up More Than Pictures A recent post by Sfiso reminded me of my first paying photo shoot, as a teenager, photographing the kids on Santa's lap at my siblings primary school. It was still in the days when film ruled the earth and I had equipment dreams far bigger than my pocket....
• Why to kayak with your camera So many times I would be driving along various bodies of ...
• Wildlife Photography on an African Safari Professional nature photographers make it look easy don't they! A giraffe silhouetted against the setting sun; savannah landscapes of acacia trees under deep blue skies and the action sequence of a hungry cheetah catching a terrified springbok. Y...
• What DSLR To Buy For $600? There isn't a day that goes by when I don't see someone on Twitter asking what camera they should buy, and where possible we like to help out with advice based on the cameras we get to review. At the same time, its difficult to give full reasoning in 140 ...
• Photo Tip: A 365 Project With A Theme 365grateful.com from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo. The video above was highlighted recently by Digital Photography School whose RSS feed is part of my daily Google Reader Fix. It got me thinking though, we often say shoot with a theme or pursue personal p...
• Photo Tip: Share Picture Moments on Mothers Day This week as we draw nearer to Mothers Day I thought it would be good to remind us that as photographers pictures of ourselves and siblings, or the famed famil...
• New Look At Mundane Sometimes the most ordinary things can look extraordinary if you change your perspective. I shot this image nice and low on the Sony NEX-5 which thanks to the flip out screen meant I didn't have to kiss the dirt. This was imported on the iPad with a came...
• Dear Photographer, Tip, Love Your Client. Photographers give this some thought today: Dear Photographer taking my family's pictures today. All people are unique. All Families are different.  Please don't make us pose unnaturally to our natures.  My toddler does not sit still and pu...
• Photo Tip: Play with Shutter Speeds At our recent Parkour Photo Walk I was interested to see Werner Strauss' approach to shooting the fast paced action using a slower shutter speed to better communicate the sense of speed and motion. A few weeks later I tried the same thing (partly by acc...
• Photo Tip: Creating Stunning Silhouettes   Shooting silhouettes can be fun and challenging all at the same time. The following tips will help you create compelling silhouettes that demand a second look. THE MAIN SUBJECT The key element in any silhouette is the main subject. Positio...
• Photo Tip: Top Tips For Outstanding Pet Photography Many photographers have a difficult time with pet photography. At first blush, it can be quite frustrating. With the right technique however, pet photography can be extremely rewarding. A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE Pet photography is no different than ...
• Photo Tip: How to Buy a Camera Bag I thought it was time to share some of my ideas on how to buy a camera bag since I have almost as many camera bags as my wife has shoes and I am certain (thought I should not admit to this) almost more excited by new innovative camera bags than I am about...
• Photo Tip: How to Win a Photo Competition (Winning image in our first Photo Friday competition) So, you've spotted this great photographic competition with an amazing prize and all you can dream about is winning it but the question you keep asking yo...
• Photo Tip: Remember to Capture Memories Photography is fantastic and for many - particularly people like me who cannot draw or paint - its a great form of artistic expression. There are moments where we sometimes need to remember though, that photography is an important medium to document memor...
• Photo Tip: Compacts Can Apologies for the late Photo Tip this Tuesday. Just a simple one today. After having spent a few weeks testing a compact camera I have come to realize that compact cameras are still capable tools. Sure they have limits on things like depth of field...
• Photo Tip: Infrared Photography I became interested in infrared during my explorations into black and white and as part of fine art. I am still one of “those” that like the smell of chemicals and spend hours in a darkroom. I still develop m...
• Photo Tip: Don't Rush to Buy More Gear Having done my time in photographic retail I often find that this time of year has people rushing out to buy a new lens, flash etc for the camera that they got as a gift at Christmas. Before you do anything further STOP! and read on. It can be very exc...
• Photo Tip: Using a Cellphone for Street Photography I spotted this video on a blog recently and after watching it, wondered why I had never thought of doing this before. The challenge with Street Photography is not sticking out from the crowd with a large camera that screams, I want to shoot you when you l...
• Photo Tip: Shut Up & Shoot Series by Frederick Van This week my photography tip is to visit the website of Frederick Van (host of the This Week In Photo podcast) who has recently launched a new podcast series entitled Shut Up & Shoot. The series is already in Lesson 4 and are short simple tips of a...
• Photo Tip: Sunglasses Filter A few weeks ago I went on a walk and tried to shoot the sky with our little Sony Cyber-shot HX5. The image was bland and I didn't bring a graduated filter with me. In a moment of insanity I decided to try taking the picture through my Sunglasses. Here i...
• Photo Tip: How to be Wedding Guest & Photographer Many of us photographers get roped into shooting our friends weddings. Although this can be a great honour, it is important to balance being the photographer, as well as being a guest at the wedding. "How on earth do you do that?!", I hear you asking... ...
• Photo Tip: Budget Macro Photography This weeks photography tip is inspired by Make Magazine. Macro on a Budget. Below is the video on how its done... I've always known the principle of moving the lens forward to be simple, I just never thought it could be this easy to do. If you like DIY th...
• Photo Tip: The Art of Wildlife Photography This weeks Photo Tips comes from Dan Elkabir of LighScapes who has a passion for wildlife photography. Hope you enjoy. The Art of Wildlife Photography Dawn has just broken. You can begin to make out the details of the acacia studded landscape. Your ...
• Photo Tip: Attend a PhotoWalk This weeks photo tip could be viewed as a little self indulgent though it is better than the one I was persuaded not to post. What was it you ask? Go out and grab the first issue of PhotoComment magazine in print. Alas, I have been told not to use that a...
• Photo Tip: Use a Tripod This weeks Photo Tip is the piece of advice few photographers want to hear, use a tripod. I am amazed at how often beginners to photography will spend a fortune on a camera and lens and then pull their nose up at a tripod or go for the cheapest they can f...
• Photo Tip: Shoot Wide, Shoot Low Todays shooting tip comes from a personal experience while out walking in our new neighbourhood and shooting with Sony's new Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 24mm f/2 and the trusty Alpha A850. We are fortunate to have a lo...
• Photo Tip: Prepare Gear the Night Before While I may be writing this weeks Photo Tip, the idea comes from Rikki who regularly contributes here on PhotoComment. Rikki's tip "Always prep your camera gear the night before a shoot, so there is time to charge your batteries, check your memory cards, ...
• Photo Tip: Rules Can Be Broken In the days of film thinking and pre-visuallation were a requirement especially when shooting  4x5 sheet film. These days life is a bit simpler. Digital photography is more flexible and there is more space for cr...
• Photo Tip: Rent Before You Buy So you have been thinking about upgrading to a Canon EOS 7D, perhaps you need a long lens for the Kruger this holiday on your Nikon, say the 200-400mm f/4 AFS. These are not cheap choices to make and sometimes its hard to really try before you buy... or i...
• Photo Tip: Carry One Lens Sometimes we get stuck in this train of thought that we need a bag full of lenses to get the shot. Perhaps it is good from time to time to change our thought process. I am a big fan of fixed or prime lenses, like the good old 50mm and I have become a bigg...
• Photo Tip: Homemade Lights for Video & Stills With our recent experiments in shooting video we came to realize the need for more controlled lighting. So rather than rush out and buy some costly, plug and play solution we decided to make it a DIY project. Drum roll please... As you will find in...
• Photo Tip: Inspiration in Images All creative type people experience a block at some point or another, from writers block to photographers block the best thing to do at these times is seek inspiration. There has never been a time in the history o...
• Photo Tip - Carry a Compact Camera I confess, I am not the world's greatest advocate of the compact digital camera. I think it perhaps originates from my days of repairing little compact film cameras. Now, I think my tune is beginning to change. I recently got a compact that we previous...
• Photo Tip Tuesdays Welcome to a new feature here on PhotoComment - Photo Tip Tuesdays. The idea that you can only improve your photography by spending lots of money on new gear may be a great sales tactic but there is a lot of little tips that can spark new inspiration or a...