What is takes to make great garden photos when traveling

Garden tourism draws millions, across the world each year. Australia's National Botanic Gardens attract 400,000 visitors per year while Britain's gardens attract more than 16 million garden enthusiasts every year. In the U.S., Longwood Gardens, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, welcomes more than a million visitors each year.

Most every garden visitor can be seen documenting their visit with a cellphone, point and shoot camera, or DSLR. Some take their garden photography very seriously, using high end cameras, multiple lenses, tripods and other photography gear.

If you're interested in improving your garden photos, I've have some tips for you, about equipment, lighting, expanding and contracting your “field of view,” choosing when to shoot and three specific hints.

Lenses for Travel Photography - Part VII (Lenses I use and recommend for travel and why)

This week concludes my seven part series about lenses for travel photography, I discuss the lenses I use and recommend for travel. The series is primarily meant for SLR and DSLR camera users, who can attach a variety of lenses to their cameras to support their creativity, and suit the needs of their photographic opportunities.

Currently, I primarily use a Nikon D200 for travel, which has a DX size sensor. I may be moving to an FX sensor (full size sensor) based Nikon camera later this year. For this article I’ll have two sets of recommendations for travelers, one for full size sensor based DSLRs and SLRs, and one for the smaller DX/APS-C size sensor based DSLRs.

Lenses for travel photography - Part II (Important Specifications)

This week in Part II of my seven part series about lenses for travel photography, I’ll discuss important lens specifications you should keep in mind when purchasing or choosing lenses for your travel. The series is primarily meant for SLR and DSLR camera users who can attach a variety of lenses to their cameras to support their creativity, and suit the needs of their photographic opportunities.

Among the important lens characteristics you should understand are:

• Focusing and sharpness
• Largest aperture and for zoom lenses when applicable, the range of the largest aperture at the full range of the lens’ focal lengths
• Magnification
• Focal Length
• Special Features such as Vibration Reduction, Focus Limit Switches, Extra-low Dispersion (ED) elements, special lens coatings, and no lens extension
• Potential problems such as focus softness in corners, vignetting (light falloff), chromatic aberration, and distortion
  
  

Lenses for travel photography - Part I (Lens Classes)

This week is the start of my seven part series about lenses for travel photography. The series is primarily meant for SLR and DSLR camera users who can attach a variety of lenses to their cameras to support their creativity and suit the needs of their photographic opportunities.

The series will include:

• Part I — Lens classes; wide angle, telephoto, macro, etc.
• Part II — Important specifications of lenses
• Part III — Choosing between zoom and prime lenses for travel photography
• Part IV — Lens choices for travel photographic opportunities
• Part V — Lens qualities and characteristics in purchase decisions
• Part VI — Special lenses and lens accessories
• Part VII — Lenses I use and recommend for travel and why