Photography Tips - FREE!

I love learning photography and sharing it, so with each of my e-newsletters I write a handy tutorial explaining interesting techniques like how to shoot star trails, painting with light, understanding flash sync speed, monitor calibration, sweet spot f/#'s etc. After the e-newsletter's gone out, I put the tutorials online here, but if you want it first (and enter competitions, giveaways etc) - subscribe! You can also view my various free online tutorial videos from Canon's 'World of EOS' website, TV program 'Escape with ET' and more! Enjoy!

Latest Article:

Understanding & Controlling Flash - Controlling your flash to get some awesomely creative effects is nothing like as hard as some photographers would have us believe. If you want to go measuring your 'Flash-to-subject distance' and calculating 'Flash Guide Numbers' etc then go right ahead, but thanks to modern TTL (Through The Lens) flash metering, controlling how bright the flashed bits of your photo look is just as easy as controlling how bright your normal photos look! You know that +/- Exposure Compensation slide-bar? Well, there's one for your flash too, and you can play with them independently to get awesome effects. Also learn how to make the flash go off at the end, understand flash sync speed etc. Read My Step-by-Step Guide!

Painting With Light - Light orbs, fire wheels, light drawings, 3D light extrusions and more - they're all heaps of fun, super creative and surprisingly easy to do! There's no hard and fast rules for how to do them, but here's what works well for me! All you need is your DSLR, a tripod, some kinda light, maybe some string, and if you're up for some real excitement, then bring some sparklers, or better yet, some steel-wool and a lighter! Read My Step-by-Step Guide!

How to Photograph Star Trails - They look awesome and they're easy - all you need is a clear night, a tripod, a rubber band and a pencil - oh, and a bit of insomnia helps too! Here's how I do it - step by step - including stuff like focusing, working out the settings, using bulb-mode without a fancy plug-in timer, finding the south celestial pole for those spiral star shots, and even a comparison between doing one long exposure (say 1hr) vs stacking heaps of shorter ones (maybe 120 shots, each 30 secs long)! Read My Step-by-Step Guide!