Fall is here

Today we went to the botanic gardens. Fall is here and you can feel it in the cold air.

They had a model train show which was awesome to take pictures at. I had my 70-200 IS and my 18-50 lenses. They also had a gingerbread house gallery filled with gingerbread houses that all look different.

Models are always fun to photograph. Just make sure you are far enough from them when you're using flash to avoid overexposure.

Colored backgrounds

Another way of giving variety to your shots is by using different colored backgrounds. I use it all the time and I love them.

For product shots or for something small, you can use pieces of colored paper that you can buy in craft stores, instead of buying those paper backgrounds that cost around 60 bucks a roll at camera shops. If you run out of room for the colored background in your shot, you can always clone that area using photoshop or a similar program.

One useful tip, use a spot light or a snoot to highlight parts of your background so it does not look flat. Also, with colored backgrounds, there is a big chance that your white balance will be thrown off. Make sure you use a grey card, or use your cameras manual white balance setting.

To crop or not to crop

The question has always been "to crop or not to crop".
It's pretty simple...crop as much as you want as long as it does not degrade your image.

If you have a camera that is packed with megapixels, cropping shouldn't be a big problem. That's the advantage of having a camera with a big megapixel count. You can crop more to show a particular area more, without much degradation. Although make sure that your main subject is in focus when you crop, or you'll just end up showing a subject that is out of focus more.