When reading articles or tips about taking pictures you're going to come across the words Prime Lens from time to time. Which is good to know that in order for that tip to work you're going to need a prime lens but it doesn't really help if no one tells you what the heck a prime lens is. So hopefully this helps.
A prime lens in simply a lens that doesn't move. Or rather a lens that doesn't zoom.

This 50mm lens is just a 50mm lens. It can not magnify a picture at any other length than 50mm. What does the mm mean at the end of the 50? Well that means that this lens pictured above makes a subject look 50 millimeters closer in front of me than it really is. This focal length is all that this PRIME lens is capable of. So a Prime Lens is a lens that only has one focal length.

The difference is that a zoom lens will give me a range to chose from.

On the right is my 50mm and on the left is 18-135mm. The 50mm is the prime lens because it only has one length it can shoot at. While the 18-135mm can shoot and magnify things anywhere between 18mm and 135mm.

I am NOT a fan of the zoom lens. I understand that people find them to be convenient and in many cases cheaper because it's like getting a bunch of lens in one. But the truth is, I think they suck. If you're shooting in manual mode than you have to be aware of what your focal length is because ALL of your settings change every single time you change your focal length. AND if you're shooting a wide angle shot at 18mm you still have to shoot at higher ISOs, lower speeds, and smaller apertures on a zoom lens that you would on a prime lens because your light still has to travel though this large ass lens. Remember Light is the key to a picture without it you can not have a picture. Light makes everything possible....(which totally sounds like a fortune cookie saying). So to sum up:

A Prime Lens is a Lens that only have one focal length.

A Zoom Lens has a range of different focal lengths.

I am a lover of all things internet revealed. There is no bigger truth to this than what you can learn via the internet when it comes to photography. When I first read the article Macro on a budget. by Jodi over at MCP Actions I thought to myself "She has to be joking". But no my dear readers she is not. If you are wanting to try micro photography but you don't want to go out and buy a new lens until you know for sure that it's something you enjoy than this little tip I have for you today is going to be your dream come true. It's easy if you have any prime lens (a lens that does not zoom) and a DSLR camera.....it doesn't have to be a big fancy one. It just has to be one that you can take the lens on or off. Than this will work for you.

Take the lens off your camera and turn it around. Let the part that is normally facing your subject, now face your camera. The lens is not going to be able to attach here so you won't have any information coming and going on your sensor. You'll have to set the aperture on your lens not your camera (pictures to come tomorrow on how to do that) if you already know than set the aperture to what you want f/4 is good. If you don't know how to set your aperture on your lens than just shoot with where it is at...This is kind of a wing it type of deal here people.
Now that you have the lens off, you've set the aperture to where you want it, it's time to start the fun part. This is where it gets weird but you're going to have to trust me. Pull the lens up to your camera so that it is sitting flush with where the lens would normally sit. You're going to have to hold it with your hands but thats okay. Remember your lens is not going to be attached so your not going to have auto focus...in fact you're not going to be able to focus from the lens at all. Instead you're going to move your body and the camera back and forth until you get the focus you want. It is my full advice that you set your camera up to take multiple pictures at one time. This way you can move your body around and have a higher chance of getting in focus...I know it sounds weird, but it works. I took these photos with a normal 50mm lens just by doing this way....

If you're not completely understanding what I mean by flipping the lens around check out this post on MCP Action's website. Jodi was nice enough to share with us some photos of how to do it.

One of the most common mistakes people make is thinking that an overcast day means there is no light out to shoot. Time and time again I have over heard this conversation between people....but I have to share a little secret that most photographers secretly already know. Overcast days are PREFECT for shooting portraits. The key to understand an overcast day is to look at the sky as something other than just a sky. See the sky is like one big lightbox. What is a lightbox. A lightbox is a completely white box that photographer use to brighten items up when shooting inside. Normally used in still photography to highlight an item by bouncing the light off all the white sides in all directions. This is just what the sky does for you on an overcast day. The light is bouncing off everything and everywhere. Bright sun can leave harsh shadows on the face and can white out one side of the face while leaving the other side dark. When shooting over cast think of it like shooting a sunset. Turn the shutter speed up. Don't be afraid of those clouds in the sky. When shooting landscapes during an overcast day you might have to boost up the colors in processing or turn it into a black and white photo. Overcast days are perfect for Black and White photos....PERFECT!
For portraits an overcast day will soften the skin and bring out the eyes. The catch light in the eye will be brighter and you don't have to worry about any harsh shadows on the face. Don't be scared of those overcast days. Don't shy away or think that it means you have to put that camera away. Get out there and shoot..shoot..shoot!

The first thing to know about making rounded corners is that there is like a billion ways to make them and I say billion because no body talks in millions anymore...hahahha...awe I'm so funny.

*hello, is this thing on*

*crickets*

Fine then lets get back to the whole corners things.

First let's open up that image you want to round out. If you're anything like me than you've got photoshop open while you're reading this and your switching back and forth between the two as you go so first step:

Open up Image:

This sweet Little image of Little Bird and her Daddy happens to be one of my favorites right now so we're going to use this. There's nothing special about the image. It doesn't have to be a certain size or anything. Remember this is your game you play it how you want too.

Next step:

    Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool.

Before you do anything with this tool we're going to select it's radious this is whats going to be our rounded edge so it can be as big or as little as you would like. I wanted some serious rounding going on so I pushed it up to 300 px....like this

Now that my radious is selected I can start traging it out. Start at the top left hand corner and pull your rectangle over the whole image like this

Now we're going to select our rectangle so we can cut off what we down't want. At this point the "What you should do" steps start to take on a whole new life of their own. There are lots of different ones. I like to make sure that my rectangle is fully selected and that nothing is going to be left out or added that I didn't want so I'm going to select the whole path. you're steps are:

click on the PATH tab:

Right click on the layer below titled shape 1 vector mask and select "Make selection".

This is going to select the whole rectangle, but what we want to erase is the parts outside of this selection so now we're going to inverse the selection.

Go to Select-Inverse

This is going to select those little tiny corners we are so dying to remove. You'll see those "dancing little ants" running around all four corners.
Here you're going to make sure you select your orginal background layer

As soon as you have done that click on that eraser tool and start erasing. When you're done go back up select and hit on deselect.
this is going to get rid of those ugly little "Dancing Ants"

Now you may not know this by looking at it but you just rounded out your corners. All that's left is getting it back so we can see what you've done. So click on th layer right above your background layer label Shape 1

Now right click on that layer and select Delete Layer

With that layer gone you can now see your rounded corner image and you should end up with something like this...

Now go out and create something amazing.

We've talked about aperture before but today I really want to focus on and maybe even pressure you a little into trying some things out. Opening your aperture up wide means moving your f/stops to a low number. The lower the number the wider the aperture...which then means a more shallow depth of field aka whats in focus. Unlike a small aperture (larger number) where the depth of field is deep and there is lots of room to work on you focus. With a wide aperture focus is sort of a must. When your aperture is small so much is already in the focus field that what your really wanting to focus on sort of just blends in...

Taken with the aperture set and f/8 it didn't really matter what kid I focused on the  aperture was set small enough that everything was already in the depth of field to begin with. Now you should still always make sure what you are really wanting to focus on is in focus, I'm not saying that I'm just saying with a small aperture there's room to mess up.

Now here the aperture is wider f/3.2 this is a pretty wide aperture and there is little room for my focus to move of for my eyes to mess up. Had I been focused on the back of her seleve instead of her fingers I would have mess this whole shot up with just those few cenitmeters of diffence.

With an aperture so wide as say f/1.8 which is as wide as this 50mm lens would go there is no room for error. This one long grass stem is the only thing my lens sensor has to focus on. Everything behind it and in front of it, is completely out of focus. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ERROR. Shooting at the aperture setting takes lots and lots of practice but I assure you it is so worth it. With an aperture set so wide everything becomes bokeh and bokeh just has a special place in my heart. Just take a look at some of these great flickr groups.
Bokehwhores
For the love of bokeh
Bokehpalooza

The key to a good silhouette is simple. GET DOWN LOW. You want your subject whatever it maybe to be like a wall separating you from the light source. The lower you can get from your subject the more defined it's going to be. Much like Sunset photos silhouettes are about exposing the sun which mean a much higher shutter speed then you may think. If you don't know what shutter speed is try checking out my tutorial on Shutter Speed here and for just kicks it wouldn't hurt check out my tutorial on Aperture either. When shooting a silhouettes you're almost always shooting into the sun (or light source) and that sun is a lot brighter than you may think to your camera's sensor, so raising the Shutter Speed, and Aperture, while lowering the ISO is going to set your camera in the perfect condition to line out your silhouette. Try it. They're easy to get addicted too.

It is very common for people to think that the better the camera the better the pictures are going to be that come from it but that truly isn't the case.
If you by a $1000 camera but use it like a $400 camera then you have a $400 camera that you spent $1000 on.

What do I mean. It's simple. IF you can't/don't shoot in manual mode than you don't need anything more than a point and shoot camera DSLRs are a waste of your money. If you don't know how to set up a shot or how to get good lighting and you have no desire to learn how too then you are literally pouring your money down the drain in purchasing a DSLR. Now if you are going to argue Megapixel then read this post first and come back and finish reading this......now that your back you'll understand that megapixel don't make a good argument. What makes I good picture is you, Not your camera. I know this is hard to hear but it's the truth. So before you go out and spend a whole lot of money on a new camera ask yourself "What are you going to do with it?" and if your answer is that you just want a good camera that will take nice pictures then go check out a point and shoot and save yourself a whole heck of a lot of money. But if you want a camera that you set the setting and change the lens and manipulate the depth of field and so and so on then and only then should you fork up the cash for a DSLR.

Do not! I repeat with all of my heart to not buy a camera you aren't going to use because let me tell you something cameras want to be used. they want to become dirty and worn down and they want to take a beating and be abused this is what their dirty little minds want from us and if that doesn't sound like something your ready for then step back buy a point and shoot and go from there,

Because it's not the camera that makes the picture. It's you.

Storyboards and their popularity are growing as we speak. The desire to take a group of photos to the next level interest everyone...let's be honest. You can find many pre-made storyboard actions and templates all over the net. In fact if you're wanting to skip the whole "do it yourself" movement I recommend checking out MCP Actions Jodi over at MCP Actions has a whole mess of storyboard actions for you to choose from. But if you're like me and you're a cheap ass who likes to do stuff yourself then you're in the right place.

Let's start with the basic. First you have to decide what size you want your final product most storyboards run at a 10x20 or 20x30 length, but you can make them any size you want. Today I'm going to show you how to make a story board using an 11x14 base. Meaning that the whole thing would fit into an 11x14 frame.

So go to file and click File>New set the size you want and make sure the background color is white. Truly you can pick any color you want here. But for this example I chose white. Once you have your picture open you need to open up the Grid

This is done by simply going up to the View Tab and click View>Show>Grid

Now you're blank image should look like this. Once the grid is up you have to bring out your talent in math and start deciding where you want your pictures to go and what size you want each of them to be. When you've done you're going to start dragging out the Guides. From the side of your image you will see a set of "rulers" one going horizontal and one going vertical. Using the Move Tool click on the rulers and pull out each guide one at a time. Lining them up where you want them to outline where each photo is going to go.

at this point I recommend turning the Grid off. To do this just go back up to View and Click View>Show>Grid your image will now look something like this.

Of course your's will be laid out the way you want it and you will know what each box represent to you. Now that the boxes for each image are chosen we have to make a new layer for each box. Click on the Marquee Tool and highlight the area that is your first box.

Once the box is highlighted you need to right click inside the box and select layer via copy.

Next you're going to highlight the area again. This time using the Magic Wand Tool.

This will highlight the area you just had selected exactly the way you had it before you made the layer so that the lines line up perfect. Now you're going to fill the area with a solid color I use black because its easy to see but you don't have to use black at all. Do this by clicking the Paint Bucket Tool

Now fill the layer with the solid color its going to look something like this

You will repeat the process over and over again until all the spots where you want images are full. Making sure each spot is on it's own layer. Name these layers if you want or not it doesn't matter.

Now you have the template at this point I would save it making sure to save it in a PSD form because you don't want the image to flatten DO NOT FLATTEN YOUR IMAGE

Next you're ready to add the pictures into the template. This is where the easy/fun part comes in. Choose the images you want and where you want them before you get started it makes things easier later down the road.

Open up all the images at once so that they are right there when you need them. This part goes pretty fast once you get the hang of it.

*Note it helps at this point to size the images down to a smaller size like a 4x6 or even smaller. However I did not do that when I was making this tutorial because I forgot*

Click back on your template image

now that you are back on your template highlight the layer that you want the first image to go into. Then drag and drop the images you are going to use into your template. If you had the right area select your image layer will fall right above the box layer you're going to put it into. At first nothing is going to happen and you are going to think you just wasted all this time reading this tutorial for nothing and that I'm a loony but we're not done yet.

Right click on the layer containing your image and click Create Clipping Mask

This is going to put that image inside your pre-made box at this point size the image, and move it around inside the box to get it to look the way you want. You can do this by clicking at the top Edit>Free Transform. This is going to put a transforming box around your image and allow you to pull and bush the images however you want it.

*Note to keep the image form intact press the shift key while you are moving the transforming box around*

Do this for all the images until each one if set the way you want it.

Congratulation you just made your first storyboard file. Now save the image and you are good to go.

Point in case is baby pictures. Listen people babies are gorgeous they are are practically perfect in every way. There should be little to NO touch up work on them. Sure you might need to erase a booger there and pimple here but other than that STEP AWAY from the photoshop.

This trend is growing as we speak and a firmly believe we need to nip it in the butt.

let's see some examples shall we?

I took this picture of Baby B a few weeks ago at Big Birds softball game.

this picture is fine just how it is but I do see some things I want to change if I am going to put it in a frame or something.

First Baby B had scratched himself (as babies do) on the neck and well I just don't want that there so lets erase that. Then there are some small boogies at the nose area. Not a lot just a little but lets get rid of those too. To bring it all together let's crop the picture closer and sharpen (you should always lightly sharpen after you crop an image. let's see what we got.

There, it still looks like the same kid and he still looks normal and cute and fantastic.

But what happens when photoshop eats your senses and you become a photoshop addict and start running every action/editing tool you have on the poor kid (which is a sad trend I see happening more and more in the world of photography)

Let's take a look.....prepare yourselves.

What the fuck happen to Baby B? Sure he has that "angely glow" but he also looks like an alien. No child in the world looks that smooth in real person and trust me babies are smooth to begin with but someone draw the line somewhere literally.

We ran the poor thing through a skin smoother, brightened the eyes, dodge the hair and then topped it off with an all around glow for good luck.

WTF!!!!!

But this is sadly the road many photographers go down and even worse they get support to do so by parents who love this look...DON'T LOVE THIS LOOK PARENTS!!!

This is my warning.

"If it takes more than three steps to make the SOOC picture look good on a baby then you just have a bad picture.....Step Away From The Photoshop"

this should be your moto from here on out. repeat it often.

I tend to believe that taking a picture of a sunset is what what everyone who's ever held a camera dreams of doing. And the truth is it is something anyone can do. From the high prices DSLR to your everyday point and shoot all you need is to have the control to decide your settings. Almost any camera on the market have this option. If you own a point and shoot camera then your looking for the options that are for say things like macro (picture of a flower) or portraits (picture of a persons head) or sports (picture of a guy running) those of the most commonly found setting on almost every camera and I say almost because I don't want to say all and then have someone get mad at me that they bought a camera and it didn't have those options. If you're working with a DSLR then your going to focus on your shutter speed.

First you need to decide what is the purpose of the photo? Is it to get the sun set or is it to get the tree standing in from of the sun set. Because I am here to tell you that you can't do both in one picture. You can do both with layering but that for another day.
When taking a picture of a sunset everything else is going to be a silhouette meaning it's going to darkness to the point when you can really only see the outline of the image and not the details.

Most people think that because it's getting dark out as the sun sets that your shutter speed need to be slower to allow more light into the sensor. If you haven't read my post on shutter speed you can check it out here.
But the truth is sunset are very very bright and though you should never point your camera right at the sun you can point into the sun's direction when you do this you will noticed that you're shutter speed needs to be very high. All of this pictures were taking with this fomula.

f/8
speed 1000
ISO 100

Now it's true that my speed would not have had to been so high is I had changed the ISO or the F/stops but I want my pictures to be as smooth as possible and the only way to assure that my picture would be noise free is by using the lowest ISO I my camera would go. The best part about having a fast speed is that you can taking these pictures free hand without a tripod. I am so that there is a whole photography group out there that will disagree with me on that but hey I didn't use one and I really like these photos.

If you can control your ISO. F/stops, and Shutter Speed Manually don't fret there is still room for you in the world of sunset photography. Remember those setting we talked about ealier. The macro flower, the portrait head and the sports man running. Well those are what you are looking for. Taking a picture with one then the other and then another until you find the one that looks the way you want it most. Big Bird likes to use the Macro Flower while Little Bird likes to use the sports man running (again this fits my children so much)

The key to taking a sunset picture that you will love is knowing what you want from it. If you want the colors of the sunset but not the details of your surroundings that go for the fomula.

small apeture
fast shutter speed
Low ISO

but if you want a little bit of the details like the color of the grass and the shape of each blade then bring down you fomula a little.

wider apeture (not to wide)
slower shutter speed (not to slow)

for me I like to keep the ISO the same.

So go out have fun nd take some pictures.