Tips and Tricks For Taking The Best Nature and Flower Pictures You Have Ever Taken

Welcome to Nature Tales, the newsletter with insider tips for getting the most from your nature photographs. We will be sharing some of our secrets and strategies for better pictures and some don'ts for those not so good shots.

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April 6, 2007 Issue #09

"A special note: All links in this newsletter open in a new window. If you try to open one and it doesn't work, try holding down your [ctrl] key."

• Wisdom Flash Teach Your Children Well
  
• Feature Article - The Best Way to Clean Your Digital Camera
  
• What's New at Nature and Flower Pictures
  
• Attention - Work At Home Moms

Feedback? Let me have it, right between the eyes! I'd love to hear from you. Just reply to this zine and tell me what you think! Or you can use our contact us form here to send your comments.

It isn't the mountains that wear you out. It's the grain of sand in your shoe. -- Anonymous (or in the case of this weeks topic, the grain of sand in your camera lens:)

Wisdom Flash - Teach Your Children Well

This wisdom flash is from Neale Donald Walsch. You know the "Conversations With God" author? If you love the books or even if you have never read them, this video will bring a smile to your face.Watch "Teach Your Children Well".

Wishing You and Yours Happy Easter

My friend Amy Renfrey is back again this week with another cool tip. How many times have you felt frustrated with unclear pictures? Perhaps your camera lens could use a little cleaning.

The Best Way to Clean Your Digital Camera

Well don’t do what I did before I knew anything about photography. It’s embarrassing, but I’ll tell you anyway.

I was standing at a beautiful beach one balmy, Aussie summers dusk and there was a rush of wind. It blew sand all over me and onto the digital camera.

Knowing ‘zip’ about digital camera care and maintenance at the time I cleaned the lens with the corner of my t-shirt and went on my merry way.

When I arrived home that night I took out my digital camera to download the images to the computer and out fell small particles of sand onto the floor. I thought “what the..?”

I was surprised to see so many grains. I took off the lens cap and there were sand granules embedded into the edge of the lens.

And that particular digital camera lens has never retained the same sharpness and clarity since my various trips to the beach. After a while the sand granules on the lens caused the annoying lack of quality that I previously had.

I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my time with digital photography from not knowing any better, and that was a doozy. Thankfully I learned and am now teaching digital photography.

Camera care and cleaning is a regular thing you should give your digital camera. And the best way to clean a lenses? Carefully!

This is why you should never take the edge of your t-shirt and clean it because unbeknownst to you, you could be leaving tiny trails of grit and dirt on the lens causing scratching.

Remember all digital camera lenses are made of glass. The clarity and sharpness you get in your digital photos relies heavily on the surface of that glass to be squeaky clean.

Nothing must get onto the lens if you can help it. Its pretty hard to keep a lens 100% clean because of dust particles floating around in the air, but you can get as close to 100% as possible with some handy digital photography camera cleaning equipment.

There are a couple of ways you can clean your digital camera's lens, and that’s with a bit of spit…..just kidding. Seriously, you must use a proper lens cleaning cloth.

You can use cleaning fluid too. This can cause some streaking across the lens if you use too much. One drop on your lens cleaning cloth using a gentle circular motion will get most marks off a lens.

In popular digital camera stores you can buy a pretty good lens cleaning fluid. It shouldn’t be more than $20-$25 depending on where you go.

The digital camera lens cleaning fluid is an alcohol-based fluid that, just between you and me, I wouldn’t take my digital camera out without it. The digital camera lens cleaning fluid is ideal because it’s not solely for dust but accidental finger prints and other unplanned smudges.

Don’t forget about your other digital camera filters too. You can have a polariser on the front of your lens which will most likely need a clean if you’re using your digital camera a lot, or if you are using it outside for a day. You’ll be amazed at how dirty the lens can get. If you’re not sure, grab a lens cleaning kit from your nearest digital camera store.

Personally I have several lens cleaning cloths, lens cleaning fluid, a brush with an air capsule to blow off dust then brush, cotton buds to get into the crevasse and a small leather pouch I keep it all in.

The leather pouch is actually a small ladies purse. I bought it for the size and the durability and protection it gave my cleaning equipment.

No more wiping the lens with a t-shirt! (Heaven forbid!)

Happy shooting, Amy Renfrey

Do you prefer a book you can hold in your hand? Here is a list of Photography Books I found while searching our partners at Amazon.

What's New at Nature and Flower Pictures

• Black And White Photography Isn't it amazing how rich any picture looks when you use black and white? Check out some of the ways you can really show off with these rose pictures.
• White Roses are some of the most beautiful roses you will find. No wonder the white rose stands for innocence. These white roses make a great desktop background.
• 5 Ways to Get The Most From Your Macro Photography This article was recently featured on E-Zine articles. I love macro photography as you can see from most of the close up pictures of flowers on the site. .
• Brand New Pictures of Roses Now you can get 15 high resolution pictures of roses in a download zip format.

Are You a Working Mom?

I am so glad to see this trend. When my kids were younger I was a creative on the fence mom. You might say I was a stay at home wanna be.

Now every where I look I am meeting another mom who is staying home to raise their children. But with the cost of living the way it is not every one is able to have or do this.

But now a door has been opened for us all. Last week I invited you to see why I love SBI and the wonderful community I have grown a part of.

This week I have another treat for you. See how these moms meet their challenges and create a new way of life.WAHM is what they call themselves. Let them tell you their story in some of the most amusing and heartfelt ways you will ever come across.