Another cool technique is to adjust the focus to emphasize your subject. For instance, in this picture, I wanted to emphasize the bottom end of the guitar:

That'* one thing I like about my manual camera. Nice pic Sol.

Thanks. I'm learning new techniques all the time. I thought I'd share my new lessons.

BTW, if you wanna see some great photos, check out the Worth1000 photo contests. I participate in some of them, but lose greatly. There are some great photographers there.

Check it out:

http://www.worth1000.com/Default.asp...ay=photography

Nice photo, Sol. I like the shallow depth of field.

Flash can be a blessing or a curse. If you are taking a picture that has deep field of view, get rid of that flash, it will do nothing for you except make you regret having it on.
Other than that, try to plan the picture out. What do you want it to look like?

I like to experiment with unique angles and candids. For example. I love macro pictures, (up close and personal) and "worms eye view". When taking a picture of a car, I tend to get as low as I can giving the vehicle a much more aggressive look.

I believe my sig pic(*) demonstrate the use of worms eye and macro together as one.

And always try to remember a beautiful subject will ensure a beauftiful picture.

Sol... your guitar pic... was this w/ a regular camera or a digital camera.
If digital, how/what settings did you use?
My A70 (digital) has various manual settings that most digital don't. I'd like to get similar effects if possible.

It was with a digital. I don't use film cameras.

What I did was turn on the Macro, then I set the focus. There is a way to do that on my camera by holding down the snapshot button halfway. I move it around to get the focus I desire, then take the shot.

Also on my camera you can actually lock and hold the focus you like, so you can take many photos with the same focus.

Here'* some tips from me, i'm a big photo nut, and i have an SLR on my own, and my paretns digi cam. Mine'* a Pentax ZX-7 about $400 or so new. My 'rents digi cam does 4 megapixel 2304x1704 pix. I always leave it on that.

On nearly every camera you have two positions on the shutter button. You can push it down halfway, and it'lll focus and adjust the light settings to whatever is in the middle (or on upper range cameras, on the zone you're using) if you keep it held down, you can move the camera and retain the settings when it locked them. Conversely, if you want to have light settings for one part, and focus on another, you would do like SOL talked about, use a "lock settings" cmd on the camera, then focus normally.

The rule of 1/3s is one of the most important things ever!!!! Try to keep all subjects around 1/3 from the edge on height and width. Never in the middle. Always focus on your subject as well. Sol showed a good image with a short field of depth. He focused on the base of the guitar, and used a very low F/stop which limits your field.

Now putting it all together!

Lets say I wanna take a picture of my car at dusk, with the sun off to the side or back or me, and a tree to the right side of the car in the frame. I would point the camera at the ground, to get my light settings, either manually, or with some auto function. The ground will be the darkest part of the picture, and i want it to be visible still, it will also make the sky BRILLIANT and gorgeously colored. Then focus on the car, and then move the camera to frame the shot. If you put the car in say the bottom left 1/3 corner, you're probably not focusing on it, or exactly what you want. So here'* a wrap up.

1 lighting
2 focusing
3 framing

With cars, key things to focus on (and possibly like the guitar the only thing) are the headlights or tail lights. They are the most distinct features, and focusing on them, or a badge works great.

For my sig pic i used the lower air dam/ ground for the light reading, because i didn't want it too dark inside the car wash stall, i then went up the grill area, let the camera focus, and the i framed it. The sig pic is cropped heavily too btw.