Lighting is the key of success for macro photography. If the lighting too dim you might surfer from slow shutter speed whereas under the bright sun light, you will get hash and ugly shadow on your object.

One of the cheapest and easiest method to reduce hash shadow is use the white card / board as a reflector.

See through the view finder carefully while adjusting the reflector to reflect some sun light into the shadow area.

PP in action:

Without reflector, you can see some hash and ugly shadow on the petals.

With reflector, the shadow area been filled by nature light.

Some of you might having problem to organize and arrange your photo by date in Microsoft Windows. When you open up My Pictures folder, you have no idea what you took this series of photos. Today I would like to share with you how to arrange your photo folders in perfectly chronological order.

I use the following convention for naming folder on my PC:

YYYY-MM-DDD - Short Description of your series.

Examples:

2007-10-11 - Company Dinner @ TGI Fridays

2007-10-13 - Hari Raya Open House

By using this naming convention for your folder, you can easily sort your album with chronological order.

MIFC (Malaysia International Fireworks Competition) ended on 2 September 2007 and we went for photo shooting on the 1st night 18 Aug. Some reader might asked, this event is outdated and it has passed more than 1 month, however I would like to share some tips and technique that I used and learned that you can use for next fireworks event like New Year.

Here are 8 tips and techniques that I have used and learned:

1. Reach the location earlier in order to get a good location with an unobstructed view.

2. Tripod is a must. No question ask even you have VR, IS, it doesn’t helps.

3. Set your camera’s ISO setting to lowest to prevent digital noise.

4. Turn the camera’s built-in flash OFF.

5. Use the Landscape Mode for Point and Shoot Camera or Infinity focus setting for DSLR.

6. Shoot at 5 to 10 second shutter speeds at around F8 to F16.

7. Use a remote release if you can—or use self timer to prevent camera shake while you are pressing the shutter.8. Include the foreground in some of the shots such as buildings add scale and identify the shooting location.