One of the main benefits of owning a DSLR is the ability to change lenses to suit what and where you are photographing.   

As you progress beyond the kit lens, and start to look at adding to your lens collection. one age old question pondered by many always crops up. Should I buy a zoom lens or prime lens?  

It's a very difficult question to answer because there are a lot of factors to take into consideration: your preferred shooting style, your available budget, and what your main subjects are going to be. 

Hopefully what I can do here today is give you some things to think about when you are comparing the two!

Ready? Let battle commence 😀

Let me preface this post by saying I am by no means an expert at using flash. I know people who will use it during the day, or can light a scene in the pitch black using one speedlight and an umbrella, or use several as slaves and masters (?!)

I am not this person. 

I only dig the speed light out when the days get shorter, and natural light indoors becomes less, and I need to supplement the existing light - that's it!

But as I'm willing to bet that is why most lifestyle photographers reach for their speed light, I wanted to give you a guide to use to use flash for this very purpose.  

The other thing to note is that for this to make any sense whatsoever, you really must understand your exposure triangle and how everything goes together - but for the purposes of this article I'm just going to assume that you are confident about what each of the elements does :) 

(Oh, and If you are unsure about why you would even want an external flash unit, i wrote about this recently with some examples here so you can read that first so you have some background!)

With all that caveats neatly out of the way, let's start on how to use flash! 

Although you might not think so, Pinterest can be an amazing resource for photographers when used in the right way!  It can be a wonderful source of inspiration,  whether you need some ideas for planning for a session,  a little help when trying to define your own style, and can even help you create your own inspirational images! 

I know many people think of Pinterest for photographers in a negative way, because they either compare themselves to the photographers on there (and think they find themselves lacking!), or they try to re-create an image they have seen down to the last detail and wonder why it doesn't good as the original. 

But Pinterest can definitely be used as a force for good - you just have to know how to use it :) 

In this post, I'm going to give you some ideas for ways you can use Pinterest to help you get the most from this platform for growing your photography skills and creating gorgeous images.

One of the things that draws me to lifestyle photography more than any other kind is that I love detail shots.  Whilst I also enjoy a good portrait - and I think that they are just as important to photograph too - I believe detail shots can be just as beautiful as any other type of images, and as it requires you to slow down and be a little bit more purposeful when shooting, really allows you to see the beauty in your everyday life. 

Here are some tips for helping you capture the details in lifestyle photography. 

Adding a matte effect over the top of your image can be lovely, as it's a great way to soften an image and make it look more unique. Not everyone is fan, but I personally love it sometimes, and I know many people consider the matte look a signature part of their editing style.

If you’ve wondered how to create a matte effect in Lightroom, or Photoshop, today I’ll show you how easy it is to do! 

I am a huge believer in printing out your photos and enjoying them in the here and now, but I appreciate it can get a little bit boring to keep putting them into frames all the time!   So, here are 8 creative ways to display photos in your home. 

When we are first starting out, we tend to take images from the same position all the time - from standing. (When shooting children, this means we are generally shooting down on them) Whilst this is fine for some images, most of the time we will want to get down and shoot on the same level as our subject. Doing so allows you to create more of a connection between the viewer and the subject, and can add a bit more impact to an image. 

As you continue to document your everyday life with your children, you will no doubt soon amass hundreds of photos!  Dealing with this amount of digital files can be a little bit overwhelming if you don't have a suitable filing system in place.  Here's some tips for organizing your family photos: 

You may have heard the term "fast lenses" or "flat glass" o your photography travels, and wondered what the hell that meant, and whether that meant you had to go and get one of them too. 

In this post, I'm going to break down what fast glass actually is, and why having one in your lens arenas is a good idea!

Anyone else noticing how dark it's getting? Winter is on it's way!  As much as I love the dark evenings for a new host of shooting opportunities, one of the things I picked up last year that I had been hankering after for ages was a Canon Speedlite to help with my indoor pictures over the dark winter months. 

I thought it might be helpful for some of you to understand why you might need or want to use an external flash on some occasions, especially now that the day light hours are getting shorter! 

Are you in need of some new photography project ideas?  Here are 15 ideas to improve your photography, kick start your creativity and document your days! 

If you have been shooting for a few years like myself, it can start to feel like you are simply photographing the same things, in the same way, every day.  This is when a creative photography project can help you break out of a rut and have you capturing something different!  It not only gives you a new focus, and something new to reach for,  but it can also help improve your photography skills immensely so they are great for beginners to more seasoned photographers alike. 

For that reason, I have been thinking about tackling a new project next year (to keep me on my toes!) and thought it would be fun to share some of the photography project ideas I have come across in my travels  - see what you think....

I've covered a fair bit on lenses this past week, comparing different focal lengths and understanding lens compression, and I thought I'd rewind a bit for any new photographers, and talk about what the numbers on the lens mean. 

This was one of my very first questions I had when buying my DSLR and it took me a little while to figure out! Hopefully this post will help break this down if you are new to lenses too. 

So, let's take a look at some lenses and break down the numbers to see what they mean, and what you should look for. 

Let's start with a lens that you will often see sold as a "kit lens" with your camera:  

To get tack sharp images, one element you need to be aware of is your Aperture.  Aperture controls the depth of field - in other words, how much of your scene is going to be in focus. A smaller F number means you will have a smaller depth of field (less in focus) and a bigger F number means more will be in focus.

I have been asked many times about which aperture you should use for what, and whilst I always try to give guidance on that,  the truth is that it very depends on the camera model you have, the lens you are using, how far away you are from the subject and the distance between yourself and what you are trying to get in focus. 

When we choose a lens to take an image with,  most of the time we are looking at how much we want to fit into the frame, and far away from our subject we are. For example, if you are shooting indoors in a small room, but you want to leave in some of the surroundings to give the image context, then you are going to want to choose a shorter focal length.  If you are photographing something farther away,  like your child at sports day, you are going to want to have a longer length lens on your camera, so you can be farther back but still have the whole of your child in the frame.  In the post I did yesterday, you can see just how much more you can fit into the frame with a 35mm than a 200mm. (Check out the post on focal length comparisons if you missed it!) 

As I mentioned in that post, there is another reason for using certain lenses over and above how near or far we are from our subjects, and that is the lens compression.

I finally got around to photographing focal length comparisons again this week - I know these can be really helpful as a reference point. 

I gave up on trying to get someone to model for me - since one certain little boy wouldn't stay in the same place for long enough whilst I went through all my lenses (twice!) we have the lovely Dave as our model instead.  I'm pretty fond of Dave, he's very obliging :) 

So, each of these photos has been taken with a different lens, and therefore a different focal length,  so you can see how your field of view changes with each one. For this first set I'm sitting in the same location for each shot, just changing my lens to get the different focal lengths. (If you are wondering which lens were used you can check out the lenses here)