Arts and Photography tips and guide

Being able to capture the perfect shot is important, especially when you're taking levitation photos and forced perspective photos in trick photography. This is because you'll often be trying to capture action events that are spontaneous in nature. Your camera's shutter delay can be annoying because you have to time it just right, or you will miss the shot. Imagine asking your friends to repeatedly jump or hold a pose while you fiddle around with your camera, they won't be so receptive to your great trick photo ideas the next time.

So here are the few things you can do to minimize the shutter delay of your camera.

Almost all modern cameras have a burst mode that shoots a fast series of photos. Higher end cameras like DSLRs allow you to hold down the shutter button to keep shooting continuously, filling up the memory card. Using burst mode you can shoot fast photos of an action event and then choose the one that best captured the events.

Autofocus is a godsend that has allowed us to literally "point and shoot". The camera takes care of the focusing duties to ensure everything stays in sharp focus. The downside is that once awhile it tends to mis-judge what you want and it takes its sweet time doing it. You can reduce this delay by either switching to manual focus, or keep the shutter button half-pressed to keep the current focus locked. Holding the button half way down results in a one-time focus process and a focus lock. So when the action happens the camera won't waste time re-focusing, and you get the shot you want. To some this may sound obvious but the majority of casual camera users are unaware of this.

Another culprit is the "initial delay". Due to battery saving technology, most cameras will enter a standby mode if not used for a certain amount of time. If you switch off your camera, it will take time for it to get ready. The camera turns off most of its electronics like the LCD display if it goes into standby mode. Usually pressing the shutter button will awake the camera from standby, but some cameras have a setting where you can prevent it from going into standby. This is not really an issue if you're capturing pre-meditated trick photo shots, but if its a spontaneous shot then this matters. If you can't prevent it then you can periodically half-press the shutter button to keep it awake when you sense an opportunity shot.

Jim blogs about trick photography and special effects techniques that people use to create stunning photographs. You can sign up at his Trick Photography site to receive a free report on the top 10 trick photography ideas for travel photos.

View the original article here