SHORT AND SWEET

1. I recommended creating a folder in your photo library for clouds. It’s amazing how a great sky can save a landscape, cityscape, a wildlife image, and more. Shoot all kinds of skies: sunsets, puffy white clouds on a blue background, storm clouds, rainbows, etc. You can salvage a lot of images this way.

2. Language barrierts don’t mean you can’t take good pictures. Except in the most primitive areas where people have had virtually no contact with the outside world, everyone understands a camera and a smile. By pointing at your camera and then at a potential subject, and smiling, most of the time you’ll get an OK.

3. Autofocus has been vastly improved in the last few years, but there are many times when it just can’t keep up with a fast moving subject heading toward the camera. If I have time, I’ll prefocus on a point between the subject and myself and use the 20 fps get one or two sharp images -- hopefully.

4. When photographing flat surfaces like this ancient petroglyph panel at Newspaper Rock, Utah, you can increase depth of field so the entire area of the image is sharp by making the back of the camera, i.e., the plane of the digital sensor as parallel as possible with the subject matter. §