How many of you actually look at the histogram to determine if the picture is exposed correctly? I know a lot of my friends out there who don't bother to look at the histogram as they find it very hard to understand what that little chart is trying to tell about the photo.

In fact, histogram is the most useful piece of tool that only digital photographers can enjoyed. I remembered back in the film days, it is so hard to tell if the photo is properly exposed or not. By looking at the histogram on my 300D, I can tell if the photo is exposed correctly easily since the LCD can never show the photo exposure correctly. It is always too bright when I am at indoors and washed out when I am at outdoors under bright sunlight.

Anyway, I'm lazy to try to explain how to read a histogram since there are a lot of websites that has explained this subject in very detail. Anyway, if you want to read just one article on understanding historgrams, I would recommend the following article from The Luminous Landscape website:

• Understanding Histograms

Hope you all have fun reading this very informative article and start to utilize this useful tool provided FREE with your dSLR ... :).

Someone asked me the difference between Black & White and Sepia tone a few days back. Here is an interesting article that I want to share today on this topic. It has a bit of history on why Sepia-tone was created.

Here is an example of Black & White photo taken by me:

Here is an example of Sepia-tone photo taken by me:

The article follows:

The Nostalgic World of Digital Sepia
by Brenden Joel Reid

Most new digital cameras have Sepia mode as an added feature. Sepia is an easy way to apply a great-looking traditional technique to your photos.

Sepia-tone is basically a special effect that gives photos a yellowy-brown, monochromatic shading. It was originally developed to prolong the archival life of early black-and-white silver-based prints. Back then, developers used chemicals to turn the silver in the print to silver-sulphide (a more stable compound than silver) to slow down the deterioration of the image.

Sepia really gives photos a retro-nostalgic look and feel. It also allows you to shoot in a different color scheme without the extra effort of changing film or using a special filter - as required in traditional photography.

For those of you who haven't used the Sepia Mode on your camera yet, here's how to get started:

1. Set the camera's mode dial to the Manual option.
2. Press menu and the menu list will appear.
3. Select the option from the menu list that reads Effects.
4. Scroll and select Sepia mode.

In sepia photography you're basically shooting images in various hues of brown and red, so look for photographic elements other than color to add intrigue to your photo (like cool shadows).

Select subjects that suit the "Sepia style", such as older architecture, vintage cars, small town streets with throwback store signs and shop windows, or people dressed in vintage clothes. Sepia mode will make subjects look genuinely retro and authentically aged.

If you don't have Sepia mode on your camera, you can always make Sepia-like alterations using basic image editing software like ACDSee, which has a Sepia special effects filter that is easy to apply with a single-click.