wondering if i should upgrade my camera body or just accesorize what i already have?
i have the canon rebel xs with two lens the 70-300mm and the 18-55mm
a bower flash which never gets used .

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nature-Wildlife-Photography-by-Megan-Webb/206243579403220 here is my work . i do mostly animals and nature and was wondering if iwere to upgrade what would be the best camera for me to get , also what are some tips and techniques you think i should work on. i feel my work is good but i like to have other peoples opionions.

The Xs isn’t a horrible camera and I honestly believe that you haven’t come close to hitting it’s limits with your current skill (based on your portfolio).

As you mainly do wildlife and landscapes, lighting gear isn’t going to be very useful to you.

My first suggestion is lay off the editing. You over edit all your images like crazy, it lowers any artistic value they might have had.

Next, learn about photography. I don’t want to be nasty but you could get MUCH better pictures than these with the gear you currently have.

Learn how to expose your shots manually. You seem to have a knock at finding some nice shots to shoot but the images are desaturated and blurry and it’s not because of the camera.

If you don’t have a tripod or monopod, get one.

When shooting with a telephoto, to keep the image as crisp as possible, try to shoot faster than your focal length. I know, I sound like han solo explaining that the millenium falcon is fast by saying he did a run in 9 parsecs (a measure of distance) instead of time but bear with me.

Let’s say you are shooting with your 70-300 at 200mm focal length, to minimize blurriness, you need to shoot at 1/200th of a second or faster (1/400, 1/800 …). This is to combat motion blur caused by the shaking of the super long lens as you press the shutter release.

Also, don’t shoot at the widest aperture possible. All lenses have what’s called a "sweet spot", an aperture with image clarity is best, that sweet spot is one or two fstops higher than the minimum so if your prosumer lens can do let’s say f5.6 at 200mm then your sweet spot would be around f11. this is especially true of consumerglass like the Signma 70-300 f3.5 – 5.6 … pro glass like the Canon 70-200 f2.8 are much clearer (but are also 4 times the cost).

If f11, 200mm, 1/250, ISO 100 doesn’t give you enough light, play with your ISO a bit. With the Xs, you should be good up to ISO 400 at least, giving you 2 extra stops of light.

Learning how to use your camera will improve your picture much more than upgrading the body or buying new glass … admitedly, if you have money to spend … a good lens is a good idea but you need to buy a GOOD lens … not that consumer crap with variable aperture.

There are like 1000 lighting techniques. I really just want to know the basics and the dos and don’ts.

Remember that I’ll use them in filming and not only photography.

If there was only one best lighting technique there would not be thousands. Starting out: light both the background and the subject, try to get some light behind the subject to separate it from it’s environment and don’t put the light too low or too close to the camera ’s lens axis.

Looking to learn how to use the settings to the advantage of my photography. Does anyone know any techniques they can tell me to try.

Please but clear instructions.

Thanks.

The most important thing, above anything else is light. If you don’t get this right, the photo just isn’t going to work. What you want to do us create gentle shadows which emphasise the features of the face, almost invariable this requires use directional light, and make sure the light isn’t too harsh, it doesn’t matter if it’s natural light or artificial light, but as a general rule try to avoid mixing different types of light until you’re a little more experienced. Sometimes you will find light that’s comes from unconventional places, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciao_chao/5381814201/in/photostream I shot this outside a shop which sells lampshades and chandeliers. Though my favourite is light that late afternoon sunlight, it’s nice and low, making it soft, and also warm. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciao_chao/5688004653/in/photostream

Sometimes you may want to just give available light a boost, by all means you can "fill in" with flash, even from your pop-up, but you want to dial it down, usually -1.7 or -1.3EV on FEC should be fine.

Most portraits are shot at focal lengths of longer than 50mm. When inside full body, 50mm, upper body, 85mm, head shots, 100mm+. With more space you can often use longer focal lengths to isolate your subject.

Control of depth of field is important if you’re shooting documentary photos, you need a moderate amount of depth of field just to place the subject in an environment, but it needs to be shallow enough to isolate the subjects. Apertures of f2-2.8 at 50mm and 5.6 at 100mm+ would be suitable. This is the type of environmental shot I often like http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciao_chao/4952167185/in/photostream I generally will shoot in Av mode, and ISO of 100.

Now in the studio, you aperture depends on the background you’re working with, but invariably will depend on the lighting. Shooting on white, it doesn’t matter too much as long as you use the light to smooth out the background. Shooting on black is the opposite, and involves trying to prevent the light spilling out. With a patterned background, you may need to use a larger aperture, to provide a nice smooth but interesting background.

for my musical (thursday is the costume check) one part of the costume is a head piece to partialy cover your hair. here are some examples:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2746/4126855746_aaaa10f3bb.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flickr.com/photos/diogioscuro/sets/72157622918296234/&usg=__ctlzUTE2402ba0VdgpjK6uAHhuI=&h=500&w=500&sz=164&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=-JdaO24kd6u6IM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=144&ei=tIC3TdGrJYndgQeJ8912&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfiddler%2Bon%2Bthe%2Broof%2Bcostumes%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D574%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=876&vpy=225&dur=877&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=113&ty=188&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:17,s:0

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00N/00NI1q-39756384.jpg&imgrefurl=http://photo.net/photography-lighting-equipment-techniques-forum/00NHnt&usg=__q5sLw5Q8DVN-5pAjw1J9rvtOcn0=&h=288&w=432&sz=73&hl=en&start=22&zoom=1&tbnid=yGE16UYCwnZ4_M:&tbnh=84&tbnw=126&ei=tIG3Tc65CNHTgQfU_bRt&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfiddler%2Bon%2Bthe%2Broof%2Bcostumes%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1138%26bih%3D555%26output%3Dimages_json%26tbm%3Disch%26prmd%3Divns0%2C249&itbs=1&biw=1138&bih=555 (and yes i’m pretty sure the second girl is a girl)

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.kitsapsun.com/media/img/photos/2009/05/03/20090503-222910-pic-452788088_t607.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/may/03/local-theater-mazeltov-wwcas-145fiddler-is-a/&usg=__yjswAT-5dlQCHIRaKsdzCuyyt1M=&h=301&w=607&sz=63&hl=en&start=36&zoom=1&tbnid=3QUQ_wTx51ovUM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=159&ei=3YG3TaGBH8zegQehyP14&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfiddler%2Bon%2Bthe%2Broof%2Bcostumes%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1138%26bih%3D555%26tbm%3Disch0%2C849&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=783&vpy=256&dur=144&hovh=158&hovw=319&tx=277&ty=86&page=3&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:11,s:36&biw=1138&bih=555

either do you know any where i can buy them? if not do you know how i could make one out of fabric?
(if so, please tell me how…. well i’m not going to make it my mom is)

10 ptz to best answer.

Take a large square handkercheif, and fold it in half into a triangle.

Put the long flat side by your forehead. Tie the two corners underneath your hair.

Presto.