A Guest Post by Lithuanian Photographer Tadas Naujokaitis.

Birds are very interesting creatures, but it’s not so easy to photograph them. Wild birds usually don’t pose where you want and, moreover, it’s often difficult to get close enough to take quality pictures. But if you know some basics of bird photography, it becomes much easier to capture amazing moments of the birds’ life.

Equipment

It’s not necessary to have an expensive camera of lens, however the proper equipment lets to take bird photos easier.

Lens
Most birds are quite shy, so you need at least 200mm (300mm is better) to take pictures of them. Longer focal length not only lets to photograph birds from larger distance, it also gives more blurred background. However more millimeters (or larger aperture) means more expensive, larger and heavier lens. Knowing all that, I think that 400mm f/5.6 lens …

This post is number nine of twenty one subjects that will help you focus when on your next journey and you wish to bring back a well rounded story of where you were.  If you’re just going on vacation and only want pictures of yourself by the pool sipping boat drinks, then you can probably skip this one.  These posts are not intent on telling you everything you need to do, step by step, to capture perfect, cookie-cutter pictures while traveling.  Instead, they are intent on pointing out some vital elements to capture when on the road and ask thought provoking questions you may want to ask yourself.  My hope is they help guide you to find your own means to better expressing what your travels have meant to you and …

Over the last month or so we ran a poll here on dPS asking readers what type of camera they use as their primary digital camera.

After just on 50,000 responses the results are in – and they’re pretty conclusive – here at dPS people certainly like their DSLRs.

Of course dPS has a fairly ‘enthusiast’ type audience so I wouldn’t claim that this is an accurate reflection of the total percentage of DSLR users going around today – but it certainly shows a shift towards DSLRs in our community (and beyond).

A Guest post by Saul Molloy from Shotslot.

I recently took my DSLR sailing for a week on a yacht off the West Coast of Scotland. Now my camera, though heavy and rugged-feeling, is not the most waterproof of objects, in fact there’s no real weather sealing at all and the combination of salt-water, rain, repeated physical bumps (from the waves) and the general chaos generated by having five people in an enclosed space for a week is about the worst thing I can imagine doing to my precious camera, short of introducing it repeatedly to a lump-hammer.

I know that some people are really, really careful with their cameras and I can’t blame them for being precious over such an expensive piece of kit, but I feel I need to be a bit more

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Weekly Assignment
This week our photography assignment took us into the heart of the home when we went In the Kitchen. The kitchen is so often the source of fond memories. The baking, the smells, the smiles… all of it reminds us why the kitchen is the heart of the home. Our winner this week was Carina for the shot of the incredibly cozy mugs. There was just something about the strong leading lines, the reflection, and lighting that drew us to the shot. Not to mention those are some cozy looking glasses! Then we had a 3 way tie for the runners up. So, in no particular order (and with a bonus photo), first up we have zetson‘s Kitchen with a …