Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames.com and loves photography. Shop online and see our huge selection of unique picture frames like our heart picture frames and beautiful wedding photo frames.

Can we become a professional photographer? Sure, with the help of advanced digital cameras, you can do all the work. Just push the shutter button and great pictures appear. The better the digital camera, the better the picture prints.

But, it is not entirely true. In fact, you can take wonderful photos with a regular digital camera, or take bad digital shots with the most expensive SLR digital camera. It's not the camera that makes treasured images; it's actually the person taking the photos. You should also use one of the many affordable for your copies. Here are some tips for both point and shoot and SLR digital cameras to help you take professional looking photographs.

Have you ever noticed that your shots sometimes have a "bluish" look to them? This is a common problem when taking outdoor photos. The white balance setting on most digital cameras will cause a below par snapshot. Changing your white balance setting to "cloudy" will enhance your images resulting in warmer digital photos with richer reds and yellows.

Your digital camera's flash probably has various modes but the fill flash mode adds just enough flash to create professional looking portrait photos indoors and outdoors. Most point and shoot digital cameras with built-in flashes only have a range of 10 feet (or even less!), so make sure you don't stand too far away when using fill flash outdoors. An even better option would be an add-on camera flash.

Most of the photographs on our website are considered close-up/macro photos. Taking close-up/macro photos opens an entire new "mini world" to you and is plenty of fun to work on. When taking pictures in the close-up/macro mode of your camera, you should try to focus in on the most important aspect of your shot. You won't be disappointed.

Shoot your pictures in the highest resolution setting that your digital camera allows. A higher resolution will enable you to print larger copies of your gems as gifts and such. Memory cards have gone down dramatically in price lately and would be a great investment.

We always seem to take photos horizontally but a vertical shot could enhance your photo. Take the same shot both vertically and horizontally and keep the better shot. You never know what you'll find on the other side.

It is a natural instinct to position your subject dead center in your viewfinder and take the shot. This leads to a very boring photo. Try imagining that your viewfinder is divided into six equal blocks (like a tic-tac-toe game). And then, line up your subject along either the left or right line and close to the lower or upper line. The results will surprise you.

With those tips above, and of course a digital camera, you can definitely become a professional photographer.

Great rainforest photography is like all nature photography. You get the best results when you concentrate on nature and light, not on technology. Yes, you need a decent camera, and you must know how to use it. But results in rainforest photography are not about the price tag on your camera. If you have a tripod, and a camera that allows you to adjust the aperture and shutter speed, you are set to go.

I make my living selling rainforest photography and other landscape and wildlife photography, and I have never relied on the latest equipment for my photos. Great rainforest photography is simply about finding an eye-catching subject, in good light, and having a creative eye for composition.

Note: The following tips are for photos of rainforest scenes, not for close-up photos of leaves, fungus etc.

Choose a subject. As they say in the classics, "It's a jungle out there." In the rainforest, you are confronted with foliage, branches, roots, rocks, vines...in your face and all around you. A really good rainforest photo requires structure, to make some visual sense of all that clutter. Look for something that is immediately eye-catching - a big tree that dominates the trees around it; a root system that leads the eye; a waterfall or stream; in short, something that you can build a composition around.

Use the best natural light. The mistake almost everybody makes at first is to take their rainforest photos on a bright sunny day when they are in the mood for a walk. Wrong! In full sunlight, the rainforest becomes a patchwork of light and shade that is impossible to expose properly. What you need is a cloudy day, when the light is much more even. Misty weather adds even more atmosphere to the rainforest, and can add a mysterious character to your rainforest photo.

Do not use a flash. The flash illuminates the scene with flat, white light, eliminating the gentle play of natural light and shade that gives the rainforest its character. Always use the natural light.

Carry a tripod. Taking your rainforest photo under a heavy tree canopy, on a cloudy day (see rainforest photography tip #2), means the level of light will be very low. You may be shooting at shutter speeds as slow as one or two seconds. You will always need your tripod, and it is best to avoid windy days so that the scene is as still as possible.

Use a wide-angle lens (or a zoom lens, zoomed back to its widest angle). The wide angle lens has several advantages for rainforest photography. Firstly, it exaggerates the sense of perspective in a photo, creating a sense of three dimensional depth. Viewers of your photo will feel like they are looking not just at a rainforest, but into it. Secondly, the wide-angle lens has a naturally wide depth of field. With so much detail all around you, it is important that you can keep both the foreground and the background in focus.

Stay on the path. There are some practical reasons for staying on the path when bushwalking. You minimize the possibility of getting lost, injured, or fined by some over-officious park ranger. The people who run the national parks are not stupid. They know what you want to see, and design their trails accordingly. Sticking to the path will not rob you of any great photo opportunities.

In terms of rainforest photography, you are able to create some distance between you and the foliage around you. It is much easier to photograph a tree when you don't have the branch of another tree in your face. By staying on the path, you can get a clear view of your subject, without interference. You can even use the path as part of the composition in your rainforest photo. It is an excellent way of inviting the viewer to join you on your walk in the rainforest.

So there you have my five rainforest photography tips. Notice they concentrate on light and creativity, not on fancy techniques or equipment. You can make great improvements in all your nature photography this way, regardless of what type of camera you have.

Andrew Goodall's ebooks "Photography in Plain English" and Every Picture Tells A Story" have helped thousands of new photographers learn the art and skills of nature photography. See Andrew's rainforest photos and ebooks at http://www.naturesimage.com.au

Do you enjoy taking photos? Do you want more digital photography tips and techniques? Michael Wong is happy to share his knowledge about digital photography with you and hope you enjoy them. Just visit

=> http://www.learn-digitalphotography.blogspot.com