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  Walter Reeves (Decatur, GA)

  Southern gardeners are contemplating pruning their crapemyrtles right now. Personally, I think whacking them into a knob is the ugliest thing you can do to this beautiful plant. It's simple to just remove twigs that are smaller than your ... »

  little finger, prune out limbs that cross through the middle and clip the sprouts around the base. The result is a beautiful plant for both winter AND summer.

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  4 hours ago · Updated 1 minute ago --> Reply · Like 5

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    Southern Trillium LLC (Stone Mountain, GA)

    And to add to the improper pruning photos, how about when people prune Crape Myrtles low to the ground in locations where they will ... »

    actually become a hazard. I took this photo at a nearby fast food location. I guess one could say that the limbs were small enough to prune. But the result of the pruning will be that lots of limbs will grow out and possibly rub on the cars driving to the window, as well as be hazards to the people trying to sit at the outdoor tables. These trees would be much better left alone with the canopy higher up in the air. I guess it may only take someone receiving a serious eye injury when the stand up and turn around from their seat that someone will take notice and change their pruning habits.

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  Shabby Daze (Bernardsville, NJ)

  Any suggestions on how to take better pictures of my furniture? I'm using a canon slr

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  Yesterday · Updated 11 minutes ago --> Reply · Like 0

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    Southern Trillium LLC (Stone Mountain, GA)

    Great points from everyone. KMS Woodworks is very accurate on his description of where to start. The camera is just a tool, and set in ... »

    full auto mode, it has no idea what you are looking at and what goal you are trying to achieve. All of the automatic modes and presets are easy ways to help the camera try and better guess what you want it to do. That being said, to move the quality of image up, you will need to change from full Auto mode (Green Square mode on Canon) and slide into one of the more custom control modes, but still are semi-automatic in the settings. These modes will be labeled as Tv and Av. Tv mode let's you select the shutter speed, and Av mode allows you select the aperture. In both cases, the camera's computer chip does the final guessing and you just press the shutter.

    In these modes, the flash will not fire automatically. This is an easy way to keep it off. You want to keep the flash off because an on-camera flash will not evenly light the object, and will cause hot spots, glares, and major shadows behind the furniture. If you turn the camera vertical, the flash will create a shadow that appears on the side of the object. So, keep the flash off.

    Natural light, preferably a diffused light source, will be best. There are simply, inexpensive ways to achieve this for beginners. You can allow light from a window to come through a white curtain, creating the diffused light. If you cannot use a window, you can buy a couple inexpensive clamp-on floodlights at a local store, and clamp them on a chair several fee behind a bed sheet. You will need to figure out a way to hold up the bed sheet, but what you are creating is a large diffused light source that spreads the light evenly across a large area. As photographers, we use umbrellas, softboxes, and reflectors to control the light. The advantage of using lights that are always when learning is because you can see the reflections while looking through the camera and make any changes to placement before you start taking pictures. Off camera flash lighting is a major step up in cost and a steep learning curve. Continuous lighting is easier.

    You will also need a tripod to hold the camera steady. Without a high powered flash, the time for the exposure will be longer than you can handhold. Without the tripod, the photo will probably be blurry. So get a tripod. Also, try not to set up too close to the object and use a wide angle lens. The wide angle lens will create distortion on the straight edges. What you know should look like a straight edge on a bookcase may come out looking curved. Back up the camera and shoot from further away. Less expensive lenses usually are some of the worst at distortion on the wide angle side.

    From this point, have fun. Try different things, and share your tests and results. There are plenty of people here that will gladly continue to help with advice.

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