Tips for Effective Flickr Tagging
As I explore Flickr and look at others’ photos, here are some tips I’ve learned about effective photo tagging (as well as one pet peeve to avoid):
- Be consistent with plurality: Choose car or cars. Choose airplane or airplanes. Choose flower or flowers. Pick one method and stick with it, rather than some of each.
- Understand spaces: You have two choices to deal with spaces in tags. Either surround the tag with quotes like this: “new york” or simply remove the space and use newyork. If you simply type new york into a Flickr tag box, you’ll end up with two separate tags: new, and york.
- Avoid this pet peeve: If you’re uploading a group of photos, take the extra couple of minutes to correctly tag the individual photos. If your batch of 10 photos contains 2 that have rainbows in them, don’t tag all 10 photos with rainbows — folks will get frustrated as they wonder why photos without rainbows are showing up under your rainbows tag.
By following some consistent guidelines, you’ll result in more exposure for your photos on Flickr. Feel free to comment with any other tagging tips.
When to Upgrade the DSLR?
My primary camera body is a Canon EOS-300D, the original Digital Rebel. I purchased it right after Christmas. It’s served me well. The shot counter (er, file numbering) has been reset a few times but I figure I’m in the 12,000 image range and I haven’t had any technical problems with the camera.
Yet, I’ve been wanting to upgrade. The newer bodies such as the 20D and 30D provide a better-built camera, better sensors, higher frame rates, and a bigger shot buffer.
Unless you have an unlimited budget, you can’t buy every new body that comes onto the market. Thus far I’ve held off, instead spending my photography money on good-quality glass and other accessories.
The 20D was a notable upgrade from my camera. The 30D was another incremental change. I struggled with the decision as to when to drop the $1000+ on a new body. What would get me to that point where the number of improvements justified the cost?
Tonight I purchased a Canon 40D from Pro Photo Supply, my favorite local camera shop. It was time.
