With their slightly webbed paws and powerful muscles, polar bears are excellent swimmers. Their favorite meal is seals, but they will eat anything they can catch, even scavenging through garbage in areas where their habitat overlaps with humans. – National Geographic Polar Bear Photo Gallery

 Don’t worry if you can’t finance a photography trip to the arctic, this weeks animal theme encompasses wildlife and pet photos of all kinds. Here are some quick tips for taking great animal photos: 

1. Try to capture an animals eyes in the photo. Just like with portraits, an animals eyes will be a focal point and do a lot to convey its emotions.

2. Use “Burst Shooting” mode. Letting your camera fly at a high amount of frames per second ensures that you won’t miss the moment when the animal jumps or positions its head just right. Be careful though, because burst shooting makes it harder to focus, so use a tripod for better results.

3. If you intend to do a lot of wildlife photography, invest in a good telephoto lens. It will enable you to get close shots while staying at safe distances. When buying a telephoto lens, it is good to keep in mind that generally the larger the range of a lens, say 18mm-200mm, the quality of the photo will be lower than a telephoto lens with a smaller range of 100mm to 200mm.

You could win a $10 Focus Camera gift card! To submit a photo, post it to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FocusCamera. If you do not have a Facebook, you can email photos to contests@focuscamera.com. You do not need to be a professional to submit a photo, we would love to see photos of all kinds and qualities. We agree with Ken Rockwell when he said  “No matter how advanced your camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to the right place at the right time and pointing it in the right direction to get the photo you want.” So, in short, Get creative! We really hope our contest inspires you to go out and take new photos, but if you have an older one that fits the bill that works too. However, all photos MUST be your photos.

Official Rules:

1. Must “like” focus camera on Facebook. If you are not on the Facebook, you can subscribe to our email newsletter here: https://www.focuscamera.com/customer/account/create by checking the box.

2. Photos must be family friendly.

3. The photos you submit must be your own photographs, taken and owned by you.

4. Three submissions per person, per week.

5. Photos will be accepted for the appropriate theme until Monday at 10am.

We judge the photos 50% on technical aspects like light, composition, depth of field, etc. and 50% on the content of the photo and how well it fulfills the theme

Congratulations to Richard Padilla, the winner of last week’s sports themed photo of a Tae Kwon Do match in action! With the recent cold snap here in New York, we can’t get our minds off of winter, so we chose it as this weeks theme. Don’t be discouraged if you live in a warm climate, winter means more than cold! We want to see photos of what winter is like in all sorts of regions and climates, so show us what winter is like for you!

To submit a photo, post it to our Facebook page! If you do not have a Facebook, you can email photos to contests@focuscamera.com. You do not need to be a professional to submit a photo, we would love to see photos of all kinds and qualities. We agree with Ken Rockwell when he said  “No matter how advanced your camera you still need to be responsible for getting it to the right place at the right time and pointing it in the right direction to get the photo you want.” So, in short, Get creative! We really hope our contest inspires you to go out and take new photos, but if you have an older one that fits the bill that works too. However, all photos MUST be your photos.

Official Rules:

1. Must “like” focus camera on Facebook. If you are not on the Facebook, you can subscribe to our email newsletter here: https://www.focuscamera.com/customer/account/create by checking the box.

2. Photos must be family friendly.

3. The photos you submit must be your own photographs, taken and owned by you.

4. Three submissions per person, per week.

5. Photos will be accepted for the appropriate theme until Monday at 10am.