Hello on Groundhog Day!!!

Perfect shots? not so much at least out of a camera atleast untill they record like the Human eye but I suppose that is part of the allure of the photograph that it is different than what  the eye sees, Yes some images are near verbatim and those are the ones that give personal reward You have followed the natural light of the day at just the right time for the place You were at.

To foster a chance at bringing home images that are rewarding one of the first items You should employ is the use of  Exposure bracketing most DSLRs have a tool for the automatic execution of this method  ( the camera is a tool use its functions ) I use it all the time one of those three shots is going to be better than the other two and a good base to start work from in Your editor of choice, I also use the Exposure compensation if the images viewed in camera show a to light or to dark bias dark it up or down a stop or two and take another trio of images just depress the shutter button and let the camera do that work for You. 

This is a great place to jump in with this little note take lots of pictures at many different focus points ( What I mean by this is move the camera around half press the shutter to lock focus at a spot nearer  were You are standing then off in the distance and at mid points move the camera back to were You want to take the picture and shoot Your pictures You may want to check if the metering method is locking as well because moving the camera from the focus point it the metering and the focus are not locked will negate the efforts of this method as well the use of a singe focus point is required as well, You will end up with images with a different set of focus planes or I think I am correct in this statement You will have by doing this moved the area of acceptable focus ( Depth of Field comes to mind in here as well )  around and therefore You will have more options with the photos from the days shoot to play with ) the aperture settings are something to pay attention to as well the higher the number for the most part the longer the area of acceptable focus will be as well. 

I must return to the one item that I employ with regularity take lots of pictures I have seem Myself bring home 2700 pictures bettween two cameras from a days shooting thats what I mean by lots that is the freedom that digital gives use it ( yes the sharp eyed individual may say well He takes three pictures at a time ) but I contend that is still three individual pictures and it helps narrow the odds a bit in the Quest for that perfect image,

Don't be afraid to use You camera if You wear it out get another one add up the cost of 100.000 images developed at the one hour photomat against the cost of even the most expensive outfits on the consumer DSL market today and You will come up with the peanuts per image total.

Happy Shooting

Rick