Free Photography Tips
For those people who don't like to read a lot, here are my 'Top
Ten Tips'. Most of these free photography tips appear
elsewhere, in the tutorials. But here they are, all in one place.
| 1 |
Selection
Select only the best of your pictures to show to others and leave
the rest in the drawer. Showing someone every picture you
have taken dilutes the effect of the best pictures and gets
very boring. You may want to show twenty pictures of little
Johnny at the park because they are all quite good and you
can't decide which are the best but, trust me, you will be
better off making that decision and showing only the few good
ones. - go to Selecting
Photos |
| 2 |
Turn the Camera on it's Side
At first it feels awkward holding the camera on it's side,
but it is worth getting used to. If the shape of your subject,
a person or a building, fits into an upright rectangle,
you waste so much picture space if you shoot in landscape.
You paid for all those millions of pixels, don't waste them.
- go to Cropping
and Framing
|
| 3 |
Framing
One of the easiest ways to improve your photography is with careful
attention to framing. Look into the corners of the viewfinder
to see what is there. Do you need all that background? Can
you get closer to your subject or zoom in? - go to
Cropping and Framing |
| 4 |
Direction of Lighting
Photography is all about light, the direction of the light falling
on your subject is most important, you must look at your subject
carefully and see how the shadows fall.
If you are able to choose the time of day to shoot your pictures,
try to pick a time when the sun is low in the sky, either shoot
in the early morning or late afternoon. Shooting pictures of people
with the sun too high in the sky, tends to mean the subject's eyes
will be in shadow and/or your subject will be squinting in the strong
light, both of which tend to look horrible. A nice side effect of
shooting in the early morning or late afternoon is that the colour
of the light is 'warmer', reds and yellows are stronger which generally
gives a more pleasing effect.
If you are photographing in sunlight, try to position yourself
so that the sun hits your subject from the side, this will give
you nice 'modelling' and help create a 3D effect in the picture.
Sunlight behind the subject can give a very pleasing 'backlight'
effect but be careful that you are not getting 'flare' in
the lens, which degrades the contrast of the image. - go
to Photography
in Sunlight |
| 5 |
Direction of Lighting (2)
The very worst kind of lighting is provided by the little flash
fitted into all modern cameras. Not only does it give your subjects
the dreaded red eyes, but also flattens all faces into shadowless
featureless blobs. Use the in camera flashlight only in an emergency,
when there is no other choice. |
| 6 |
In Camera Flash
When you have to use the in camera flash, keep your subject(s)
away from walls, especially light coloured ones, if at all possible,
and avoid that ugly black shadow which looks like an outline. This
will not show up against a dark background.
|
| 7 |
Exposure
Using auto exposure to your advantage. If you have a modern
camera, the chances are that the default metering system
is 'centre weighted average', which means that, although
it takes an average reading of the whole scene, it takes
more notice of what is in the middle of the frame. Which
is good news for us. The other good news is that it takes
this reading at the time when you take 'first pressure'
on the button to take your picture. When you push it halfway
down and it beeps at you, not only is the focus now set
(on an auto focus camera) but the exposure reading is taken
and the aperture and shutter speed are set. So, if your
main point of interest is not in the centre of the frame,
it's a good idea to put it there temporarily while you focus
and take your light reading, then move the camera whilst
still holding the button halfway down and compose the picture
the way you want it to be. A common use for this technique
is when you are taking a close up shot of two people and
there is space between their heads, if you're not careful
the camera will focus on the wall or trees behind them.
If the background is very dark or very light this can alter
the exposure significantly and result in faces that are
too dark or too light. - go to Exposure
|
| 8 |
Shutter Speeds
When the shutter speed is important as with moving objects, it's a
good idea to set the camera to 'Shutter Speed Priority' mode.
This is where you select the shutter speed and the camera
selects the appropriate aperture according to the light reading.
- go to Shutter
Speeds and Apertures |
| 9 |
Apertures
If depth of field is important to either make sure everything is in
focus or to throw some things out of focus, select the 'Aperture
Priority' mode on your camera. In this mode you select the
aperture and the camera selects the shutter speed according
to the available light. - go to Shutter
Speeds and Apertures |
| 10 |
Neutral Density Filters
If you are shooting in bright light and want to restrict the depth
of field, use a neutral density filter in front of the lens
to reduce the light entering the lens. These are available
in different densities, 2x, 4x, 8x etc. each one cutting the
light in half, quarter, eighth etc. In extreme circumstances
you can screw a couple of them together. Although they are
'neutral density' filters and should not effect the colour
balance, if you use two or more together you might need a
little colour correction at the printing stage. - go to
Shutter
Speeds and Apertures |
See the experts' top Canon digital camera picks for different budgets, sizes, and desired uses. |
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