Over the past 2 years my photography has grown leaps and bounds. Here are the TOP THREE things Ive learned or figured out along the way.
A few photography TIPS
1 – The Size Of Lens In Relation To The Size Of The Camera
I have a 18-200mm zoom lens ….on the Rebel Canon series, this lens is huge and the weight alone can cause a blurred image when hand holding. A battery grip on the camera will help balance some of the weight. With a bigger 60D or 7D body, the weight is much more manageable. In other words, the lens itself and ITS abilities are usually not whats causing your picture to be blurry.
2 – NEVER EVER EVER USE DIRECT FLASH
Unless you know what you are doing and are specifically going for that effect, never use it…..carry a plain white card and put it in front of the flash at a slight angle. Hell use the back of a business card. Bouncing Flash is the first big step to improving your indoor candid photos of friends, etc
(most people buy big expensive cameras thinking that its the camera that makes a candid photo of friends and family look so professional. This simple white card bounce-flash tip will make even point and shoot cameras give more professional looking photos.)
3 – Learn Optical Zoom For Night-time Focusing
Rather than letting your camera focus hunt and find a focus…..turn your LCD screen on, use the zoom button (the ones with the + and -) and zoom in all the way on the subject (a person who is posing, a building, etc) and focus based on that. For skylines shots this works great cause then when you look close at the final photo, the buildings and lettering etc will be crystal clear. This coupled with a remote shutter is great
On a side note –
Photography for me is all about perspective. Some people look at editing photos in photoshop as cheating lol. To me photography is all about trying to share with the world what your eyes see. The camera is a tool that helps do that. The computer editing and photoshop aspect, helps do that too. So long as its ONE photo that you’re editing. ……..i do however feel that when someone uses the clouds and sky from one shot and blends it with the foreground of another, that thats cheating HOWEVER, if said person framed their camera the same way twice, marked spots on the ground for where their tripod stood, and took one shot at 7pm for the foreground and another shot in the same place at 11pm for the backdrop (such as stars trail shots)
and merged those two shots into one that that ISNT cheating…..mostly because one process is accomplished by knowing how to use a computer, cut and paste, etc and the other is accomplished by studying photography