Learning to take a great picture may seem difficult to learn, once you hear all the photography lingo, and see all the complicated looking equipment. But the following steps can help you take a professional looking effortlessly. Understanding the basics about lighting and angles can make all the difference.
Learn how to play with the shutter speed. You can choose to snap a quick picture or choose a slower exposure to capture a flow or movement in its entirety. You will need to experiment with this and find what kind of speed matches certain situations. This is a matter of personal style rather than a general guideline to follow.
Try using a tripod to take your photos. This will reduce or completely remove your movement’s influence. It’s incredibly frustrating to have lined up a perfect shot only to discover that your hands were shaking a bit and completely blurred the photo. This is especially important if you know you don’t have extremely steady hands.
Don’t be afraid of taking pictures. If you use the wrong settings, it’s okay. Go ahead and take the picture anyway. If you want to photograph a person or pet, go up and ask if it’s okay; create a release form to sign if it makes you more comfortable. Just go do it!
Make sure you have a good sense of depth when shooting landscapes. When you place familiar objects in the foreground of the image, you can help viewers to perceive the size and scope of the subject. Set a small aperture, try one no greater than a f/8 if it’s a digital or f/16 with an SLR, so that your foreground and background can both be sharp.
When taking photographs, make sure that your subject is as relaxed as possible at all times. One way that you can increase relaxation is to use music in the background. This will draw your subject’s focus away from the importance of the photographs so that you can achieve the highest quality picture.
When photographing portraits, isolate your subject. Use a medium telephoto lens or the medium telephoto setting on your zoom. That, combined with a large aperture (try f/4 or larger), blurs the foreground and background. Focus on the eyes. Use diffused lighting for a flattering look. If outdoors, wait for an overcast sky or shoot with the subject in the shadows and the sun at your back.
A great photography trick is to incorporate texture into your photographs. Textures are very interesting to look at because we can imagine what they feel like. You can adjust the focus of your camera to make sure you’re able to capture texture in a areas that you want it in.
A good photography tip that can help you is to make sure your computer monitor is calibrated. The last thing you want is to print out a picture only to find out that the colors are totally off. Calibrating your computer monitor can save you a lot of frustration and heartache.
When taking landscape photos, every shot should contain three things. These include a mid ground, a background, and a foreground. Most art uses these three factors when producing any quality work. Photography is no different.
You need to decide if you want to use highlights or shadows in photos. Or, you can use photoshop or some other program to blend two photos together.
You may surprise yourself with the quality of some of the pictures you take, and then be equally disappointed by other shots you have taken in the same time frame. Understanding the ideal circumstances to take pictures in can perfect your eye, and make for an excellent shot, almost every time.
