Top 10 Tips on How to Take a Great Photo

Top 10 Tips on How to Take a Great Photo
Photography Tips on Facebook: Reaches 50,000 Followers
Step-by-Step Guide to Rock & Roll Photography (Video)
How to Use Lightroom 5 (Video)

Posted: 15 Sep 2013 06:19 PM PDT

Final Reminder: Only 1 day left! in the launch sale on: 50 Lessons for Stronger Photographs

1) Start with a clear view. This first tip might sound very obvious, but it is key to make sure your camera lens is clean and if you are using a digital SLR, you also need to make sure that the sensor is clean. This is easy to do and will avoid your images having any unwanted dots, smears or marks on them.

Use a lens cloth that is only going to be used on the lens. Firstly, breathe on the lens and then clean it with a circular motion.

“Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam” captured by Slava Semenov (Click Image to See More From Slava Semenov)

For the sensor, to reduce dirt getting onto it, always turn the camera off before changing the lens and try to do so in a ‘controlled’ environment like the back of a car. Essentially, try not to change the lens on a really windy beach or in the desert! Most DSLR cameras have automatic sensor cleaning when you turn the camera on and off so that helps a lot!

I know you can always Photoshop dirt out in stills, but if you are using the video function on your camera then removing specs and unwanted dirt is not an easy option – unless you have got months of spare time on your hands.

2) Read your camera’s manual. I know it sounds boring, but 1-2 hours with the manual and your camera in hand will guarantee that you will learn to understand it quickly. The sooner you can operate in full manual mode the better. It is the only way to start pushing your photographic skills.

3) Positioning. It is vital to get your subject in the right spot. If you are shooting a portrait or a group of people, position them where you want them. Make sure there is nothing growing out of their heads and if you want to feature your background then do so. Ask you subject(s) to move forwards or backwards and framing your shot with your subject framed hard left or right can work really well. Never be shy to move your subject(s) around, it is the best way to learn.

“Fear” captured by Alex Lewis (Click Image to See More From Alex Lewis)

Don’t be frightened to shoot vertical. Vertical can really suit certain shots, especially portraits. Try it out.

4) Framing, this is what 80% of photography is all about. Look at images in magazines, watch movies and see how they are framed. You need to allow enough headroom, but not too much other wise the image can look clumsy. Don’t crop half a hand or part of their head. Try not to place people directly in the centre of the frame. Soon your eye will get used to framing and you will know what looks good. The best thing I was ever taught was ‘If it looks good, it is good!’

5) Lighting is really important and helps set mood and atmosphere. While using additional flash units can be a little advanced, setting your internal flash to the correct level for your lighting environment makes a big difference. This is where we come back to reading the ‘dreaded’ manual. On most cameras accessing the flash control is only a few clicks away on the menu. Learning how to do this will definitely help. If you have a DSLR, get an external flash and experiment using it off the camera.

6) Being able to control the exposure and shutter speed manually will mean that you can expose what you want to expose for and not what the camera thinks you want to expose for. When the camera is in auto exposure mode it will expose whatever is largely in frame. For example, if you are taking a picture of your subject and a waterfall is in the background then the camera will close down the iris to expose for the white waterfall and as a result your subject will be under exposed/ dark.

“Las Caletas Bride II” captured by Jason Lavengood (Click Image to See More From Jason Lavengood)

By knowing how to use exposure and shutter manually (which each directly affect each other) this will allow you to take control and make decisions on what part of your image you want to expose for.

7) Learning the basics of depth of field (DOF) and how exposure (F Stop) increases or decreases what is in focus will expand your creativity no end.

Shutter speed will directly affect your F Stop. Also learning about how slow and fast shutter speeds can affect your work will increase your creativity. Switching to manual focus for specific shots is also very helpful especially with macro (close up) work. This means you can set the focus to exactly where you want it to be.

8} Having your camera on hand. Again this might sound obvious, but Photography is all about catching a moment and moments only last a moment… So leaving your camera in your bedroom or buried deep in your bag is never a winner.

9) Direction and angles of light. If you are shooting in daylight and want the best picture possible, then use the sun to your advantage. Backlit photography can look fantastic, and is very helpful to separate your subject from its background and can give a much more 3D image. Just be aware of lens flare entering the lens and decide if you want that effect. You can flag the flare by using a lens hood or simply using your hand.

When possible use a piece of white card or a reflector to bounce light back onto your subjects face. You will be surprised how effective this method is and it will dramatically lift the shadows from your subjects face and improve your images.

10) Try to use your zoom lens like a prime lens. Set your zoom lens to about 50mm, which is approximately what our eyes see – this will give you the experience of what it is like to work with a prime lens. Then, rather than zoom the camera in and out, keep it fixed and physically move yourself around. Get close to your subjects and down on their level. Don’t always shoot from standing up, just because it is the most convenient.

“c i t y” captured by Federico (Click Image to See More From Federico)

About the Author
Harvey Glen is a professional Director of Photography (DOP) with over 10 years experience shooting commercials, documentaries, music videos, channel idents, corporate videos and drama. With the latest in DSLR camera technology (www.digitalslrcamerareviewsite.com), Harvey uses his DSLR camera to combine his passion for both stills and high definition (HD) video filming (www.directorofphotographyblog.com), a resource for DOP’s, cameramen, photographers and people who just love to get behind the lens and shoot.

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Now available here: 50 Lessons for Stronger Photographs

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Photography Tips on Facebook: Reaches 50,000 Followers

Posted: 15 Sep 2013 05:05 PM PDT

We love our Facebook followers, they are often the first to know if we have a new in-depth article posted and we value the comments, discussions and feedback we receive there. Today the number of photographers following us on Facebook surpassed 50,000! Thanks so much to all of you, we look forward to more exciting facebook activities! PictureCorrect Photography Tips on Facebook

Serving photography tips to over 50,000 photographers worldwide

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Step-by-Step Guide to Rock & Roll Photography (Video)

Posted: 15 Sep 2013 04:55 PM PDT

Rock & Roll isn’t just about music, it’s about attitude. It’s four-lettered and raw, maybe unhinged, definitely primal, and, frankly, it doesn’t give a damn what you think. Capturing that kind of spontaneous, devil-may-care spirit takes a lot of set up, though. In this video, photographer Eric Levin shares the secrets to one of his favorite successes—a shot of the band Ice Nine Kills featuring frontman Spencer Charnas flashing the old Johnny Cash two-fingered salute:

As with all things photography, having the right equipment for the job is key. To get that grungy hard rock feel, Levin pulls out some pretty fancy equipment. He starts with his four foot wide HalfDome strobe, up on a boom and outfitted with a grid to limit the light it puts out. For greater lighting control, a black muslin is set up to eliminate any ambient light that won’t be from within the frame of the shot. Finally, there’s a smoke machine, because whatever, man. That stuff just looks cool.

Before he goes ahead with the official shoot, Levin takes several test shots to make sure he’s got the right exposure settings. In addition to working out the aperture to shutter speed relationship, he’s also made sure to sync the strobe with the beginning of the exposure, before the quick zoom in he makes with the lens. There’s just too much light if the flash pops near the end, when he’s fully zoomed in and the lit background window takes up a larger portion of the frame.

rock and roll band photography

Having worked out the flash sync timing, Levin sets the exposure for his Nikon D3S like so:

Aperture: 8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 400

At this point he’s ready to do it for real. Because all the technical kinks have been worked out in advance, getting a final product goes pretty quickly. It’s just a matter of taking a few shots until he gets the right looks from his subjects. And since he’s tethered his camera to this Mac, his shot is instantly available for him to make some quick corrections in Lightroom for clarity and exposure. This lets him see whether he’s working with a good enough “negative” for post-processing (which will be done later, of course, long after the band has left the photo shoot and resumed rocking various socks and such).

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How to Use Lightroom 5 (Video)

Posted: 15 Sep 2013 10:47 AM PDT

Apart from its popular photo editing features, Lightroom is a valuable organizational tool for photographers. When using Adobe’s Lightroom 5 for the first time, it’s tempting to get started with enhancing your images right away. However, taking the time to get organized and configure settings before importing any photos will help you get the most out of the powerful software.

Tim Grey details the important steps to take when getting started with Lightroom 5 in this helpful introduction aimed at photographers who are new to the software:

Organization

To avoid frustration, Grey discusses the importance of being able to find the image you want when you want it. To accomplish this goal, take the following considerations before even opening Lightroom:

Store all of your photos in one general location. You need organization outside of Lightroom to get the most out of its features. This is best accomplished when you store all of your images in one folder, one external hard drive, etc. (You’ll, of course, want to back up all of your images.)
Organize your image files into individual folders within your main storage location. Give each folder a name with real words based on what you’re likely to search for when trying to locate a specific photo.

Catalog Settings

One of Lightroom’s greatest assets is its catalog. Grey suggests that you take the time to review your Lightroom catalog settings before importing photos:

Store Lightroom’s catalog on your computer’s internal hard drive. External hard drives often have latency issues. Using the internal hard drive will improve Lightroom’s speed and performance.
Use one single catalog. Other photographers have different preferences (e.g. a new catalog for each calendar year; separate personal and professional images), but images can be filtered within Lightroom, so there’s not much benefit to separating your images into separate catalogs.
Back up once a week. But remember, Lightroom’s backup only backs up the catalog–not your photos.
Automatically write changes onto the XMP sidecar file. This metadata option saves some information about how you’ve altered a file (e.g. Develop module adjustments).

Preferences

Preferences in Lightroom 5 are just that–your personal preferences. These settings are mainly just for customizing the program to your liking, but Grey has a few of his own recommendations:

Automatically check for updates. Adobe periodically provides fixes and updates to Lightroom.
Do not check “treat JPEG files next to raw files as separate photos”. If you shoot RAW + JPEG, Lightroom only deals with the raw files by default, and Grey doesn’t see any need for JPEGs in Lightroom.
Store presets with the catalog. When you save a preset it stay with your catalog and can be found easily if the catalog ever needs to be moved.

lightroom-5-introduction

Importing Images

Once you finally get to importing images, Grey has some more suggestions to optimize your Lightroom experience:

Import existing images that are already where they belong. Turn on the include subfolders check box so that all folders and images within your main storage location are imported to the catalog at once.
Don’t import suspected duplicates. Check this box to eliminate the chance of accidentally importing the same image twice.
The copy option is for images that are not yet stored where they belong. Choose your primary location as your copy destination.
Assign metadata presets to your images. Make sure the information you’re using in a general preset will apply to all of your images.

Lightroom 5 is an impressive photo editing program, but it also touts useful organizational capabilities. Do some prep work before importing and developing your images in order to take advantage of all the software has to offer.

For further training, we currently have a reader deal ending soon on Super Photo Editing Skills

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Article from: PictureCorrect Photography Tips

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