Five simple photography tips to improve your pictures

Simple Photography Tips

Digital cameras are tools and like other types of tools they help us do a job faster and better. In fact digital cameras do not take pictures, they just capture what photographers tell them to capture! Understanding the settings and capability of your camera is the most important thing for taking better photos.

In this short article I am going to share five simple photography tips with you which will help you take better pictures regardless of what type of camera you use.

Tip number 1

Avoid meter pitfalls with highlight and shadows:

What does this mean and why is it important? It refers to a limitation, which all cameras have, to see both highlight and shadows at the same time. In photography terms we call this Dynamic Range. Our eyes can see many more highlight and shadows than a camera. Not allowing for this limitation is probably one of the most common mistakes I have seen photographers make.

Here is an example of a scene with strong highlight and shadows:

Strong highlight can affect your exposure. Select different metering mode

One solution to solve this problem is to change the metering mode of the camera to spot metering and your exposures will be much more accurate.

In this photo I selected Spot Metering for correct exposure

In our Digital Camera Bootcamp we cover the metering system of digital cameras in full detail.

Tip number 2

Smart use of Built in Flash

I don’t use my camera’s built in flash as my main source of light, but I do use the built in flash as fill light. In Digital Camera flash photography class you’ll learn how to use your camera’s built in flash to improve the image quality.

Built in flash is very useful in scenes like this

By adding the flash I captured a more colourful image in this photo.

Using built in flash as fill light brings sharpness and colour

Tip number 3

Understand the Auto focus system

Choosing correct autofocus mode is very important and unfortunately many photographers do not pay enough attention to autofocus modes and its potential in their photography. This is why I added Selecting Correct Autofocus Mode as part of our new Digital Camera Bootcamp and I dedicated a 30 minute classroom session to this topic (with lots of practical hands-on in our field trips). I always use Single Auto focus point to force the camera to focus on my selected area. Set your camera to Single Auto Focus point and you will notice how much faster you can focus and compose your pictures.

Understanding Auto Focus modes in your camera is very important

Tip number 4

Creative Flash Photography

Flash photography can be very creative when you learn the techniques. There are several settings for your flash: Slow Shutter sync, HSS or High Speed Sync, and RPT or Repeated Mode are a few of them. In our Flash photography class you will learn the most popular and creative techniques with simple and easy to follow instructions.

In this picture I used First Curtain Slow Shutter sync and set the shutter speed to 1 second. After pressing the shutter, the flash fired and then I rotated the camera for this amazing effect.

Slow shutter synch and rotating camera creates outstanding background

Tip number 5

Avoid tight composition

Always compose your photos a little looser. This technique allows you to correct the image later in post processing. In our Lightroom workshop you learn all the important tools for better and faster post processing.

Here’s an example where I loosely composed an image.

Don't compose too tight to your subject. Always make some room for post processing — Don’t compose too tight to your subject. Always make some room for post processing

Now I can crop it to any aspect ratio I want without cutting out the main subject.

When you want to change the aspect ratio, Loose composition is a must

That is all for this week. Stay tuned for more Photo tips. Check our UPCOMING CLASSES for more workshops and events. If you have a question or a Photo tip you’d like to share, feel free to contact us.

Ted and the Omnilargess Team