Tips From The Pros On How To Take Better Pictures

By David B On Mar 12, 2014

You will ruin your photographic reputation if you produce bad photographs. Here are helpful strategies toward becoming a better photographer.

If you want to take professional grade photos, you need a professional grade camera. A dSLR camera is a great option for taking high-quality shots. This is what kind of camera most photographers have been using, if you want to take good photos this should be what you want to buy.

Blur the background of shots with people in them just a little bit. A heavy focus on the background may draw your viewer’s attention away from your subject. Make sure you place the background further away than normal when you are shooting your subject.

TIP! Use speed when capturing your pictures. The longer it takes to shoot the picture, the greater the chance of something going amiss.

You need not stand directly in front of an object to photograph it. Unique angles can add an artistic element to your pictures.

Taking photos with a like-minded photographer or joining a photography group are both ideas to consider. You can learn many photography techniques from other people; however, you should not just imitate their style, you should develop your own. Take photos of the same subject; then compare the two shots. It can prove interesting to see two different takes on the same subject through the eyes of two different photographers.

Whether you want to enter photography or just improve your photo quality, learn correct composition. If there is lack within the composition, the photograph will suffer, as this is true across all forms of art. Unique composition can turn an everyday photograph into a piece of art.

TIP! Test varying shutter speeds to learn which speed works best for certain scenarios. A moment in time can be captured by a photograph, and then grouped with others to show an expansive time period.

Many tasks call for us to place things evenly and symmetrically for best results. We value perfection, so if you’re trying to create great photos, frame your subject so that it is slightly off-center. Do not use the auto-focus feature that will detect your subject and place it in the center. Focus the shot manually, then fix the focus before hitting the shutter button.

Whenever you travel some place new, you should have a general ideas of what you like to shoot. For a quick insight into local areas that may be rich with potential photo subjects, give the nearest rack of postcards a spin. Postcards generally have landscape pictures of different attractions that you may find to be interesting.

If you plan on diving into landscape photography, you need to ensure that your pictures have three key factors. You should have a background, mid-ground, and foreground in all of your photos. These fundamentals are used for all different types of art.

TIP! Keep your picture-taking process as simple as you can. More often than not, you can capture wonderful images without messing with different settings.

You may be tempted to shoot low-quality images so you can store more on your camera card. However, you may be sacrificing the print quality. Reserve the lower settings for images that are going to be shown only on a computer monitor.

When you want to try something a little different for a photograph, adjust the focus of your camera to varying degrees. Using a smaller depth of field, otherwise known as an f-stop, will allow you to keep the background blurry and the subject in clear focus. This is good for taking pictures of people when the person is very close to your camera. A larger f-stop number will increase the depth of the field, making everything in the photograph, background and foreground, focused. This can improve the scope and definition in landscape shots.

You need to understand where sharpness appears in your photographs, and how it works. Sharpness affects the crispness of your photographs. The focus becomes less sharp on areas outside of the middle of the frame.

TIP! One of the key ways to take great photographs is to take lots and lots of them, so buy a large memory card that can hold them all. By increasing the size of the memory card that you use in your camera, you are increasing the number of photos that you can take before changing cards.

Your tripod is your best friend when taking photos. Even slight bodily movements are visible and attention getting if you are snapping a shot during an active moment or at low speeds. Even an inexpensive tripod can work wonders in preventing blurred photographs. You can get more professional-looking results in your photos by using a good tripod, which will prevent unexpected results.

Phone Cameras

While cell phone cameras aren’t as bad as they started out, they still have trouble with lighting. Since few phone cameras contain a flash, you have to work with the light available to you. Zooming in close will also help as it will block out shadows and sunspots.

TIP! Take notes when taking pictures. It can be hard to keep track of where your photographs were taken, or what you were feeling when it was shot.

It is important that you understand when you should or should not use the flash function on your camera. Your flash shouldn’t be on all the time. Sometimes, too much light spoils a great photo. Conversely, remember to turn it on for low-light shots.

Make sure you aren’t using digital zoom instead of optical zoom in your close-up pictures. Most cameras will allow you to continue zooming in closer and closer on your subject, but the image quality is always compromised when it switches from optical to digital mode zoom. Digital zoom tries to add pixels that aren’t actually in the image, which makes the image look strange. There is probably a way to turn off this feature. Check your camera’s manual.

Even the worst photographer can improve his skills through learning new techniques and practicing what he’s learned. Asking for help with both advice and critiques will teach you what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong. Put the preceding tips to good use and become a practiced photographer starting today.

TIP! Moving around your subject is permissible and allows you opportunities for better shots. Shoot from above or below your subject, move to the right and left, or find an unexpected vantage point, and shoot away.