Why is it that in some photographs the gaze does not even linger, while others seem to attract it? The point here is not about any otherworldly forces, but about artistic taste. Is it possible to develop it? How to learn to take truly beautiful photographs?
Very often, knowing how to set up a camera and achieve excellent quality of pictures, a photographer, especially a beginner, sometimes forgets about their artistic component and semantic content. It would seem that there is an excellent subject for shooting, selected correct settings- but why does someone end up with a masterpiece, while others simply capture a picture that is not interesting to look at? The difference is how you take the photo. The smallest details can turn an ordinary photo into a good one, and a good one into a masterpiece.
Why can't everyone take photographs equally well?
Most often, a shot turns out unsuccessful if it does not follow the rules of composition, which we will talk about a little later. Almost every owner, especially at the beginning of his experiments, already considers himself a photographer. But having technology is not everything. You can’t consider yourself an artist just by having paints, brushes and canvas - you also need to be able to draw! It’s the same in photography: to become a professional or even an advanced amateur, you need to learn how to take photographs.
Undoubtedly, pressing the shutter button is much easier than trying to paint a picture, armed with brushes and paints. But even here everything is not so simple. Yes, many professionals try to rely solely on their expensive camera. But really good photographer must have not only technique, but also artistic taste.
But not everyone can develop it. And primarily due to the fact that in our environment it is very rare to see something truly beautiful. Bad taste is considered the norm, including in photography, hence the endless photos in front of someone else’s car, cliched wedding photo shoots and faceless shots brought back from vacation. Many people don’t think about the fact that such photographs are no good because they haven’t seen the best ones.
But we don’t need photographs “like everyone else” - these endless stories “Vasya also has a photo where he seems to be holding the bride in the palm of his hand”, “let everyone know that they gave me this bouquet”, “that’s me in boots lying on sofa in the living room" (there are many examples, if you don’t believe me, look at the photo album of almost any user of some social network).
Before I photograph people, I try to clearly imagine what the result should be. Most often I make simple pencil sketches of future photographs. It's like a storyboard for a movie - white sheets with portraits. During the shooting process, such preparation is very helpful.
How to develop artistic taste in yourself
If the taste comes naturally, that’s great. But in the area of interest to us, we cannot do without its development. Therefore, I recommend that you do the following simple things regularly.
Go to museums. Photography is built on almost the same foundations as painting. In a museum, try to look at paintings from the photographer’s perspective: angle, light, color, the meaning of the painting, its main idea and so on. For such an analysis, I recommend choosing classic works, because they were created according to certain canons that are closest to the rules of artistic photography.
Visit photo exhibitions, especially exhibitions of masters of world photography. After all, their photographs became widely known for a reason - behind this lie interesting stories, legendary innovations and professionalism honed over the years.
I don't recommend it begin the development of artistic flair with vernissages contemporary art, where there are many not quite ordinary works that you should not follow at first.
Be social. Register on a photo site or in any online gallery where you can post your pictures, as well as view and comment on others. Try to see more of the top-rated pictures, read and leave comments on them. Publish yours best works to get opinions strangers. The first positive reviews - and they will definitely come! - they motivate you to new achievements in the best possible way.
Look up to the professionals. Browse through collections of works by famous photographers and, as they say, take your mind off them. By the way, this is a great way to get new ideas for your own experiments.
Get ideas from other forms of art and from nature. Create your own works in the style of cinema, music, theater, dance. In order to take a photograph filled with meaning, you need to put that meaning into it. And worthy works of these types of art are sometimes very inspiring. Only nature, with its endless reasons for admiration and imitation, can motivate a photographer to create better than them. She is unrivaled in beauty among everything in the world.
Accept constructive criticism. Look carefully at your photos and offer them to your friends to view. No author (not just a photographer) can improve without constructive criticism. Don't be afraid of unflattering reviews - they force you to develop.
Stay alert. Very often, to get a good photo you need to be in the right place at the right time with a camera in your hands. Take your camera with you everywhere and try to use it as often as possible (there's no point in just carrying it around).
Look for topics. Being on guard is not enough. Ken Rockwell says this about the times when he began to take up photography: My mistake was to think that I was a spectator. I believed that photography meant capturing objects that came my way. But that's not true! The photographer must look for subjects himself. Finding and seeing is the most difficult thing. Easy to remove.
- Start looking for subjects to film and take photographs. Get out of the house every day and look for stories. Don't wait for an opportunity to come along (but be prepared to take advantage of it) - look for opportunities yourself. Try to find material for filming everywhere - both in the store and at the end of the world. Go to the most different places in search of stories. If you have an idea, most likely you can find a suitable story and shoot it.
Stop looking for objects and learn to see.
- Look for colors. Or vice versa - look for the absence of color or shoot in black and white.
- Look for repeating elements and rhythm. Or vice versa - look for isolated objects.
- Look for light or lack of light. Photograph shadows, reflections, filtered light, or objects in complete darkness. It is believed that the last two hours of daylight are ideal for photography. Since at this time the light has a certain direction, when the right approach this allows you to get depth in your pictures. However, this does not mean that at noon it is impossible to find good light. The midday sun produces harsh lighting, so it is better to shoot in fog or shade - this way the light will be softer. However, rules are made to be broken, so don't take these guidelines as rigid guidelines.
- Look for emotions and gestures if you're photographing people. Do people look happy? Mischievous? Sad? Maybe they don't like having a camera pointed at them?
- Look for textures, shapes, patterns. Black and white photographs look impressive because the absence of color forces the author to look for something else.
- Look for contrast. Look for something that will stand out in the photo. Shoot at the wide end of the lens, get closer. Look for contrast in everything: color against a dull background, light in the dark, and so on. If you're photographing people, try to find or create a context in which the person will stand out. Look for manifestations of joy in inappropriate places. Look for a person surrounded by objects that do not suit him. Or get rid of the background by opening the aperture as wide as possible and blurring the background. In other words...
- ...look for anything that will attract the viewer's attention with its unusualness. Once you find your style, at some point you will start looking for subjects to shoot again. This is fine. Try to develop your skills by taking unstaged photographs. It will teach you to look at the world differently.
Strive for simplicity. Get as close to your subject as possible. To get the composition you want, get close to your subject and use the zoom lens. Get rid of what you don't need in the frame.
Shoot on film. If you're already doing this, start shooting with a digital camera too. A photographer should be able to handle both film and a digital camera. Both film and digital cameras have their pros and cons. These cameras will give you very special skills. Bad habits that arise from working with a digital camera are compensated by good habits when working with film, and vice versa.
Show your best work to others. In other words, select the best works and show only them to other people. Even the most famous photographers do not have all their photographs turned out well. They just carefully select the pictures they show to others.
- Don't be sorry frames. If the pictures don't seem right to you excellent, don't show them. Over time, your standards will become more stringent, and those photos that you thought were interesting will begin to seem mediocre. Even if you shot all day and only got 1-2 good photos, there's nothing wrong with that. This means that you have strict selection criteria.
- Do not look at large pictures. Ken Rockwell believes that the most important thing in a photograph is what is visible in the miniature. There are people who love to find imperfections that are only noticeable at 100% magnification. There is no point in listening to the opinions of these people. Delete pictures if they don't look good when scaled down to a quarter of your monitor screen (or less).
Ask for criticism and listen to it. Don't post your photos online asking for criticism - there are usually a lot of people on online forums who like to nitpick pixels. However, criticism can be useful if you know who to ask for it from.
- Listen to opinions creative people. If a person has a decent portfolio (photos, paintings, music, or anything else), his opinion should be taken seriously, even if he is not a professional photographer (and if your photo does not impress a non-professional photographer, it is better to delete it). You can also ask non-creative people for criticism, although it will be more difficult for them to point out what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong (they will most likely say nice things to you so as not to offend you).
- Don't pay attention to the harsh words of people who don't have their own portfolio. Their opinion doesn't matter.
- Figure out what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. If someone liked your photo, consider Why the person liked her. If you didn't like it, what did you do wrong? As stated above, creative the person will be able to explain this to you.
- Don't be embarrassed if someone compliments your work. Photographers love compliments as much as anyone else. But don't be arrogant.
Look for work that inspires you. This does not mean that you need to pay attention only to technically flawless work. If a person has money, he can buy a four-hundred-millimeter f/2.8 lens, attach it to a DSLR that costs several salaries, and get a clear and sharp photo of a bird, but this will not make him the next Steve Siron. Look for jobs that will make you smile, laugh, cry, or anything at all. feel, rather than work that is done correctly in terms of exposure and focus. If you like portraits of people, check out the work of Steve McCurry (the photographer who shot the famous Afghan Girl portrait) or the studio work of Annie Leibovitz. If you have an account on Flickr or any other photography site, follow people who inspire you. But don't sit at the computer all the time, otherwise you won't have time to shoot.
Understand how your camera works. No, this is not the most important thing in photography. This is the least important factor, and that’s why not everyone works as a photographer. Nice photo taken on a simple camera, will be much more interesting than a boring photo with the right exposure and focus. And, of course, it will be much better than any untaken photo that you did not take due to worries about technical nuances.
- However, you still need to know how shutter speed, aperture, what focal length and how all these parameters affect the final image. None of these options can turn a bad photo into a good one, but the right settings can salvage a good photo that might have been lost due to an error and can improve an already high-quality photo.
Choose your direction in photography. Perhaps you are good at communicating with people and taking portraits. Perhaps you love
Warnings
- If you want to take a photo of someone in a public place, be polite and ask if the person minds. Thank him and show him the photo. People may refuse to be photographed for special reasons (social, religious). If you plan to use the photo for commercial purposes, prepare an agreement for models.
Modern cameras from phones to high-end DSLRs are designed to make decisions for us. And for the most part, they do the job pretty well. Put your camera in Auto mode, and more often than not, you'll get pretty sharp photos with decent exposure. If you just want to document the world around you, then do just that, switch. The disadvantage of such images is that they look alike - with uniform depth of field and exposure. If you want to go beyond automatic settings, you must have a good understanding of your camera, how to use it, and most importantly, what effect the changed settings will have on the final image. Here are the five most important camera settings and how they affect photography.
ISO
First of all, the ISO acronym is terrible, it basically makes no sense from a photography perspective. It stands for International Standards Organization, a European non-governmental organization that ensures that industries use the same standards. When it comes to photography, they guarantee that ISO 800 on Canon is the same as on Nikon, Sony or Fuji. If this standard did not exist, the settings would not be applicable to all brands. So, if I took an image with my Canon camera at 1/100 sec. at f/2.8 and ISO 400, and you set the same settings on your Nikon, then we would not get the same exposure. Fortunately, all major manufacturers adhere to ISO standards.
This night image required using a fast shutter speed to preserve the details in the fire, so I had to use a highISO(3200). In the following detailed shot you can see the noise in the original fileRAW. (By the way, this photo shows what happens when you release methane from a bubble in the ice of a frozen pond in the boreal forest and then set it on fire.)
Yes, yes, but what is ISO? This is a measure of the sensitivity of a digital camera sensor to light. The lower the number, the less sensitivity. The higher the number, the greater the sensitivity. If you're photographing in low light, say in a dimly lit room or at dusk, an ISO setting of 100 will require more light to enter the sensor, as would a setting of 400, 800, or 1600.
Pay attention to noise in the details of the person's clothing and in shadowed areas.
Flaws high valuesISO
So why not shoot at high ISO all the time? There are two reasons: 1. High ISO often creates digital noise in the image (although camera sensors are getting better and better) and 2. Sometimes you need to use a slow shutter speed, in which case you will need less sensitivity to light. This could be the case when you want to capture blurry motion, e.g. flowing water, wind movements or create a nice blur in sports photography.
- High ISOs often create digital noise in the image (even though camera sensors are getting better and better).
- Sometimes you need to use a slow shutter speed, in which case you will need less sensitivity to light. This might be the case when you want to capture blurry motion such as flowing water, wind movement, or create a nice blur in sports photography.
In short, ISO is one of three tools at your disposal that give you control over your exposure.
Excerpt
The length of time a camera's sensor is exposed to light is called shutter speed. Many cameras have a mechanical shutter that opens and closes to allow light to enter the sensor, others use a digital shutter that simply rotates the sensor for a set period of time. Shutter speed has a huge impact on the final image. A slow shutter speed will create blur in moving objects. As a landscape photographer, I often use long shutter speeds to blur the movement of water, expose starlight, or capture the movement of wind.
For this image I used a shutter speed of 0.5 sec to blur the waves a bit but still retain the detail.
30 second exposure to blur the Yukon River to make the surface look like a mirror.
A fast shutter speed has the effect of freezing movement. Use a shutter speed of 1/2000 second to clearly capture the movement of a runner or cyclist.
This image of a bicycle was taken with a shutter speed of 1/500 second. It was just enough to maintain sharpness at the same time as a sense of movement in the wheel area.
The use of shutter speed must be conscious in order to create good picture. Think about what kind of photo you want to get. Does it have fuzzy components or should it be clear? Do you want to capture or convey a sense of movement? Think, experiment, and then decide on exposure.
Diaphragm
Aperture, or f-number, can be the most confusing aspect of photography for many photographers because it affects images in unexpected ways. Essentially, aperture refers to the size of the hole in the lens. The smaller the hole, the less light gets inside; the larger the hole, the more light will pass through it. People are often confused by the numbering system: the lower the number, the larger the hole. So, at f/2.8 the opening is larger than at f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, etc. Lenses with the widest possible aperture (a small number like f/2) are considered “fast,” meaning they can let in more light.
Diaphragmsf/11at 17 mm was enough, to do All image from himself edges to rocks in the distance harsh.
But it's not just about the light and how wide the lens can be opened. Aperture also affects image sharpness. Most lenses (dare I say all?) are a few stops sharper (this is called a "sweet spot"). A lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 will produce a sharper image at f/8 than at f/2.8. How better quality lens, the less it matters, but it is noticeable with most lenses.
Very small depth sharpness V this image does bird, hiding V bushes, V focus, A surrounding Wednesday from branches blurred V haze.
Depth sharpness And application
Next, the aperture also controls the depth of field. This is the amount of the image that is in focus. When the lens is wide open, such as f/2.8, the image will have shallower depth of field than at f/11.
As with shutter speed, your use of aperture must be deliberate. Want to get a landscape image where everything from foreground to background is in focus? Then you're better off choosing a high f-number (like f/11). How about a portrait where you want a clean, soft background but a very clear look? Then use very small f-number(like f/2.8 or f/4) and keep an eye on the focus point.
Aperture has a direct effect on shutter speed. Large f-number will require using a slower shutter speed to ensure adequate exposure. A lower f-number will allow you to use a faster shutter speed. These two are completely interrelated, there is no way to avoid it, so you NEED to understand both.
Balance White
White balance, like ISO, is sensor-related, but in this case, it interacts more with the color of the light rather than its intensity.
Different light sources have different shade. Our eyes often can't tell the difference, but you can bet the camera does. Have you ever seen the photo home interior, lit by soft white lamps and also a window? Usually, the interior of a room looks natural when the light from the window is artificially blue. This is white balance. The camera (or photographer) uses room light (warm-hued lamps) as neutral color and then the natural light from the window looks blue.
When White Balance is not set correctly, colors become distorted. They look too yellow, blue or orange. When White Balance is correct, everything looks natural or as our eyes see.
This automatic installation Camera white balance. Northern lights colors seem too purple and yellow
In this version, using the same exposure settings in post-processing, I set the White Balance in the bluer range, thereby making the colors more natural and pleasing.
How about automatic white balance?
I have a confession to make. I almost always use Auto White Balance mode. Cameras are quite good at distinguishing shades and choosing the appropriate White Balance. When it is not detected correctly, I check the image on the screen and make changes for the next shot. Secondly, I only shoot in RAW format, which means I can make adjustments on the computer. I trust the image on a computer monitor more than the small screen of a camera.
However, there are times when White Balance needs to be adjusted. Firstly, if you shoot in JPEG. This format will not give you the opportunity to adjust the White Balance later, so it must be correct initially. Secondly, in the case of combining images for high-contrast scenes or panoramas. A slight change in hue when combining HDR or panorama shots will make this more difficult or impossible. You can use White Balance when you intentionally want to take a photo with cool or warm tones, or when you use artificial lighting. (Now THIS topic warrants its own article...)
Be aware of white balance, learn what it means and how it affects your images, and then decide how to use it.
Compensation exposition
Here I used Exposure Compensation to make sure the image was bright enough to show the details in the foreground without blowing out the bright sunset in the background.
These two images show how useful Exposure Compensation can be. The image below was taken in bright sunlight, but deliberately underexposed by three stops, turning the mountains black but preserving detail in the sky, thereby creating a surreal image.
Know your camera well
Exposure compensation is a tool that you should be able to adjust without even looking at the camera. Exposure compensation allows you to very quickly add or reduce the amount of light in an image. Too dark? Use Exposure Compensation to add light. Too light? Exposure compensation will quickly reduce exposure. Its setting depends on your camera.
I often use Aperture Priority mode. This means that I choose the aperture and the camera determines the shutter speed. If I set Exposure Compensation, the camera will maintain the selected aperture and simply recalculate the shutter speed. If I were to use Shutter Priority mode, as I sometimes do, the camera will set the aperture. In Auto mode, the camera makes these decisions for me.
I use Exposure Compensation all the time. This is mine usual way fine-tune exposure while shooting. On my Canon DSLR I can do this by simply turning the wheel. In other cameras, exposure compensation is adjusted on the front panel, a wheel next to the shutter button, or the same system of buttons on the rear panel. Learn how your camera works and learn how to set it up quickly and efficiently. Understanding these important tools means you won't miss out on a good shot whether you're working outdoors or in the studio.
Conclusion
These five settings are the most important to understanding the camera. Experiment with them so you know how they affect the final image and how to change them quickly and without too much fuss. Once you do this, you'll be on your way to creating thoughtful images.
Publication date: 31.10.2014
With this article we open new project “I am a photographer”, in which we will share our photography experience with you. New lessons will be released weekly on all aspects of photography. The lessons will be aimed at different levels of reader experience: from beginner to advanced photographer. I will lead this project Konstantin Voronov, professional photographer and photography teacher.
Of course, each of us has taken pictures at least once with a phone or a simple point-and-shoot camera. However, many people want not only to take pictures as a keepsake, but also to receive beautiful, high-quality photographs, enjoy the process of photographing, and when posting photos on the Internet, have a lot of “likes” on them.
How to become a photographer? Where to start? Many people ask this question every day. To start with I'll give a few general advice, which will help you avoid making common mistakes at the start, and will dispel several common misconceptions about photography.
NIKON D810 / 70.0-200.0 mm f/4.0 SETTINGS: ISO 100, F4, 1/80 s, 95.0 mm equiv.
And we will start with misconceptions.
Misconception #1.
“A good camera takes good photos”
This is wrong. Good photographs are taken not by the camera, but by the photographer. Many people, before starting to take photographs on their own, think that professional photographers get good, high-quality shots because they use expensive equipment. However, a camera is only a tool. Its owner decides how to use it.
If a person who does not know how to draw is given the best, most expensive brushes and paints, the result will be absolutely the same as when using the simplest and cheapest. Good brushes and paints will show all their capabilities only in in capable hands. It's the same with photography.
During my time working with students, I often came across beginners who had the most expensive, most professional cameras in existence. Did such students make better shots than others? No. Quite the contrary: their pictures were worse because they could not understand complex photographic equipment designed for experienced professionals.
It is best to choose a camera not according to its belonging to the professional class or the highest price category, but by how well it suits your level of training and your tasks. For example, many expensive professional cameras, such as the Nikon D810, do not have an automatic mode or scene programs at all (portrait, landscape, macro, etc.), which makes working with them incredibly difficult for novice photographers : You have to delve into unknown settings for a long time. At the same time, many entry-level cameras, for example Nikon D5300 or Nikon D3300, can take beautiful pictures fully automatically: the photographer can only choose the most interesting scenes, without thinking about the technical side of the issue.
How to choose a camera? Choose not “the best professional camera,” but rather the model that suits your skills and your tasks. To do right choice, it is enough to understand how seriously you want to take up photography, whether you are going to learn photography or just want to take pictures for memory.
Misconception #2
“Easy to take pictures!”
Like many creative pursuits, photography seems very simple matter exactly until you do it yourself. For example, as a game on musical instruments, dancing, singing... You look at a professional dancer and think: “how he does everything so simply and naturally! It seems there is nothing complicated about it! I can do the same!” But when you try to do at least a couple of dance moves on your own, it turns out that it is not so easy: at a minimum, you need special training.
It’s the same with photography: despite its apparent simplicity, taking good photographs is quite difficult. After all, this requires a lot of knowledge and skills. Moreover, both technical (how to set up a camera, for example), and creative (how to compose a frame, how to choose suitable lighting). Sometimes we talk about issues that seem to have an indirect relation to photography. For example, how to plan a tourist trip to get a lot of good shots; how to make a child sit still while being photographed... By the way, we will cover all these topics within the framework of this project. Stay tuned!
On the other hand, when you have the necessary experience, photography is really easy and enjoyable. The camera does not interfere with getting good shots, and the composition is built intuitively. But for this you need to train, study, gain experience.
Misconception #3
“To learn how to take photographs, all you need to do is learn the technique and press the buttons on the camera correctly.”
Shooting techniques and parameters are only part of the required skills. And by the way, the part is the simplest. How to adjust exposure? How to control focus? What is white balance? - all these technical issues can be solved easily and simply, and with regular training they become fixed and remain with the photographer forever. This is the arithmetic of photography, two plus two. But photography is, first of all, creativity. But the creative component is much more complex and not so clear-cut. How to compose a shot? What to show in the photo? What subject should you photograph? These and many others creative issues Photographers constantly struggle with problems and solve them with varying degrees of success. Of course, it’s worth starting learning photography from the basics, with technique. But it’s too early to end there.
NIKON D5200 / 18.0-105.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 SETTINGS: ISO 1100, F4.5, 1/60 s, 38.0 mm equiv.
The main problem of most beginning photographers is not the lack of good photographic equipment or even the lack of any special skills. Main problem- lack of artistic taste. Develop good artistic taste! See photographs of famous photographers, visit exhibitions. By the way, when do you last time Have you been to the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery? Analyze the works of real masters: why did the artist or photographer decide to show exactly this and exactly this way? How is the composition built? How did the author work with light?
Visiting exhibitions, viewing galleries of famous photographers and artists on the Internet is something that will give you good baggage for your personal creativity. And vice versa: it’s better not to watch bad, mediocre things.
Why is this important? Imagine what will happen if a person who has never seen a single painting is given brushes and paints? Most likely, he will not understand what to do with them; at best, he will depict something in the spirit of cave painting. For example, some isolated African tribes do not know how not only to perceive an image on a plane, but even to distinguish colors that are not responsible for their survival and are not found in their environment. Because no one taught them this, they do not have the necessary experience for this. It is human nature to use what he has seen and accumulated in his life and work. This experience is necessary to have. As photographers say, “you need to be seen.”
As we know, lying on the couch at home, good photos you won't! Take your camera for a walk! Travel, walk, visit interesting places: exhibitions, festivals, sporting events. This way, you will witness interesting subjects to shoot and gain the experience necessary to shoot in various conditions. If we talk about landscape photography, it is generally unthinkable without travel. By the way, just like portrait photography: after all, to take a good portrait you often need to choose beautiful place, a good background, and only then take a beautiful photograph of the model.
There is also a purely psychological aspect: while traveling, regardless of its distance, a person gains impressions, inspiration, and is charged with creative energy.
NIKON D810 / 70.0-200.0 mm f/4.0 SETTINGS: ISO 400, F4.5, 1/200 s, 200.0 mm equiv.
In order to make progress in your photography studies, and to increase the number of beautiful photographs, you need to be critical of your creativity. You shouldn’t rest on your laurels; be able to see the flaws in your work, even if everyone praises them.
For example, the harshest critic of my work is myself. I know better than any critic what and where the errors in my photographs lie. Analyzing my photos, I realize that I could have taken even better photos. And the next time I shoot, I try to do this. Believe me, you will get great pleasure from correcting your own shortcomings, and your photos will become more and more beautiful!
Any creativity begins with technical fundamentals. Photography is no exception. To write books, you need to study the alphabet, grammar, and spelling of the language. Of course, modern cameras have excellent automation, which will allow you to get good shots by pressing a single button, without thinking about any settings.
However, those who shoot in auto mode know that automation often makes mistakes: the brightness of the image is not the same, the colors are not the same, or the sharpness is not there. But I really want to tell the camera how it should have been done! In order to fully control the shooting process and not depend on the vagaries of automation, it is worth learning quite simple technical basics photography. How is an image formed in a camera? What is exposure? What is white balance? How does focusing work? Understanding how things work and knowing how to set up your camera will allow you to take pictures high quality and fully control the shooting process from start to finish. By the way, in the next lessons we will talk about these technical fundamentals.
Instructions
First of all, never shoot alone or from one vantage point. To do this, you need to have a fast flash card with a good amount of memory and a battery or spare battery. Be sure to take multiple shots of the same object or event. Try to move around him as much as possible and shoot from different angles. Do you want to get an unusual shot? Lie down on the ground or climb higher - a non-standard angle will ensure success.
If your camera supports the ability to shoot in RAW format, be sure to use it. If the resulting images contain errors in exposure, white balance, etc., it will be very easy to correct them using special programs, and the frame will go to the photo album instead of the trash bin. In general, don't be afraid to use Photoshop. Cameras sometimes make mistakes and your photos don't turn out the way you intended. Photoshop will help you.
If you use automatic mode, that's fine. But try to learn how to set all the parameters manually. The machine still sometimes cannot do what it can do. Get to know your light sensitivity (ISO) settings. In sunny weather, when the subject is well lit, use a low ISO: 100-200. In gloomy weather or in winter you should set ISO 400. In the evening - 800 or higher. At high values ISO, digital noise appears, which spoils the frame.
White balance can be set to automatic. Cameras will detect it correctly in most cases. Difficulties may arise if the lighting is complex (for example, lamp light and light). Essentially, this setting helps the colors in your photo appear correctly.
The shutter speed can be adjusted depending on what you want to achieve. If you want to freeze motion, set your shutter speed fast: 1/100 or even faster. WITH long exposures very unusual results may result. Try it.
