Ten Quick Tips To Take Better Photos

1.      Know Your Camera – I’ll say it again, know your camera. Does this sound familiar? These days’ people go out and buy the latest and greatest digital camera out there, come home, rip open the box, and then proceed to fiddle with the device. Sometimes they might briefly flick through the camera manual and then they never look at it again? Not a good idea! If you buy a digital camera, you owe it to yourself to understand its ins and outs. Take some time to read the manuals. I always carry my manuals in my camera bag. Learn how to control exposure, how to use different camera modes and how to use the flash if it has one. The knowledge you gain about the camera will be invaluable when you're out in the field taking those special photos. Even if you’re an old pro and are experienced with photography, every new camera has new and improved features that will probably surprise you.

      2.  Shoot in the highest or largest quality file your camera can produce. (preferably large RAW mode)  You can always reduce the file later, but you can't always make it bigger.  Why buy a 16 or 20 megapixel camera if you’re not going to take advantage of all those pixels? People say they don’t want to fill their cards up but face it, these days you can get a 16 GB card for as low as $10 on the Internet.  Shooting larger files also helps if you’d like to zoom in on a specific part in your photo and crop your shot while retaining a quality image.

    3.  Rule of thirds and composition – One of the most popular 'rules' in photography is the Rule of Thirds. It works like this: Imaginary lines are drawn dividing the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically, sort of like a tic-tac-toe game. You place important elements of your composition where these lines intersect. But like all things, rules are meant to be broken. Sometimes when you compose your shot, you either need to move your subject around or get in closer yourself. Try to frame it so that your intended content fills most of the picture area. Remember, as photographer Rick Sammon says:  ”the name of the game is to fill your frame”.

    4.  Tripods and Ballheads – I consider these “must have’s” for anyone who wants to try to take better landscape shots or for taking group photos.  They also come in handy when shooting in dim light to avoid camera shake or when you’re shooting macro style photography.  A couple useful tips when shooting on a tripod, try to use the lowest ISO and remember to turn off Vibration Reduction or Image Stabilization on your lenses (if they have this feature) or else they will try to find some movement and that can also cause some vibration in itself.

5.  Cable Release cords.  If you want really tack-sharp landscape photos, then you definitely want to use a cable release cord. Believe it or not, just pushing the shutter button will cause the camera to move slightly. Remember, if you’re out shooting and forgot yours, you can always use your cameras self-timer feature in a pinch. These days just about every Digital Camera has this feature. 

    6.  Get down to their level - This is a great tip if you’re shooting kids or pets (and even flowers)  Next time your shooting photos of your kids, get down on one knee (or on the ground) and shoot at their eye level. You’ll be amazed at how much better your shots look. 

    7.  Lock the focus – Sometimes your subject is not in the center of the picture, in these cases, you might need to lock the focus to create a sharp picture. Usually you can lock the focus in three steps. First, center the subject and press and hold the shutter button halfway down. Second, reposition your camera (while still holding the shutter button) so the subject is away from the center. And third, finish by pressing the shutter button all the way down to take the picture. Most cameras these days will let you change the focal point (or points) in the camera for times like this, but I always have my center focal point active so it’s easier for me to just recompose this way. In these images of the geese, the red box shows where the focus was locked by the camera. Using my method will avoid that mistake and ensure your focus is correct.

I personally have all my DSLR's set up for Back-Button focusing which is an even more accurate focusing mode, but that is a whole lesson in itself. To find out about this feature or to see if your camera will allow you to set it up this way, Google Back-Button focusing for your camera model, you just might like it yourself. 

   

   8.   Try to use natural light and take lots of pictures - Digital cameras are great for this. You can experiment by taking as many test shots as you like using various camera settings, compositions, etc. You also get instant feedback by way of the LCD preview screen. If you don't like the shot, you can delete it right away. For this image of the Christmas tree (taken in Bryant Park in New York City) I wanted the natural light. I knew I’d have a little motion blur with the people walking by unless I pumped the ISO out of site so I kept it at 400 and that was ok with me. Remember the rule, “Practice Makes Perfect”.


9.  Using flash outdoors - In photography, everything is about the light.  Flash allows you to take control during those times when you don't have the luxury of great natural light. Become proficient at carrying and using flash outside and you’ll be able to take your photography to new heights. Using a little fill-flash when shooting back-lit subjects can save the day and help fill in all those dark spots, like under the eyes for example.  

  10. Take some vertical pictures – Are you one of those people who never shoot any vertical photos?  All sorts of things look better in a vertical format, anything from a lighthouse near a cliff, the Statue of Liberty or your grand-daughter jumping in a puddle. Next time you’re out shooting make a conscious effort to shoot some vertical pictures too! 

    These are just a few tips and ideas to help you take better photos. Look for another set of tips soon. Like all things, practice makes perfect.  Don’t be afraid to take a bunch of shots or to shoot something different, you might just find your own little niche.

    

Remember, as always, keep shooting and have some fun!

   

Manual Flash Made Easy

Without a doubt, one of the best features on the latest Speedlights has to be through-the-lens metering, aptly called iTTL on Nikons or E-TTL II on Canons. These flash units fire off a small pre-flash that tells the camera what the distance to the subject is and how much power is needed to get (what it thinks) is a good exposure. This is great when your distance is constantly changing, because it will calculate everything for you on the fly. But what do you do when you’re distance to your subject doesn’t change and you’ll be shooting a number of photos? If you want to get consistent results in that situation, most of the time manual flash will give you the best options. Keep this in mind, when you use manual flash, there are 4 main controls to adjust: 1 - Distance - from the light source to your subject, 2 - Power of your flash (including modifiers), 3 - Aperture and 4 - ISO.

For the most part, it makes pretty good sense why these 4 controls would affect manual flash exposure. You know that if you move your light source in closer you will get more light and you would have to change one or more of the controls - exposure, power or ISO to get a correct exposure right? Now some of you are already comfortable with off-camera flash and this tutorial wouldn’t be for you. But if you are one of those people who freeze up when thinking of adjusting those 4 controls yourself, I’m going to try to help you “make it click”.

Let me start by saying, if you don’t own an off-camera flash, I always recommend getting the best one available for your brand of camera. Granted it will cost more, but it will always pay off in the long run. Getting a speedlight that is cheaper limits you in features and its overall ability. With a Nikon it would be either the SB-800 or SB-900 or the new SB-910, and with the Canon (my own gear) it’s the 580 EX (I or II) Not only do they pump out a little more power and have some other nice features, but they also have a distance scale on the LCD panel (this will help you get consistent flash results) and we’ll need that for this tutorial. Some of you have probably wondered why that was even there in the first place?

I was recently checking out some photos that a friend of mine had taken at a small pageant / festival. The show was set on a stage inside of a local theater. Because people were in the seats all around him he couldn’t just get up and move around so he had to stay stationary and try to get the best shots he could from where he was. He already knew he couldn’t use additional lighting because the theater was filled with people and he couldn’t use bounce flash because the ceiling was about 40 ft high and black. So he attempted to use his speedlights TTL system, but he wasn’t getting consistent results. This is definitely a case where using your flash in manual mode can come to the rescue.

In this case, he knew he wanted some pretty good depth of field, around ƒ5.6 or better, and because it was fairly dark in there and he wanted to keep the quality good, he needed to use at least ISO 400 or higher. The key part of this was that he knew he was staying 20 ft. away the whole time.

Understanding Manual Flash = Distance, Power, ISO & Aperture

When trying to understand this, remember that the ISO and the Aperture are set on your camera; the Distance and Power are set on the flash unit itself.

1. Right from the start we know we have four controls that we’re going to need to adjust. As long as you are shooting under your flash units max sync speed your shutter isn’t going to make any real difference, so we’ll set it at 1/125.
2. We know we want some pretty good depth of field and we’ll set that at ƒ5.6.
3. Now we’ll set our ISO at 400.
4. Finally, we know we will be about 20 ft. away from the stage all evening.

Keep in mind our flash unit is going to be pointed straight forward all night, no bounce flash etc. Remember, you can’t tilt the flash head up or down or our distance scale disappears from the LCD screen. Now switch your flash to Manual exposure with the Mode button.
 

When you turn on your flash unit it will be set to whatever settings it was in the last time it was used in Manual exposure mode. Chances are it’s not set to 20 ft. We know we have to adjust the flash power to give us the distance we want, in this case, 20 ft. Remember; we just set the shutter speed, the aperture and the ISO.

On the Canon 580 EX I or II, tap the center button of that dial, and rotate the dial. (You will have to continually tap the shutter button to activate the distance readout on the back of the flash.) Now adjust the power of the flash until you get a distance reading of 20 ft.

On a Nikon SB-900, hit the button just below the ‘M’, which appears on the back of the speedlight and adjust it until you get a reading of 20 ft. Now to test it out, take a test shot of something around 20 ft. away from you. Because we’re using direct flash it won’t be the best lighting but we’re looking for consistent light. The shot will be well exposed, judging by how well you guessed the distance, and usually within a third stop or so. These little units are very accurate so if it isn’t on the money, you probably guessed the distance incorrectly.

Now at this point think about what you just did. First you set your cameras aperture and ISO then you reached the specific distance you wanted by adjusting your speedlights power setting. Try this out, change the aperture up or down and watch the distance scale change. The same thing would happen if we changed our ISO.

So what this tells us is that if we changed one of our controls (aperture / ISO / distance) we’d also have to change our flash units output to help us retain the correct exposure. Remember though, you might have to raise the ISO to get a fast enough shutter speed to control movements, but with a little practice this should become almost second nature. Try it out in different scenarios for yourself. Once you try this out a few times it will help make your speedlights more user-friendly. When you get away from using your camera’s pop-up flash and start using a larger flashgun, it gives you tons of new possibilities in lighting. I hope this helps you to better understand your equipment.

Remember, as always, keep shooting and have some fun!

Going Fast With Light – by Dan H. Bailey

Like a lot of photographers, I love nature and landscape photography. One photographer I follow is a guy from Alaska named Dan Bailey. Because he resides in Alaska, he shoots a lot of snow-covered scenes that I really enjoy. Dan has recently published another Ebook (his third), which I think will be a big hit called "Going Fast With Light".

Dan also has two previous Ebooks that are loaded with beautiful images as well. His first Ebook is called "How To Become A Pro Photographer", and is for anyone who is considering taking his photography to the next level and starting a full or part time photo business. Like I mentioned, all his Ebooks are packed with beautiful photos, but they are also loaded with great tips. This Ebook will help you to get you started making money with your own photography. Dan knows what he's talking about because he’s been running a successful business since 1996, well over a decade!

His second Ebook is called "Making The Image – A Conceptual Guide for Creating Stronger Photographs". Making the Image is a 50 page Ebook that will help you start shooting more powerful photographs. In this book he explains in detail how to use light, color and viewpoint as building blocks to start capturing more compelling photographs. I personally got a lot of useful info from this book and really enjoyed his photos in this one as well.

Before Dan relocated and started his business in Anchorage Alaska, he worked as a photo editor at a Boston stock photo agency that really gave him a solid understanding of images. He definitely loves his work and his photos show his dedication to the craft. All three of his Ebooks are packed with all sorts of useful info, and I think his newest Ebook will be a big hit with people who are already into off-camera flash (Speedlights) or are just getting started..

With the incredible success of flash websites like David Hobby's Strobist and Joe McNally's and Syl Arena’s blogs, flash is obviously a big thing. Flash and external lighting is something that photographers everywhere want to improve on, whether they're brand new to the whole idea, or are about to buy their second or third speedlight. This Ebook, Going Fast With Light, is for anyone who wants to learn the ins and outs of off camera flash in an easy to read style without all the technical mumbo-jumbo. Face it, most of us just want to pop a speedlight on our camera and shoot without having to bring along the manual.

In his newest book, Dan talks about his personal flash gear and the techniques that will help photographers dramatically improve the quality of their own photos, without worrying about heavy lighting equipment and all the technical details. If you’re like me, when it comes to lighting gear, I usually only take what I can carry by myself in one load. I don’t want to be bogged down with tons of equipment loaded into my backpack. In Going Fast With Light, Dan shows us how to put together a set of gear so that we can shoot with speed and confidence. The truth is that speedlights can make a huge difference, but they don’t have to slow you down. Whether you shoot sports, action, portraits, street scenes or exotic locations, all of your images will benefit when you learn the ins and outs of using your flash properly. Dan explains a variety of different lighting schemes that employ a single flash or multiple flashes, and which methods work best for triggering your off camera flash or remote strobes. Using flash allows you to take a great subject that’s lit with challenging light, and turn it into a great photograph. We as photographers know that you don’t always have the luxury of great natural light and that is where Going Fast With Light comes in handy.

Get yourself a copy of this Ebook and take your flash photography to the next level and you’ll start turning your so-so shots into great shots! Also, you might like to check out his other two Ebooks as well – Making The Image or How To Become A Pro Photographer. Click here to visit Dan Bailey Photography.

And remember, keep shooting and have some fun!