Okay, so you just bought a fancy DSLR camera but your photos are not much better than what you took with your previous point-and-shoot camera?!?! Ha ha … Yup, I have been there! I remember when I got my very first DSLR. It was so fancy and had so many crazy buttons. I have to admit I was a little intimidated. Initially, I turned the dial to auto and just started shooting. Looking back I have to laugh, I had this nice camera with lots of functionality but used it like a point-and-shoot camera and as a result, my images were not any better than what I took with my old not-so-fancy camera. And they were definitely not coming out like the images I pinned on Pinterest, that was for sure! Hmmm … so I guess auto is not working. So I started reading blogs. I taught myself how to use my camera mainly by reading blogs so read on ….! Here are 3 basic steps you can take for better photos.
1.) Shooting in Auto
Auto simply does not work for a whole bunch of reasons! One reason is the occasional undesirable motion blur. I would take a picture of someone and then realize their arm was blurry because they had moved it unexpectedly. This issue is caused by having the shutter speed too low. My camera was adjusting the exposure settings automatically to compensate for the light but was not smart enough to also take into consideration my moving subject. I especially noticed this to be problematic when I was attempting to take a picture in low light. Very early on I discovered I preferred not to use flash since it made my picture look “snap-shotty”. Okay, fine … I refused to use flash. Obviously, I didn’t know how to use it and so I just didn’t. So my camera had to make adjustments to ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture to allow for a properly exposed image based on ambient light alone. In auto, the camera decides how much light is needed to take what it thinks is a properly exposed picture and then adjusts one or all of the above three settings. In subsequent articles, I will explain how these things complement one another when adjusting exposure. Apparently, the camera thought it needed more light and so it slowed the shutter down. The result was I got a properly exposed image but with motion blur. For a moving subject, there is a minimum level for shutter speed that is required to freeze motion. If my camera were in manual, I could have accounted for this and compensated by adjusting the other two components to ensure a high enough shutter speed but still give the camera enough light for a properly exposed image.
Another reason full auto does not work is that the whole picture will be 100% in focus all the time. Strange that there may be a component of the photo that you actually want out of focus, right?!?! Yup, and this one is a favorite technique of mine. I love professional photos with that nice blurry creamy background. By blurring the background and having a sharp crisp subject, the viewer’s eye is naturally drawn to the subject and not distracted by the background. There are specific techniques and tricks for achieving this result. One of which is through the camera setting called Aperture. As mentioned, Aperture is one of the three components to the exposure triangle and plays a role in determining exposure. Aperture is the primary key to affecting Depth of Field, how much of your picture is in focus versus out. However, when your camera is set to auto, it assumes that everything should be in focus. The camera has no reference point to differentiate between subject and background or to decide what effect you want applied and so typically it will set a fairly high Aperture value to guarantee a crisp picture throughout. Not to get into too much detail as I have a post that talks about aperture exclusively but basically aperture can be compared to the pupil in your eye. The aperture can dilate similarly to your pupil to let more or less light in depending on the surrounding ambient light. Interestingly, how wide the opening is and how much light is allowed through has a direct relationship with how much of the picture is in focus. A large opening lets in a lot of light but allows for a smaller area of focus. A smaller opening lets in less light but allows for a larger area to be in focus.
2.) Poor Lighting
Lighting is one of the hardest concepts to learn in photography and yet one of the most crucial to have even a basic understanding. When I was studying I came across a quote, “The study of lighting will do more for your photography than the study of photography”. I do not remember where I read this to give proper credit but it is so true. How many times have you snapped a picture in broad daylight and there were unflattering shadows across someone’s face? I see this all the time in my friends’ photos posted on FaceBook. Lighting is the tell-tale give-away that you are an amateur!
There are a couple of tricks you can use when considering light for a portrait. Ideally, you are looking for soft even light if possible. There are two basic kinds of light to understand: Soft and Hard. Hard light usually comes from a smaller more direct light source which causes the light to fall away quickly. You will have a fairly bright center and then the transition from light to shadow happens quickly and almost abruptly. Hard light is usually not very appealing for portraits as it causes unflattering and distracting shadows. Soft light is much more appealing for portraits. Soft light is characterized by a larger light source which causes the light to transition to shadows more gradually. If you have a light source, you can make it bigger or smaller simply by moving it closer or further away from your subject. Believe it or not, the sun puts off hard light, and even though the sun is huge in reality because we are so far away, the light that actually reaches our subject is small and hard, especially during the middle of the day.
For natural light photographers, you have a couple of options when shooting portraits outside to compensate for this. You can bounce the sunlight off a reflector to fill in the areas of the face that would otherwise be in shadow. The reflector will diffuse the light by bouncing it off a wider area and scatter your sunbeams around your subject. This softens and diffuses the light by making your light source bigger. Another option is to strategically backlight your subject and position them so that the sun is directly behind them. This will give a very nice glow around the hair and no harsh shadows across the face but you may find that your subject’s face is slightly underexposed. You can fix this by using the reflector to bounce some light back up into your subject’s face or by lightening the exposure in select areas in post-processing. Both Lightroom and Photoshop have functions to allow you to alter the exposure in only a particular area, such as your subject’s face. Another option and a favorite of most natural light photographers is to shoot during the Golden Hour. The Golden Hour is the hour either right after sunrise or right before sunset. During this time the sun is a little lower in the sky and it produces a beautiful golden to reddish glow. The light is also a lot softer and more diffused than afternoon sun when the sun is a lot higher in the sky. Many photographers choose to only shoot during this period of time and I have to admit I love it as well. However, I believe a good photographer understands lighting well enough to work with it in all scenarios to produce beautiful images regardless of the time of day.
3.) Composition
Composition refers to the structure of the photograph. Where does your eye get pulled to? Is it visually appealing? How are the elements positioned? Most inexperienced photographers will simply center the subject in the frame….every time. This isn’t necessarily wrong. It’s just boring if that is the only composition strategy you know. Essentially you want all the elements in your photo to be appealing with the focus point on your subject but also interesting. One of my favorite techniques is the Rule of Thirds. The rule of thirds means you are positioning your subject a third of the way into the frame. It can be a third from the top, bottom, left, or right. Your eye is drawn right to your subject and it makes for a very appealing photo. Another technique I use often is Filling the Frame. I use this technique when I shoot close-ups and details. Filling the Frame means your subject encompasses the entire frame or picture and there really is no foreground or background present. The last technique I want to cover that I use very frequently is Vanishing Lines. I use this technique for bridges or pathways specifically. To use this technique, align your subject in the center of the path and then center the camera so that the frame is very symmetrical. For this shot, I recommend getting low to the ground to take your shot. The lines of the pathway or bridge will continue into the horizon creating depth and perspective. Your eye will follow these lines right to your subject creating a very nice focal point. Lastly, Another really important thing to watch out for regardless of what composition technique you choose is distracting objects in your background. Be sure you scan your frame and either reposition or remove anything that is unsightly or distracting.
Please comment below or share a picture you took applying any of the tips in the article. I would love to see it!
