Article 2: Improve your photos!!!

You think that your brand new DSLR camera doesn’t take good photos? Your best friend’s small compact camera takes better photos? Your night photos are shaken & blurred? In this article you can read some instructions and tips that I believe can help you take better photos.

1. Read the manual

This is the no1 rule to take better photos. All these years, I use CANON bodies. Although I can easily use every new model, I always read all the pages of the manual to the end to find out all the new features of the camera. Only this way I really know what can I expect from my camera in every situation. Even professional photographers don’t fulfill the potential of their camera or they don’t know that some features exist. So, next time that your camera cannot focus (for example on a fast moving subject), maybe it is your fault and not the camera’s! And this problem is referred to as the most common in the modern DSLRs.

Many times I hear that photos from compact cameras have more vivid colors and sharpness than those from a DSLR. This is true. The reason is that compact cameras often use a strong in-camera saturation and sharpening technique, while DSLRs apply less processing to the photos, especially if we shot RAW files. But in this way we have better control over our photo files. Using a good digital workflow in our computer, we are able to manipulate any photo in every way we like and hence achieve the best possible results. Also if we shot RAW, we don’t care about any color cast in our images. Personally, most of the time I use AUTO WHITE BALANCE, because when I convert the RAW files I can adjust the white balance to get perfect colors.

2. Learn the secrets of composition and light

Today, there is a huge amount of books and internet sites that you can learn all the secrets of lighting and composition from. Understand those little rules and you will be sure that your photographs will be better and you will also understand easy photos from other, great photographers. There are some essential things to remember:

A) Composition: Try not to place your subject or the horizon line in the center of the frame. In this way your photo looks “static”. Instead, try to put your subject away from image center. For example, if you are trying to photograph a landscape, try to frame 1/3 of earth and 2/3 of sky or vice-versa. This is the “rule of thirds”. You can rest assured that when you understand the rules of composition, you can go further to the next step which is not to use them!!!

Subjects out of the center of the image

B) Light: The light changes continuously during the day. It is warm and pleasant in the morning and afternoon and harsh at noon. During noon times, the light is far away from ideal and creates strong contrast. For this reason, it is better to avoid shooting landscapes during noon times. Light has three properties that are important to photographers: Color, Brightness and Contrast. We deal with color in light through white balance controls in our camera, brightness refers to the amount of light available and contrast refers to the harshness of the light...a harsh light casts hard shadows, a soft light casts soft shadows. In photography, a softer light is almost always a better light. A hard shadow will augment any imperfections in skin and is not always flattering. To see how the light can affect an image, find a location in your area, take shots at different times of the day and check how the light changes the image. You will remember this test for ever!

C) Angle of view: There are cases where the angle of view is very important and changing it can improve an image. Don’t always use the usual method. Instead, try to find a different angle of view every time. A typical example is when we take photos of children. Avoid taking pictures from your eye level. Instead, low down to the children’s eye level and take the shot there and then. In this way, you can see how different and beautiful the photo is and the children will feel more comfortable!

3. Learn to post-process your photos

The first thing you must learn as a digital photographer is to find the right way to manipulate and post-process your photos. Many photographers don’t know the techniques to improve their photos and the result is that they look “poor”. If you shot in RAW format you must have a RAW-converter program (I use Adobe Lightroom) and you must be very familiar with it. You must also know the basic techniques of how to post-process your images in Adobe Photoshop (the leader in this area), especially if you like to publish your images over the internet. Internet is a huge information repository, full of sites with techniques and tips about image processing and manipulation. Take some time every day to learn those programs and appropriate techniques and soon your images will look better than ever before!

Photos Before and After post processing

4. Join photographic forums

I believe that this is the best way to improve your photos. See, study and make comments at photos from other photographers, upload yours and be ready to receive critiques and comments about your work. Be open-minded and try to understand where your weaknesses lie or how you can improve a photo. Internet is a fantastic tool in everyone’s hands.

5. The use of good equipment

Even the best equipment can’t make us better photographers, but a really good photographer with good equipment can take fantastic shots. My advice is, if you have a limited budget, it is better to invest in good lenses instead of good bodies. A really cheap CANON 500D with an expensive lens can give you better photos than a CANON 5D MarkII with a cheap lens. Of course you don’t have to spend a fortune all the time, since you can always find some affordable, high quality lenses on the market. The CANON 300 f4.0 L is a very good example!

At the photos above you see the CANON 300mm/f4.0L and the CANON 300mm/f2.8L IS. The first one costs about 1200$ and the second one costs about 4000$ (April 2009)

6. Use a tripod

Last but not least, we must not forget that the only way to have sharp images is to use a good tripod. With a tripod your only concern are the subject movements, other than that you have to freedom to choose the shutter speed and the aperture that you like most. Or you can use the lowest ISO setting possible, especially if you take night shots. One important think you must consider is the minimum and maximum height that the tripod can reach. Some professional photographer prefer tripods which its minimum height is under 30cm, so they have the ability to reach small subjects in the ground (for macro photography) or they give low angle view to their photos. There are many brands in the market, so try to specify your needs and then select the tripod you like. If you are planning to take it with you all the time, try to buy a lightweight but steady tripod. You must also take care about the tripod’s head. There are four types of heads: Three way head, ball head, geared head and gimbal head (for large lenses), so always try to find out which suits your style of photography best. The big advantage of geared head is precision: you can make micrometric adjustments on each axis!This is by far the best head for macro work



Thank you for your time.

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ioannis.andriopoulos@gmail.com