Top 10 Camera Tips For Becoming a Better Photographer

Erfon Elijah ()

When it comes to good lighting, shade is your friend – When I’m photographing people, I always seek shade. Shade provides even, diffused light, regardless of the weather, which is why seeking its cover is a good lighting strategy. I like to use alleys or the shadows of tall buildings.

Even on a sunny day this alley provided me perfectly balanced light.

Even on a sunny day this alley provided me perfectly balanced light.

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About the author

erfonErfon Elijah is a technology enthusiast of average height, a writer, photographer, and the founder of the Seattle indie brand Might Tees. When not designing graphic tees or recording podcasts, you’ll find him on Xbox Live hunting Modern Warfare 3 foes like the Predator. Some have quietly proclaimed he also has an overactive twitter...

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Posted in Cameras, How-To, Photography, Top stories |

  • http://twitter/mondster Monda

    Very cool list – makes me want to carry my camera around with me and get back into it. many thanks!

  • OlsonBW

    You need eleven separate pages for this? Are you doing THAT badly in page hits for advertisers? I’m moving on to somewhere else. If you are that desperate for page hits I’m guessing it isn’t worth looking at them or more people would be.

  • David Sparling

    Shooting in RAW is a total waste of memory and time if you’re a REAL photographer. If you’re a “measurebator” who wants to spend their life in front of a computer instead of making photographs…shoot RAW or just shoot film!

  • http://twitter.com/mighttees Erfon Elijah

    @David Sparling – but memory is so cheap these days!

    I agree the point is take good pictures right out of the camera so you don’t need spend endless hours editing, but while learning how to get that point, I think the minor increase in storage space RAW needs is worth it’s flexibility…

  • Eli Milchman

    @David: Dunno about that. I’m a “real” photographer, and other photographers I know (who are just as “real”) shoot in raw. There’s certainly more information captured in a raw image than in a compressed JPEG.

  • mplee

    @David: becaues after all, we all know that ansel adams would just drop his film off at one-hour photo rather than waste any time in the darkroom. not all pictures, or even most, are made in the camera.

  • imajoebob

    I wish I had these tips when I bought my first old film SLR camera. Oh wait- I did!! Some of these basics are still important (the golden hour, choosing good lighting, turn off the auto flash), but many aren’t that great.

    Since we’re talking digital, it’s actually better to zoom OUT from what you think is the optimal picture. It’s too easy to crop and reframe shots to take the risk of missing something you might want. With all the megapixels these days, you can take the first portrait you show, and then zoom in to the second for a print. Taking the first shot gives you a lot more flexibility, and you won’t see any difference in print quality.

    Second, you gave us contradictory advice. We need to be ready to take a shot quickly, but we should never use Auto mode? If you’ve got the time to set up your picture, use a (semi)manual set up. But if you want to make sure you’ll get a shot in a split second, ALWAYS leave it in Auto until you want a custom shot. Another benefit of being in Auto is that you can use it as a metering guide for the other modes. Learning the presets can allow you to grab those quick shots with a simple turn of the dial instead of trying to find the right Aperture and Shutter balance (a quick shift to sports mode would probably work great for the water fountain shot). Manually adjusting the settings is great to get a special effect. Nikon and Canon have spent billions figuring out these special settings. Trust ‘em.

    Be careful of shadow. Digital is not as good as film handling light. So the “useable” contrast is narrower. Which means the flash can also be your friend. If it’s a particularly bright day, using the flash in direct sunlight will soften shadows that can ruin a portrait.

    This is digital, so the tip about RAW can’t be stressed enough. RAW lets you take the picture, then adjust the settings -after the fact- !! With the right digital tools – often built right into the newest cameras – you can take your picture and strip away the adjustments you made to shoot the picture, then add new ones. You can take a single image where you had to take 5 or 6 when you shot on film.

    The one drawback to digital is that you’ll probably never get a picture that compares to a really spectacular shot you got on film. But you’ll probably get more great shots with digital, if only because you can take so many more without having to think about it. That’s because the best thing about digital is that you get to play as much as you want, and it doesn’t cost anything (extra). Taking a roll of 35mm cost about 7 bucks for film and processing. When I shot even more expensive formats I’d end up taking 4 or 5 minutes deciding exactly how to take the shot. The cost was just too high to chance it. (Though that’s what you have to do to get that rare spectacular shot.) Now you can take thousands of crappy shots and throw them all out, keeping the two great ones. And it didn’t cost you an extra dime.

  • Michael

    Wow– buy good lenses? That will make me a better photographer? Shoot RAW? That’s the key to better photos? If I use Aperture or LightRoom, my shots will noticeably improve?

    Here’s what I would have said–

    Want to take better photos? Stop worrying about mega-pixels. Stop comparing ISO ratings. Quit spending thousands on equipment you don’t really know how to use anyway. Your $250 Canon is capable of making images worthy of a gallery showing. Stop chasing technology and start MAKING photos instead of taking them.

    If there’s one key to making terrific photos– Lighting. Recognizing where good light exists and how to create it when it doesn’t. Good lighting with a bad subject on a crappy camera will render a useable image. Bad lighting on great subject using a $5000 dollar camera is unusable and a waste of time.

    Beyond lighting– composition. Why are you putting the stuff in this photo in a particular arrangement? What are you trying to say?

    Then worry about your aperture and shutter.

    The best investment you can make in taking better photos is NOT buying a brand new lens. It is NOT purchasing a 5D MKII. The best investment you can make is in yourself. Spend a few hundred dollars and a weekend in a photography class.

    99% of all cameras are better than 98% of all photographers.

    It’s not about the camera.

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