The purpose of these articles is to give basic helpful tips so that your pictures can improve. Nowadays everyone has a camera within arm’s reach. It’s also known as a mobile phone! So there is no excuse. Get out and shoot away.
One thing you need to decide is what you want the picture for. If it’s a small image to put on your web site, then your phone’s camera will be more than adequate. If you want to print something, then, as a minimum, you will need a compact camera as this will give a better quality picture. If you want a stunning, bitingly sharp image, then you need an SLR with a quality lens.
Most lenses that come supplied with the camera are rubbish. They are cheap, lightweight plastic affairs. You really need a lens with glass elements. You will then instantly see a massive improvement in the picture quality. But this set up may well cost £1,000 plus. So yet another example of the more you pay, the better the quality result.
Composition rules
There is a basic “rule of thirds” to think about. When looking though the viewfinder, imagine there are two horizontal and two vertical lines “noughts and crosses style”. Where the lines intersect are key points. If taking a picture of a loved one, the eyes should be on an intersect point. If taking a landscape, a boulder or tree, or “fold” in the land contours should be on an intersect point.
On landscape shots there are two approaches. Either have a lot of sky showing pretty cloud patters, or just have a tiny sliver of sky.
Got that? Go ahead and practice. And like everything else, this “rule of thirds” is just that – a rule. Rules are meant to be broken!
When taking a picture of someone, zoom in as close as you can go. What is the point in taking a picture of someone when they are a blurry or tiny dot on the landscape. Pointless in my book. Why not take a photo where the whole face fills the frame? Just go out and practice. With a digital camera, you can immediately see the result. So why not take a test shot. Then recompose and click again. Then take third which should be the “keeper”. With practice you should start getting it right first time.
And the best tip I have ever had is think of the camera as a steering wheel. You can turn or twist it. Not necessarily too much either. Professionals NEVER shoot square on. There is always an angle albeit with a very slight twist of the camera when you shooting. Go on experiment!
Apertures
The aperture is the hole that lets light through. They are also known as “F stops”. F2.8 means it’s a big hole, so loads of light gets through. This is needed in low light. F22 is a tiny hole that lets very little light through. This is needed on very sunny days. Then it gets complicated. F2.8 means only the precise area you have focused on will be sharp. F22 means virtually everything will be sharply focused.
By and large I use anything between F5.6 and F11. But I will use F22 when taking a landscape.
The F stop determines the shutter speed as they work in tandem. F2.8 will give a much higher shutter speed than F22. So there is always a trade off.
Shutter speeds
To stop camera shake with a standard lens, go no lower than 1/60th of a second. On a large telephoto lens, the lowest might be 1/350th, or even higher.
You can have all sorts of fun with shutter speeds. To freeze fast action sporting moments, you should use at least 1/500th. On the other hand, if you go slower, an element of blur might occur. When done the right way, this can give the picture an appearance of speed. So don’t discount this approach. It’s like everything else, a spot of practice can work wonders.
Just think ahead: what type of picture are you after? Absolutely pin sharp that can be blown up to A4 size? Or perhaps a smaller picture with some blurring. With the digital camera, just do a few test results to see what suits you.
And as mentioned above, F stops and shutter speeds work in tandem. My rule is that I use aperture priority for portraits and landscapes. Shutter speed priority for sport and when using a large telephoto lens.
ASA
ASA is the standard that was used in film cameras. But the same rules apply to digital cameras. The lower the ASA, the greater the sharpness or crispness of the print. High ASA’s e.g. 3200, gives a much grainier effect. Higher ASA’s also permit you to use higher shutter speeds. So like everything else there are “trade off’s”. This really should be the last thing you should tinker with.
Just leaving on ASA 100 will not cause too many problems.
Types of lens
There are two types of lens: wide angle and telephoto. A wide angle is just that. The field of vision is very wide. So with this type of lens, you need to get in very close for a real frame filling shot. Also, when using wide angle lenses, everything is in focus. So if you are in a crowd, you can hold the camera in one hand down by your hips and shoot away with impunity. It’s amazing what shots you can get like this – and of course no one even suspects you are taking a picture.
A telephoto lens works the other way round. It gives a close up picture of something far away. So ideal for sports then. Also, you can get better portraits as well – because you can now stand back and give your subject “space”. This should help them relax. And you can take a picture at outdoor parties without people knowing – so you should get relaxed and natural poses.
Flash
The vast majority of people do not understand flash. It’s known as a “dark art form”. And yet it’s extraordinarily simple! So let’s get the rubbish out of the way first:
Flash on mobile phones is utterly useless. The light will travel no more than two foot. So unless the object is literally right in front of you, forget it.
Built in flash on camera’s – be it a compact or SLR – is rubbish. The light will travel no more than 6 foot ish. So again, the subject will need to be pretty close to you.
The only way that is properly effective is to buy an external flashgun. These have their own batteries. This means more power. More power means the light travels further. Yea! Cheaper flash guns may produce light that travels 15 foot or so. Top end mega expensive ones with a whopping great battery pack, will push light out over 70 foot.
As usual, the more you spend the better the product. So you now have an SLR with a separate flashgun.
What setting do you use on the camera? Set it to manual, ASA 100, shutter speed set to no slower than 1/60th and use F8. That should work 95% of the time. Yes, you did read that correctly: put the all singing and dancing digital camera in manual mode. Trust me! And once you have got the hang of that, you can start experimenting.
The possibilities are truly endless. Enjoy.
A selection of my pics is on the link. You should be able to easily spot which ones are taken on an SLR and which are taken on my mobile phone (Nokia E90) http://twitpic.com/photos/MartinPreedy
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