If you are looking to get more serious about photography as a hobby, the internet has an enormous amount of advice available to you. To get started, you will need some basic equipment and some understanding about how photography works with the light and angles. The following tips will help you get started.
To avoid red eyes in your photographs, make sure that your camera either has built in red eye reduction or you change the direction of your flash. If you did shoot a photo and it contains red eyes, you can easily remove them through the use of a graphics software such as Corel or Photoshop.
Keep your arms in close to your body while holding your camera, and keep your hands on the bottom and sides of the camera. Clearer shots will result, and shaking will be minimized. Putting your hands beneath the lens and camera, instead of having them on top, prevents you from dropping your camera accidentally.
Be sure your photo has a solid focal point. Without a good focal point your photographs will end up looking empty, leaving the eye with nowhere to rest. Your viewers will be more appreciative of a photo that has a clear focus, even if you are shooting a landscape or other wide setting.
When photographing portraits, isolate your subject. Use a medium telephoto lens or the medium telephoto setting on your zoom. That, combined with a large aperture (try f/4 or larger), blurs the foreground and background. Focus on the eyes. Use diffused lighting for a flattering look. If outdoors, wait for an overcast sky or shoot with the subject in the shadows and the sun at your back.
Use a polarizing lens filter on your camera to minimize glare from direct sunlight and to create an even distribution of light. This is essential when shooting in direct sunlight, but also can be beneficial in any lighting situation. Think of polarizing lens filters as sunglasses for your camera. They are inexpensive, easy to attach and have the added benefit of protecting your expensive lenses from scratches.
Taking many, many pictures is one of the ways to capturing something great, so purchase a memory card that is big enough to hold large amounts of information. If you have a memory card with a large storage space, your card can hold a lot of photos. The additional information your camera can hold is also useful for photographers who choose to shoot RAW images. RAW images are those that have the most detailed information about a photograph that a camera can take in before the images are produced in a different format. The information provides the photographer with additional choices during post-production regarding various aspects of an image.
Keep a notepad to record your shots. If you take countless photos, it may be hard to recall why or where you took them. Record the photograph’s number and the details of the shot in a permanent log.
A great photography trick is to incorporate texture into your photographs. Textures are very interesting to look at because we can imagine what they feel like. You can adjust the focus of your camera to make sure you’re able to capture texture in a areas that you want it in.
Play with the shadow of your object. When a shadow is projected on a distorted surface it adopts interesting shapes. You can even have an original shadow become the subject of your photograph. Arrange the lighting and the background to make shadows change and adopt a shape you want to work with.
Photography can become so pleasurable that many people who started out snapping shots for fun, look to make it their career. To become a more competent photographer, you must practice a lot, and make many mistakes. You also, should be well educated in the basic terminology and photographic techniques.
