Five Simple Photography Tips

Five simple photography tips to improve your shots. When taking pictures there are a few things you should keep in the back of your mind to enable you to take better pictures in a variety of settings and ambient light conditions.The first one is polarising. This is the trick of warming up the tones of the image to make it more aesthetically pleasing on the eye. It will not be as harsh as if taken in full sunlight and can work out very well for outdoor photographs. The simplest method is to use your camera on the “cloudy” setting, if it has one.If your camera doesn’t have this, a simple trick is to use your own sunglasses in front of the camera lens. Place your glasses as close as you can to the camera lens, ensuring through the LCD viewfinder that the spectacle frames are not in the shot. This enhances the colours and will deepen the sky tones to a richer blue.The next tip is using the fill flash mode. This is the simple trick of using your camera flash to fill in shadows caused to your subject by the sun. By simply taking control of the flash function of the camera you can ensure that it fires when you want it to and not when it decides that the time is right.When the flash is used outdoors it will expose the background first and add just enough flash to highlight your subject and remove any facial shadows. This is a trick many wedding photographers use. Once you have the hang of this you can try what is referred to as “rim lighting” your subject. This merely involves positioning your subject so the sun illuminates their hair from the back or sides.Another use is to place your subject in the shade and then use the flash. This ensures the subject is more comfortable and they will not have to squint in bright sunlight. Remember that most built in flashes only have a range of up to 10 feet or less, so make sure that you do not stand to far away.Next is using the macro facility. Remember when you were a child and you discovered the wonderful world of insects and small creatures living in the grass and ponds. Entire communities that you never dreamed existed. You might not be into crawling around at ground level any more but if you use the macro or close up mode to explore this world in finer detail, you’ll find fresh new images that are different to anything that you’ve ever photographed before.Even the most simplest of objects will take on a completely different facet in macro and it is easy to do with today’s digital camera. Even a simple flower can take on a much more compelling image when taken close up. Just choose the macro mode, normally a flower symbol, get close and allow the camera to focus, then take the shot. Remember that you will have a very shallow depth of field, so focus carefully on the part of the subject you wish to capture and allow the rest of the image to go soft. This will result in an excellent photograph.For unknown reasons a lot of people have problems holding a camera level when using LCD monitors on their cameras. This can throw out the resultant horizon on the captured image. Some of the smaller LCD monitors don’t help, neither does holding the camera in one hand. If you suffer from this problem there are a couple of methods to try. Consider taking multiple shots, repositioning each one slightly. With luck one will turn out fine. Another way round it is in the processing software. There are many programmes that will allow you to straighten out any tilted horizons. One other way is to use a tripod.Finally we need to think about memory cards and image resolution. There is no point whatsoever in having a camera able to take!0 or 12 megapixel images and then have to set it to only use a fraction of this. Get the appropriate size memory card to enable you to use your camera to its full potential. If you’ve paid out for a camera to take 12 megapixels you should use it.You also need to shoot at the camera’s highest quality compression. If you are not as close to the action as you would like you will probably be able to obtain a decent image with the crop tool in your processing software. The point of course being that if you have enough memory, there’s no reason to use a lower resolution setting and risk finishing up with poor images with lots of noise. Use the top settings at all times and show off your work.