Blog

Fundamental Photography Tips

If you’re thinking about spending thousands on new cameras and lenses, think twice.

People often end up disappointed that their shiny new toys aren’t producing that “wow” factor they were expecting.

You can take stunning photos that you’ll be proud of, even with a modest digital camera fitted with its standard zoom lens. But you need to have a solid understanding of the basics.

That’s why it is critical to master composition and light, before spending anything on new gear.

Here is 3 fundamental Photography Tips :

1 – Learn to use the Exposure Triangle

To get your photos looking their best, you need to master the three basics: Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO.

You also need to understand the relationships between these three controls. When you adjust one of them, you would usually have to consider at least one of the others, to get the desired results.

Using Auto Mode takes care of these controls, but you pay the price of not getting your photos to look the way you wanted them, and often disappointing.

It’s a better idea to learn how to use Aperture-priority or Shutter-priority modes, and ultimately shoot in Manual mode. To easily learn how to do it, we recommend the Extremely Essential Camera Skills Course.

2 – Choose the Right ISO

The ISO setting determines how sensitive your camera is to light and also how fine the grain of your image.

The ISO we choose depends on the situation – when it’s dark we need to push the ISO up to a higher number, say anything from 400 – 3200 as this will make the camera more sensitive to light, and then we can avoid blurring.

On sunny days we can choose ISO 100 or the Auto setting as we have more light to work with.

3 – Experiment with Shutter Speed

Don’t be afraid to play with the shutter speed to create some interesting effects.

When taking a night time shot, use a tripod and try shooting with the shutter speed set at 4 seconds. You will see that the movement of the object is captured along with some light trails.

If you choose a faster shutter speed of say 1/250th of a second, the trails will not be as long or bright; instead, you will freeze the action.

Try shooting other compositions with moving objects or backgrounds such as waves on a beach, crowds of people walking, cars commuting, with different shutter speeds to either capture blurred movement or snapshots that freeze everything sharply in time.

Whenever using slow shutter speeds to blur movement, it is critical that the camera is stabilized to eliminate camera shake. I recommend you to check this link to know more about the gear I use.