After my two posts
on tips and tricks for mountain photography in this blog, I am giving below
some general tips for everyday photography which I am sure would be
useful.
Tip 1: Add
people to a landscape
Add a subject to
the foreground of a landscape shot to give depth to the photograph. An example of this is given below
Tip 2: Use
fill flash in daylight
When shooting people, in strong noon day sun use the pop up flash or even a speedlight to fill dark shadows especially under the eyes and bring out details. This ensures that the background is also exposed correctly and not washed out. An example of this is given below:
Tip 3: Kick
the “I’ll fix it in Photoshop habit”!
You need to ensure
that the photograph is taken in the camera not fixed in Photoshop – so white
balance, exposure, lighting, focus etc all need to be bang-on! If you are not
sure of the exposure bracket! Check the histogram on the LCD display to ensure
that exposure is correct.
Tip 4:
F8 and be there
Basically this famous
photography axiom asks you to be ready to shoot. So rather than adjust white
balance, aperture, shutter speed ,
metering modes, focus modes etc before
taking a photo, you to need to set all this before hand. On a normal sunny day,
I will usually set the following before I start out: WB auto, ISO auto set to
maximum of 800, aperture priority around f8 or so, and matrix metering, AF-S
for single focus. This allows me to shoot in most situations provide the light
is reasonable. And, if I have time I would
bracket three to four exposure either by using auto bracketing or manually -0.3, -0.7, -0.1, +0.3, + 0.7. This
usually nails the photograph right in the camera.
Tip 5: To
reduce noise at high ISO make sure your exposure is bang on target!
Modern day cameras allow you to shoot at very high ISO’s like 1600, 3200 and even 6400 on top end models. However, the major drawback at high ISO is noise. So, one way of reducing or minimizing noise is to make sure your exposure in spot on. If you have underexposed even a little bit there will be ample noise in the shadow areas which is always difficult to get rid off. So try to ensure a correct exposure by shooting, maybe, a number of photos at different settings so that at least one is correctly exposed. This is an example of a photo shot an ISO 1600 but due to correct exposure there is hardly any noise:
Tip 6: On
a tripod turn VR or IS off
This is a mistake
which I have made a number of times. If you have a camera on a tripod you don’t
need to switch on VR or IS as the camera is likely to be rock steady and does
not need any vibration reduction. Often
in a hurry we forget this and shoot with VR or IS on.
Tip 7: For
critical photos use RAW
When you need to
use photographs for magazine stories, prints, exhibitions etc raw is the way to
go. You can convert raw files using the correct version of Camera Raw with Photoshop
and with proprietary converters like Capture NX2, View NX for Nikon.
Tip 8:
If you can, take along a small table top light weight tripod
Ideally most
photographers would recommend a full heavy weight tripod but is difficult to
carry around and also in some situations difficult to set up. So I have a small
Slik table top which can also fit into a jacket pocket which I use when I need
support. The Joby Gorilla pod is also an option and has the advantage of
flexible legs!
Tip 9: Don’t
put the camera away at dusk or at night
On the subject of
tripods if you have one with you then photography at night and at dusk becomes
a distinct possibility. Long exposures makes the world look a lot different and
details in the dark night sky can often produce stunning effects.
Tip 10:
Less is often more!
The proliferation
of social media and the free photo web sites have made it possible for everyone
to post their photos on the net even if they don’t have their own web sites or
blogs. However, in their enthusiasm to post photographs of a holiday or journey
I often find a facebook album of a hundred photos or more. Similarly, picasa
web albums sent to me to review have similar number of photos. Usually with so
many images the impact is lost and the good images get masked by the mediocre
ones. So it often helps to edit tightly, remove duplicates and similars, weed
out all photos that are not in focus, overexposed or underexposed, badly
composed and leave the best ones for the viewers! Most of my albums rarely have
more than twenty photographs and the majority have between ten and twelve!
Happy shooting!
