Quick Yet Effective Tips for Better Photography

The art of photography is loaded with thousands of tips to help you make your images look more appealing. Here are several suggestions you can follow to capture great looking shots: Do not forget you can also shoot in vertical format – the most common way to hold a camera is right side up which would mean a horizontal framing when taking a shot. But by turning the camera on its side, you shift the framing into a vertical format which can greatly affect the visual presentation of the scene. When shooting your subject, remember to try using the vertical framing to produce more composition options.

Move your camera angle to not include distracting background elements – when not in a studio setting, you may not have complete control over your surroundings. Certain background elements might appear distracting but cannot be removed from the setting. A trick to eliminate it from showing up in your frame is to angle your camera in such a way that the distraction is not within the lens’ line of vision.

Be aware of shutter lag – shutter lag is the delayed recording of the image after clicking the shutter release button. This is a common issue with digital cameras compared to film although in the recent years, changes have been made to lessen this lag especially with high-end cameras. Be aware that when you press that shutter button, the response of the camera to take the shot may not be immediate. This could pose a problem for scenes with fast action such as sports photography since by the time the camera records the image, the moment most likely would have already slipped away. You can attempt to avoid this issue by anticipating the action in the scene so you can time yourself as to when to click the shutter button.

Do not be afraid to use creative blur – by default, compact cameras are designed to have as much of the scene in clear focus. This is great for regular snapshots where you would normally want the overall image to be sharp. There are times, however, when blurriness can make a photo more attractive and interesting. You can blur parts of an image by either using a big aperture size to create a shallow depth of field (if your camera allows exposure adjustments), or by using motion blur such as panning. Creative blur also makes fantastic abstract images.

Push yourself to be more unique – with the boom of digital photography is the thousands of people suddenly making photography a hobby or a business and multiply that with the thousands of images being made everyday and you get millions of photos being uploaded online or printed. Due to this sheer number of shots, it is very easy for many of them to come out looking very similar to each other. Cliché shots are overwhelming and the last thing you need is to shoot like the rest. Constantly strive to make your shots more creative, give them your special flair.