It doesn’t matter if you are a newbie or a professional photographer, you will probably find something useful in our list of tips and tricks for improving photography skills. So let’s learn how to properly set up a camera for getting high-quality pictures.
Also, a lot of photographers face the problem of how to transfer big files when done shooting, because high-quality pictures can be really huge. No worries! We know the best way to send large files and you will find it in our list of photography tips.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Reset Camera Settings
Before starting to take a new picture, always check and reset your camera settings. You may not get a great photo if your camera's settings, like ISO and saturation, remain unchanged from a previous shoot. You may just miss a good moment, so it’s best to try to avoid this situation.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Always Update Firmware
What is Firmware? This is the software that is installed in your camera and is used for working with images. This software is in charge of all camera parameters and even controls what features are available for users. To ensure that your camera's firmware is up to date, check the manufacturer's website. Be sure to do this regularly.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Image Size Settings
Is it really necessary to shoot at the highest resolution all the time? Or does it depend on what you're photographing? You should know that for some photoshoots, lower image size settings and reducing the resolution is a much better choice. And this means not only that more images will fit on your memory card, but also that you can get more images at the same time, as your shooting rate is going to be faster. Do you like to photograph sports? Reducing the resolution of your images is the best advice for you. This will help to avoid delays as your camera clears its buffer.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Experiment with Camera Settings
Professional photographers usually spend a lot of time testing and experimenting with their cameras. You may also want to start by testing different settings or new lens types to figure out the best aperture or focal length for various subjects and environments. To see which options give the best results, try experimenting with ISO and white balance. To find out the sensor's limitations, test the dynamic range.
If you like to shoot beautiful fireworks, check out How to Become a Master in Fireworks Photography. There are some really useful tips in this article.
You will learn where your camera’s strengths and weaknesses lie only by testing and experimenting. The main goal is not to get the perfect shots, but just to understand what works better and later to try out new techniques in real photoshoots.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Use Tripod as Needed
The photo shooting process is slowed down by any extra moves or acts, so you can easily lose some great moments. If you have a tripod, setting up your camera on a tripod will definitely slow you down. You will lose time instead of focusing on what you're photographing. A tripod can also be hard to carry around with you if you plan on shooting in different places, such as if you are shooting a wedding. Check out this article for more wedding photography ideas - How to Take and Send Large Wedding Photo Files
But in some cases having a tripod is important. If you don’t need to be spontaneous, you can just lock your camera down for every shot. Our advice is not to be afraid to experiment with taking images with and without a tripod. If you have always used a tripod, try to shoot some photos without it and see what happens. And if you normally don’t use it, take it on your next photoshoot to see if it slows you down.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Focus Settings
Let’s talk about focus settings. The tip here is to learn not to be over-reliant on camera's autofocus. In some situations, you get a much better result when you focus manually. For example, use pre-focusing to get a good picture of a fast-moving subject, but for a detailed macro shot it is better to focus precisely.
Get more ideas on how to focus and frame from this article: How to Get the Most Amazing Portrait Photos Ever and Transfer these Files to Anyone.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Frame Edge Settings
It is a very common situation when some unwanted elements get into a shot because not all viewfinders provide you with 100% coverage. To avoid this problem, check each shot once it’s taken. Adjust your composition and take another shot again if you find anything unwanted in the frame.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Program (P) Mode
Did you know that there is a mode that can give you both aperture and shutter speed priority in one semi-automated package? This is Program (P) mode and it is a very effective one. To get wide aperture, 'shift' the Program. For slower shutter speed, 'shift' it the opposite way.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: HDR images
If you want to get an HDR image, do the following to determine the right exposure range:
- Set the camera to Aperture Priority;
- Take Spot meter readings from the highlights and the shadows;
- Then switch to Manual mode;
- Set the aperture, and use your Spot readings for the start and end points of your HDR sequence.
- You need to adjust the shutter speed a stop at a time. Do this till you have covered the exposure range
Note that the exposures can then be combined in software.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Black-and-White Images
We know what can give you a lot more control than just your camera if you want to get black-and-white images. It's best to shoot in color and then convert your images to monochrome with the help of photo editing software.
However, you can also shoot your photos in black-and-white using in-camera filters. To add some drama, use red, orange and yellow filters. To reduce the appearance of freckles or blemishes in portraits, use an orange filter.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography Skills: Remember to Change Lenses
Many photographers are very paranoid about changing camera lenses because of dust particles that can land on the sensor and cause annoying dots in images. To avoid this, you should take some simple precautions.
Remember to switch the camera off when you want to change lenses. This way any static charge from the sensor will be released and nothing will attract dust particles. Another good tip is to shield your camera from the wind and bad weather. Always carry a replacement lens with you. To minimise the risk of anything falling down when you are changing lenses, keep the camera's lens opening pointing downwards.
Tricks for Improving Your Photography: The Best Way to Send Large Files
Got your high-quality photos done? Want to share them with friends, but don’t know how to send large files? The best and easiest way is by using a secure file transfer service, especially if your friends are a distance away. Try FileWhopper - a very easy and fast online service that lets you send big files. You just pay a fee for what you need to send right now without the need to buy a monthly plan like you would with any other cloud storage service.
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