Improving Your Digital Photo Skills
December 12th, 2008 | by myarticlenetwork |In this age of digital cameras, you have probably thought that you can just point and shoot and out will appear a great shot.Hold on, don’t go so fast.The fact of the matter is, you can have the best digital camera, but if you have no clue in what you are doing, you are gonna take horrible shots.
I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills. These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are all about the lighting and they will some of biggest reasons for you success in taking photographs.
First great tip in regards to lighting.Now if the shots you are taking are outdoors during the day, some of the best lighting possible will be the natural sunlight. Now you are probably thinking, “that’s easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there”, when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows. Or it can wash out the details in faces if the sun is overhead.
Overall, what you will want to do is to have the sun behind you when you take most of the shots. This prevents the harsh shadows that can be caused by the sun.There will be some times when you want to take shots from different angles when you do try to get some shadows into the shots.
Now that we know what to do during the day shots, what if you have to take some night shots?
The key to taking photos at night is turning off your flash. Of course if it is pitch black you will need it, but for times when there is lighting, you want to use the lighting that is around, but you have to make sure you set your shutter speeds slower to let in enough light.Another thing, make sure you keep a steady hand when you take your shot or you can blur the photos.Applying these couple of techniques will make a dramatic difference for those nights shots you take.
The third and final tip with using lighting to capture great photos is the golden hour. There is something photographers call the “golden hour” or magic hour, and that time is sunrise and sunset.
These times of day you wll be able to capture great shots because you will get the more warmer and inviting colors.You’re going to be able to capture the golden lighting you won’t find during any other part of the day.
There you have it.Probably the biggest secret in taking great photographs is taking advantage of the natural lighting. Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.
Tags: general, photographer, photography