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Are You an Amateur Photographer?
I love to dabble in photography. I’m not that great at it, and I know my limits. But I always like to get new tips, and learn new things. One of our chatters, DellMan94, sent in the following tips to give all of us an extra bit of a boost when practicing our photography skills.
- Find the right camera. First, make sure when you buy your camera that you find the one that fits you. The camera should not be too small or too big, the menu should be clean and easy to use, and the camera should be comfortable. Second, when you get your camera, do not be confused about the marketing hype about megapixels. The number of megapixels just determines how big you can print your photos, not image quality. For example, a four-megapixel image will print an 8×10 while a ten-megapixel image would print at 24×36 at that same resolution. Finding the right camera can your photographic experience much more enjoyable and fun.
- Use the rule of thirds. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid over the photo you are about to take. Place your subject where these lines intersect and your photo will be much more visually interesting. This is because the eye scans around the image. You will notice your images will start to look much better when you apply this rule.
- Take numerous photos. Do not be afraid to take many photos in just one day. Your odds of getting a great photo will increase if you take more pictures. One person who has 200 images is more likely to have “the shot” than a person with 80 or 100 photos is.
- Be careful when shooting RAW. If you are taking pictures in RAW format than you have to be careful not to take too many. If you do, you can corrupt your memory card. This is because the camera calculates space available on the card based on average image size, not actual image size. RAW is a photo format that uses no compression on the photos like JPEG does. While the image quality is slightly higher than JPEG, RAW files can be very large (around 9-10 MB for a 10-megapixel image). A JPEG will delete one third or more of the data that is captured when the photo is taken. Not all cameras can take raw images. For the most part the cameras that can take RAW photos are the higher end point-and-shoots and most dSLRs. For the most part this is unnoticeable. For the most part shooting in JPEG is the way to go, unless you plan on heavily modifying your photos in your image editor.
- Keep the original photos. Keeping the original photos is very important when you edit your images. This way, if you change your mind and decide that you do not like a change you made to a photo, you have not destroyed the original. A good option is to save all your edited photos in one specific folder. Always keeping your original photos will save a lot of time and headaches when it comes to photo editing.
- Watch the background. Be careful that the background of you photo does not have a telephone pole, wires, etc. This is especially true during outdoor portraits. Nobody wants to see some object appearing to come out of his or her head. Make sure the background is clean, is not distracting, and does not have unwanted objects in it.
- Take as little gear as possible when traveling. When you are doing travel photography, do not take all of your gear with you. If you do, it will become cumbersome and will only get heavier as the day goes on. This is especially true if you own a dSLR. Point and Shoot cameras are very handy here, as they are small and most can fit in your pocket. Make sure to take the least amount of gear possible when traveling.
- Have fun! There is no point in taking up photography if it is not fun. Having fun will increase your odds of good photos and will stir up your curiosity and will cause you to learn more. There is nothing like doing something you love to do.
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19 Comments
Lyndonology
August 20th, 2008
at 9:11pm
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at 9:11am
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Marzy
August 12th, 2008
at 3:00am
I dunno about that whole corrupting thing (doesn’t sound right) But what he said about RAW in my opinion is wrong. If you have the option to shoot raw shoot raw. Just doing simple things like changing brightness and contrast. Like he said when taking in jpeg it dumps a lot of the information that’s why the picture is so small, so when brightening a image in RAW all the information in the dark/Bright areas is kept so you will get a lot better result.
Your Photo Tips
August 12th, 2008
at 4:28am
My fave?
The last point:
Having fun while doing photography is by far the most important thing.
Damien Franco
David
August 12th, 2008
at 5:21am
Not sure I agree with the bit about not shooting RAW. I l always shoot RAW becuase it gives me the greatest control over the final image especially at times when the light is tricky.
Also there are lossy and lossless compression formats for RAW but generally I sitck to uncompressd becuzasse this makes the file sizes all the same and therefore less likely to corrupt the cards or of they do corrupt easier to recover. It also makes the ‘frame’ counter on the camera accurate.
Christian Krautwald
August 12th, 2008
at 6:54am
Good tips! I just got myself a D60 to play around and I love it. I will be sure to take some of these tips into consideration. I knew about the “Rule of Thirds” thanks to my experience in Videography.
Michael Stanclift
August 12th, 2008
at 7:15am
I am not so sure about the bit on RAW imaging. I’ve never heard that shooting in RAW can corrupt your memory card.
Kris
August 12th, 2008
at 8:38am
As a photographer I can tell you I’ve never heard that RAW files corrupt your cards. I only shoot in RAW and have never had a problem. I suggest If you have the option, shoot RAW. That way if you need to fix a picture you are working from the original file (negative).
James Lassen
August 12th, 2008
at 9:03am
I don’t really think that shooting RAW will corrupt your memory card; I’ll have to look into that. Otherwise, a very good list of tips. Just make sure you know that you don’t always have to follow the rule of thirds, stray away from any or all rules of photography if you can make a better shot of it.
Doug Toombs
August 12th, 2008
at 9:42am
Chris,
Great points on amateur photography in general. The rule-of-thirds alone is a huge tip for people when they start using it, and some digicams will even give an option to paint the “grid” on the screen as you’re lining up a shot.
But your bullet item on RAW strikes me as being off on several points… perhaps you can enlighten things more with a follow-up?
“If you are taking pictures in RAW format than you have to be careful not to take too many. If you do, you can corrupt your memory card.”
Being a techie guy as you are, the word “corrupt” has a very specific meaning. Do you have evidence of RAW writes causing damage to the filesystem structures itself? If it’s simply a case of the camera having a harder time to predict how many shots you have left – that’s one thing. But “corrupt” is a pretty specific term.
“RAW is a photo format that uses no compression on the photos like JPEG does.”
I do not believe this is true for all RAW formats, on all cameras. For instance, the Canon CR2 format is “lossless” compression. Much like a “ZIP” file, is lossless compression – there are a number of RAW formats that will still compress the file, but retain 100% of the image detail.
“For the most part this is unnoticeable. For the most part shooting in JPEG is the way to go, unless you plan on heavily modifying your photos in your image editor.”
When you are getting started, I would agree with this. However, once you really start to take your shots seriously – all photographers should switch over to RAW if their camera supports it. Memory is so cheap these days, storage should not be that much of an issue. Just one example? The ability to correct white-balance after the fact – ever shot “outdoor” photos, with your camera on the “indoor” setting or vice versa? This is fixed (perfectly) in about 2 seconds with a RAW file. With a JPG, you’re relying on photoshop to “guess” what might have been the right white balance. There are many other post-”snap” corrections that are possible with RAW that just are not there with JPG. It’s definitely worth a shot (pun intended).
Kyle Teachman
August 13th, 2008
at 8:53am
Great tips! I need to buy a camera for school [architecture student] so it helped to hear these tips. Thanks Chris!
Langston
August 13th, 2008
at 8:43pm
The comment about Raw is ridiculous. The rule of thirds is meant to be broken and is by artful photographers. Don’t shoot like crazy–carefully compose and expose your picture. I’m a professional photographer, and the guy who gave Chris the tips, obviously is not.
Scott
August 13th, 2008
at 9:39pm
Shooting in raw is the best way to go and NO it will not corrupt your memory card at all. By shooting in raw you give yourself maximum flexibility in post process editing. RAW is just like having the negative from back in the old days of shooting film. You’re able to adjust exposure settings, color temperatures, megapixel sizes, etc.
A tip on the backgrounds, if you have a busy background shoot at a different angle such as crouching down and shooting up to use the SKY as your background, or shoot from a high place like a hill or stairs to catch the ground as the background avoiding all those nasty telephone poles or people you might not want in the photo. Also setting your aperature to a LOW NUMBER will maximize background BLUR which is really the best way to take people portraits.
Scott Krause
Photographer..
DellMan94
August 28th, 2008
at 5:23pm
The RAW corruption thing might not be true anymore though. I got that from a digital photography book but that book is getting outdated.
John B
September 1st, 2008
at 10:58am
For a good presentation on the RAW vs JPEG discussion, read:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm
It puts things into perspective.
Gnomedex
September 23rd, 2008
at 11:23am
[...] Are You an Amateur Photographer? I love to dabble in photography. I’m not that great at it, and I know my limits. But I always like to get new tips, and learn new things. (…) [...]
Paolino
October 28th, 2008
at 4:26pm
I do not agree with the statement:
If you are taking pictures in RAW format than you have to be careful not to take too many. If you do, you can corrupt your memory card.
I always shoot RAW and never had that issue.
Also the (almost) unlimited possibilities that the RAW format
offer are worthy the size!