Simple Photo Tips

One of the biggest draw backs to shooting a lot of photos, is that the camera’s flash needs time to recharge to shoot again.  This is one of the reasons I don’t like to use a flash.  Granted, there are times when one is necessary, but overall I prefer to use the available light.

This means I normally have to shoot with a higher speed film (400-800 ISO), a larger f-stop (3.2-5.6 - remember smaller number is actually a larger size), and/or longer shutter speed. However, I get a more natural photo, in my opinion.

Here are some reasons to avoid using a flash is possible:

• You draw attention to the camera so people automatically start to pose. The people around you aren’t as natural looking as people have been “trained” to pose and smile for the camera.
• The artificial white coloring overwhelms and eliminates the color of the natural lights, reds and oranges in the dawn/dusk, and colored lights of buildings, etc.
• It takes time to have the flash recharge. Flashes generally cannot shoot numerous times in a row.  They must recharge for anywhere between 2 and 10 seconds before they can set off another full shot.  During this time, a photo worth getting might be missed.

These are just my opinions, and I of course also shoot with a Flash when needed. But what about others out there.  Do you like to shoot with a Flash or not? Leave a comment and let us know.

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A recent article on photography at Digital Photography School gave 5 Reasons to Take Your Camera Everywhere in 2008. A great follow on given the recent post here, you have to shoot more subjects.

I think 3 of their 5 points are right on:

• You’ll end of taking more photos.
• You’ll be more comfortable with your camera.
• You’ll miss less of those moments.

The other two, you’ll have to work on yourself. But with time, and the ability to experiment (which you can’t do if you don’t have your camera) you’ll get those as well.

Take a look at their article, and start shooting more.

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In the previous tip I mentioned how you need to take more than one photo of any given subject.

In addition to that, you have to learn to shoot more often. On a recent trip out with my family, I started looking for things I wouldn’t normally take photos of.  I started to feel “uncomfortable” with what I was photographing. At first, taking photos of walls, and other textures felt odd.  However, as time progressed, it felt better and when we got back to review the photos, we had some nice shots.

That doesn’t mean we didn’t delete a bunch either - but it did allow us to keep some we wouldn’t normally get.

While many people out for a day will shoot 30-40 photos, my wife and I shoot over 500 that day.  Why, we just followed the two rules given:

1. Shoot multiple shots - it saved us with our kids which are always moving
2. Shoot more things - it expands your comfort zone and gets you looking in ways you wouldn’t expect - which leads to that nice shot you would have missed.

I’ll be posting some of the photos we took the other day in an upcoming tutorial on shooting moving water.  Look for it next week.

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I wanted to know how professional photographers always had all of these great shots. The tip was that we never saw the bad ones, even though there were always some. The first tip I learned from a professional photographer is that you’ve got to shoot a lot. Does that mean going around and photographing everything? No! What it means, and I had a chance to see in action, was he didn’t get 1 shot of something, he got several.

In a post by Robert Scoble, on photo walking with a professional he talks about a photographer shooting 44 rolls at a basketball game.  (That’s 1056 photos if using 24 exposure rolls.)  Of all of those shots only 1 was published. But taking that many allowed for that one to be used.  If the photographer had decided to not take the shot to save some money, none might have been published.

So here is why its important to take a lot of photos.

• People and Animals are always moving…don’t miss a good shot because someone is blinked, looked at their kid, etc.
• Auto focus may not be your friend, so move a bit during your shots o make sure you didn’t focus on the flowers in front of the person.
• If you shoot the same thing from several slightly different angles. You will find one you like better, I can almost guarantee it.
• It allows you to throw out the bad one(s) (when someone bumped into you, you pushed too hard and blurred the shot, etc)

The last one is the best point. When I had to shoot on film, I took my photos to a local place the bought back the photos I didn’t like. I spent a lot on film, but saved on some of the developing. It was the only way I could afford it, and I still didn’t shoot as much as I wanted to. Now that I shoot all digital I routinely throw out 1/2 to 2/3 of the photos I take. Why, as cheap as a digital shot is, I’ll shoot tons of photos. Both storage cards for the camera is cheap, as are hard drives to store them on. We only print a tenth of what we keep.

On a recent vacation, my wife and I shot over 2300 photos in 5 days. We narrowed it down to 1100. People marveled at how I had all of these great photos…but they never questioned the number I deleted because there were so many, I couldn’t have deleted any could I have?

In wedding photography of old, if you shot 120-150 shots total it was a lot. Now many wedding photographers will shoot 200+, and I’ve shot 400+ in just a few hours at a wedding. When we given the bride her final photos to pick from, she never has to see a bad shot, and still gets 150+, every time. She never asks if we have more, because we can give her so many good ones.

So shoot a bunch, and throw out the bad ones, and let people marvel at how you never have a bad shot in your thousands of photos.

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