Photography Tips (Page 31)

Are your photographs not quite what you expect them to be? Do you find that a lot of them are not clear or are unfocused? Do you hands quit before you do? This could be a result of you not holding your SLR camera correctly.

I know holding a camera sounds like a simple thing but many potentially great shots are ruined because the photographer doesn't have a stable hold on the camera. If you don't have the right grip on your camera you can come down with the deadly camera shakes. Which will result in blurry and unfocused pictures.

This is the type of thing that will push your frustration level through the roof, especially when you are taking pictures inside, or under low light conditions where the shutter speed is slower.

Levitating a person or object is an old magic trick that still wows audiences to this day. But you don't have to be a magician to create magical photos where your subject appears to be floating.

Never is an awfully long time. by Casey David on flickr (licensed CC-BY-ND)

There are two ways of taking floating photos. You can have your subject rest on an object, and then remove the object in Photoshop. Or you can just take a photo of the subject jumping.

Almost all people may possibly know how to capture photos but of course, it requires ability to take stunning as well as appealing photos. Obviously, it is important that you take pictures which express the concept you want to share with all your target audience.

A photograph includes a message or even a perception and you have to make certain that the picture indeed communicates this message. It's also important as well to contemplate important elements of great photography. High quality photos are not merely pleasant to the eyes, in addition, it catches the attention of your target viewers.

P R A Y I N G madurai by Claude Renault on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

If you wish to learn a couple of tips in capturing digital pictures or perhaps how you can improve your photography expertise, below are a few things that you might want to learn as well as keep in mind.

These black and white photography tips will help you to recognize good black and white photo subjects and to be able to photograph and edit these for the best effects.

b/w experiment by { pranav } on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

Black and white photography is an excellent way to train the eye to recognize remarkable photo composition which is why so many photography courses and schools teach black and white early on.

Forced perspective is an in-camera trick where you play with the perspective. It can be used to make something small in the foreground appear large, something in the background appear small, or to create interactions between the foreground and background.

It works through using scaled objects and manipulating depth cues. There are a lot of different subjects you can use for forced perspective photography, here are some examples:

Using off-camera flashguns (often called speedlights or speedlites) can get you some great dynamic lighting that would be difficult to create any other way.

Presenting: Abby! by ryantron. on flickr (licensed CC-BY-ND)

There are a number of different ways that you can get your camera to trigger the flashes when you press the shutter. Some are basic and cheap, while others are more advanced and expensive. Let's look at the different options, their benefits and disadvantages:

TTL stands for Through The Lens, and refers to the camera metering the exposure through the lens, rather than using an external light meter. The exposure meter reading is used by the camera when determining the aperture and/or shutter speed in any auto exposure mode.

Virtually all cameras made today use TTL metering. A TTL flash means that the output of the flash can be set automatically by the camera, based on the camera's TTL metering system.

TTL mode on flash speed light

Still Life Photography is a nice, relaxing form of photography. You can take your time, experiment, and don't have to worry about your subject getting bored, running away, or the light rapidly changing.

It has many uses, as well as creating nice photos for the sake of it. Still life photos can be sold via stock websites, and used to illustrate articles in magazines and on websites. Product photography is essentially a form of still life photography, so learning how to photograph still lifes can be useful if you want to take photos to illustrate ebay listings as well.

eneloop [FRONTPAGE + EXPLORED #1] by Matthias Rhomberg on flickr (licensed CC-BY)

There are two main types of light painting photography, both of which involve using small torches or lights. In one type you capture the light coming straight out of the torches, and draw the light in mid-air with the torches. With the other type you shine your torches on your subject, so that only certain parts of it are illuminated.

It is this second type of light painting photography that I will concentrate on this article. By using a small torch, such as an LED torch or maglite, you can paint light onto your subject.

This gives us quite precise control of which parts of our photo are bright, and which parts are in shadow. In case you didn't guess already, painting with light requires a dark room (or you can do it outside at night), and a slow shutter speed.

Post processing can be used to improve your portrait photos, and really give them that professional look. The following three techniques are relatively simple and easy to implement, but can make a big difference.