Learn Photography Tips Blog

How To Graduate From Fully Auto In 2 Easy Steps

// September 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // How To...

It has come as quite a surprise to me to find that many of my friends who have DSLRs are still only using their camera in Fully Automatic mode. Although this will indeed still take good photos, and is fine for ‘starting out’, I would really recommend that if you’ve spent £500 / $1000 + on a camera, then why not learn how to use at least some of its many features, rather than sticking with fully auto all the time  – it really is simple, and you’ll be reaping the benefits in no time.

Investing in a more-expensive camera does not mean that you’ll automatically (pun-intended) get better photos, but, if you take a little time to learn some fundamentals, then I guarantee that your photos will improve, and you’ll also enjoy the whole photographic process more as well. And the good news is that graduating from Fully Auto is easy!

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How To Find Out How A Photo Was Taken

// August 8th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // How To..., Photography Tips

Ever come across a fantastic image on the web and wondered, ‘just how did they take that shot’? Well, with the help of this free nifty tool, now you can find out!

It’s called ‘Jeffrey’s EXIF Viewer‘ and all you have to do is enter the URL of an image you find on the web (meaning, you don’t have to download the image – just copy and paste its unique location – such as ‘http://www.example.com/examplephoto.jpg’), and it will instantly return all the data of just how that photo was taken – things like the camera make/model, which lens was used, what focal length, shooting mode, shutter speed, aperture and so on.

All of this data can really help you see just how the photo was taken, and thus it’s a fantastic learning tool.

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How To Remember F Stops Easily

// July 23rd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // How To...

When I first started to learn about the theory of photography, the one thing that caused me the most confusion was to do with f-stops and aperture. Did a higher f stop number mean a smaller aperture? And did that thus mean more depth of field? Or less? Argh, it was so confusing and hard to learn…!

So, I bring to you an incredibly easy way to remember how to set your f stops -  Just remember the ‘2 F’s:

If you want more Focus, you want more F-numbers.

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How To Show EXIF Data For Your Photos On Flickr

// July 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // How To...

Have you ever wondered why the EXIF data isn’t showing for your photos on Flickr? I know I have, and, though it hasn’t been a major concern over the past couple of months that I’ve been using the photo-sharing site, I did wonder why my shots weren’t showing that info.

The EXIF data, by the way, is all the information about how your photo was taken – shutter speed, aperture, ISO, camera model, focal length etc – that is automatically embedded within your photo by your camera, and it means, among other things, that you can quickly check how you took the shot. It’s really handy to be able to look at people’s photos on Flickr and see exactly how they ‘got the shot’, and I noticed that this information is available for a lot of photos, but wasn’t there for mine. What was I doing wrong?

The Solution: Don’t ‘Save For Web’ in Photoshop

And that’s all there is to it…! I thought I was being helpful by using the ‘Save For Web’ function on Photoshop to reduce the filesize of my images (which, I thought, would make my photos quicker for people to view online, and reduce my upload time), but it turns out using this feature strips the EXIF data from my photos. Simply choosing a normal ‘Save As’ keeps the EXIF data intact, even if I have edited the shot in Photoshop.

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How To Take Sharp Photos In Low Light Without A Flash

// April 27th, 2010 // 11 Comments » // How To...

If you’re anything like me, then one of the reasons you’re interested in photography – and why you shelled out on a nice camera – is to take some lovely shots of your family and friends. And, most of the time, I find that these photographic opportunities occur inside, where the light is low. Sure, there are the occasional barbeques outside, and holidays in the sun, but for the most part, I find I’m taking photos of my loved ones indoors.

And do we want to use our flash? Of course we don’t! As Scott Kelby says, and I’m paraphrasing here, “If you have a worst enemy, make sure you take a photo of them with your flash’. Shots taken with our little pop-up flashes look dreadful – either washed out, too dark, and always flat and just ugly looking. (By the way, you can check out my digital photography book review, a fantastic book written by Scott Kelby, if you like).

So, what can we do to take great photos indoors – where the light levels are often less than ideal – without using a tripod (as families and friends don’t stay still all the time, unfortunately!), and all this without using our flash?

The good news is that there are quite a few things we can do to attain this, including the use of Aperture, ISO, Burst Mode and more

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How To Blur The Background

// April 11th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // How To...

If there’s possibly one thing that makes a photo stand out as being ‘pro’-like, its the fact that the subject of the photo  – whether this be a person, a dog, a football or whatever – is in focus, whilst the background is a blur. This ‘blurred background’ is probably the major difference between pro-quality photos and most people’s holiday snaps – it really is that effective.

And it’s easy to do!

It really comes down to the use of aperture, focal length and focus distance – all of which may sound pretty technical if you’re new to photography, but it’s really not complicated. Aperture is simply talking about how much light enters your camera, focal length just means how long your lens is, and focus distance just means how near you are to the object you’re focusing on. I’ll go into more depth on how controlling all of these factors means you can get that blurred background look below – and though this is probably easier to achieve if you have a DSLR camera, if your compact has the ability to manually choose the aperture and focal length, then it will apply to you too.

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