Since the evolution of digital cameras, phone cameras and smartphones are now almost with everyone over the globe.
Though you might not be a photographer, with a smartphone available to everyone now. Everyone almost has a little photographer inside of him".
Knowing the basic principles of taking a good picture especially outdoor will make you pleased, and avoid taking bad pictures in special and unique moments.
In this post, you will learn how to avoid common mistakes that usually happen while taking pictures, and tips that can improve your pictures and make nice photos.
1.First things first, know your phone settings
This is the first thing you should probably do in order to enhance the quality and lightning and overall results of your picture. Have a look in the settings of your smartphone or digital camera.
Select the High-quality version to be the default, it will cost bigger sizes of pictures you take, however it will give better results and high-quality pictures unless you don't have much memory available on your phone.
We should mention here that iPhone cameras are one of the best cameras which has the technology to take a high-quality picture with a small size of megabytes.
In case if you don't have much knowledge of digital cameras settings, here are the explanation of the common settings in most of the cameras. Usually, the settings below exist in digital cameras or advanced smartphone cameras.
lens aperture
Which is the area that controls the in-going light quantity through the lens to the sensor.
The concept here is if the place where you are taking pictures has poor light, you would need to open the lens aperture for more light absorbed into the sensor, or else the picture will be too dark when taken while narrowing the lens aperture is better for daylight in order not to make the picture too bright.
The lens aperture (f 2.8 ) is wide and gets more light in.
For the lens aperture (f 8 ) is narrow and gets less light in.
Shutter speed
Is the time between opening and closing the lens back which happens usually in milliseconds.
"A millisecond = 1/1000 of a second".
For taking pictures of objects moving fast such as cars its better to increase the shutter speed in order to take a photo of the cars staying still and not being blurry in the final picture.
For taking pictures of objects not moving fast it would be better to decrease the shutter speed, increasing the shutter speed in this case will make the picture look blurry.
Iso speed
Determines how sensitive the camera is to incoming light, it is similar to the shutter speed, However, increasing the iso speed too much will cause noise on the picture.
2.Find a unique focus point
This is one of the most things that make a picture look special, a focal point can be an object that has something unique such as a flower for a picture of couples, or a little girl with her family around. Or the rings a bride and groom are wearing.
Those are some examples, however, you will always find something around which adds a special touch to your photo.
Now let that object or person take the concentration in your photo which will be the first thing a person looks at when they see your final picture.
Usually, it is better to have that unique object on a side of the photo either centered or on the far left, far right, on top or bottom.
This will make the picture look nice and interesting to look and stare at.
Sometimes there can be two unique focal points around, in this case you can have them both each on a side of the photo, an example here is the sunset in the middle of the sky and a person you are taking a picture of, the person can be in the far right of the picture and the sun on the far left side of the picture.
This can work with any two unique objects and usually, it gives more creative ideas when taking a picture.
3.Try different perspectives before you take the picture
When taking a picture that you would want it to look nice, it would be better trying different angles moving the camera or smartphone until you find the best angle which will make the picture look better.
This alone can turn your photo from an ordinary photo into a good one and a piece of art, all it needs is changing the position and trying different angles.
While usually a professional and experienced photographer can easily detect the right position and angle to take a picture which will look good.
4.Interacting with things around
To ask the person or group of people to interact with an object around will add a nice touch in the final photo, usually it gets done in outdoors.
Its almost as a type of Photo Manipulation that is done naturally without any Photoshop editing.
Some examples:
- A person may hold or touch a flower around.
- Acting as if holding the sun with one hand.
- The person's hand over a mountain in the background.
- Holding the top of a high building in the background with two fingers.
- In the case of two people in the picture, the one closer to the camera holding the other person with his fingers, while the other person looks smaller being far from the camera.
Many other manipulations can be done with endless ideas, which can be generated according to the place and objects available in the background/scene.
5.Avoid overly used the digital zooming
Digital zooming is a type of cropping that the camera does in order to zoom in, which decreases the quality of the picture as it's not an optical zoom.
Not many smartphones nowadays have the option of optical zoom which keeps the quality of the picture almost the same though zooming in while taking a picture.
In case if your digital camera/smart phone doesn't have an optical zoom, It would be better to consider getting closer to the object/person instead of zooming in digitally, this will prevent the photo from losing quality.
6.Don't overuse skin smoothing filters
Most cameras in smartphones now have a skin smoothing filter, which you can change it's settings for the level of skin smoothing you need.
Increasing the automatic skin smoothing filter may sometimes erase the details of the faces in the picture, which doesn't look natural.
It's better to set the filter level just enough to enhance the skin without completely smoothing it. 4 out of 10 would be a good choice.
We need to look beautiful, but natural still!
7.Show much of the background for outdoors
In wide open and natural places, it's usually preferred to show much of the background all over the photo while the person in the picture is in a side of the picture, showing the sky or mountains behind.
Let the person you are taking a picture of to be on the far right side of the picture, this method always gives great pictures in outdoor photos.
8.Get your photos retouched professionally
One of the most important things to make it look good and professional is editing your photos, basic photo retouching is always recommended at least for color corrections and improvements, in addition to sharpening and brightness/contrast-enhancing.
Photorelive is one of the top photo retouching companies that you can count on when editing your photos professionally, for an affordable price starting at 0.30$ per photo.
We are professional in editing events and outdoor photos and furthermore to the highest level of High-End photo retouching requests.
9.Watch your shadow and distractions
Distractions including your own shadow can ruin a nice photo, your own shadow in case of the sunlight was coming from behind you will probably appear on the photo, it's better to pay attention to the little details in a picture and avoid the distractions which may haven't been noticed while taking the picture.
Even professional photographers can fall into that trap sometimes, accidents may happen and sometimes they won't be noticed.
It's always better to take multiple pictures to make sure you have more than a version and replacement to avoid losing the good moments photos.
However, If for some reason you can't take the picture again, you can edit your photos using Photoshop to remove any distractions that may have involved in your photo.
Conclusion:
Being professional in taking good photos needs practicing, and taking a few seconds to build an imaginary picture in your mind before taking it.
With time and practicing your skills will be enhanced and you can shoot creative pictures in much less time.