Digital Photography Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Look no further for the photographic tips you’ll need for great looking pictures. You want great pictures, right? If so follow these photographic tips. Also, if you have a photographic tip you want the rest of the world to know about, you can suggest through comments. Definitely, I’ll put your tip or tips under the category you suggest. I would also be happy to put a tip or tips on your tips’ page, if you invite me to. You can link back to your site from your tip, that way you will be getting some free advertising out of the deal.

This collection of photo tips is just the beginning of what I hope will turn into a huge resource of useful information. I hope you will learn a lot, and I’m sure you will want to put this page on your FAVORITES PAGE.

Basic Photography Tips and Tricks

Photographic Tips About Tripods

1. whichever digital camera you use, a tripod, monopod or clamp is a useful piece of photographic equipment. It will allow you to use long exposure times when taking pictures in dim light or at night. Size, portability, sturdiness and versatility are all-important factors to think about when choosing the right tripod for your use.

Photographic Tips About Camera Bags

Photographic Tips About Camera Bags
Photographic Tips About Camera Bags

You should choose from the large range of weather proof camera bags. You will find lots of them that have padded adjustable compartments to suit the needs of all photographers. Choose one that has separate compartments for your digital camera, each of your lenses, extra memory, your flash, spare batteries, battery charger, filters, and cleaning supplies, etc.

Photographic Tips About Cleaning and Care of Lenses

1. Use a blower brush for cleaning dust off the lens.

2. Use a soft lint free cloth to wipe away finger prints from the lens.

3. Use some camera lens cleaning fluid to get rid of more stubborn marks.

4. Always have a pair of tweezers handy to remove hair or similar things from your lens or viewfinder etc. If you don’t use them, you may waste lots of time cleaning off finger prints.

5. Prevention is much time and aggravation saved, so where and when it’s possible, use a UV filter to protect your lens.

Photographic Tips About Lenses

1. Some lenses work better than others for certain jobs, so choose your lenses according to the type of subjects you will be shooting.

2. Lenses with shorter focal lengths are wide angle lenses, while lenses with longer focal lengths are telephoto lenses. You can rent these special lenses so you can go out and give them a good try out before you buy one.

Photographic Tips About Flash Units

1. In most digital cameras there is a built in flash which is not very effective for long distances or large subjects. It’s advisable to invest in a bigger, more powerful flash unit , if your camera can handle it.

2. Choose a flash unit that takes the information from your digital camera’s sensors and makes the right exposure automatically.

3. Choose a flash unit that also has a moveable head. It can then be used to bounce the flash’s light off the wall or the ceiling to get a softer effect.

4. You may want a flash unit with auto-zoom, which will vary its coverage to match the lens you put on your camera.

5. You may also want a flash unit that can fire at a reduced power if you think you will ever need that capability.

Photographic Tips About Filters

1. Choose filters that will create simple dramatic effects. Some of the more common ones are: the polarizer, UV filter and the daylight filter .

2. Screw on filters are the best. They tend to be expensive because the diameter of lenses varies.

3. You can also get a system that will have a single filter holder. These are less expensive.

4. You should also attach a UV filter permanently to your lens. This helps to protect it from dirt and other foreign matter.

The Basic Skills

You will want to pay close attention to these photographic tips on the basic skills otherwise your photos will turn out less than awesome.

Photographic Tips About The Viewfinder

1. Always be sure to compose your picture inside the framing lines of the viewfinder, otherwise you will crop off part of your picture.

2. Be sure to put your eye as close as possible to the eye piece. Not doing so may also cause your pictures to be cropped. You really don’t want that to happen.

3. If you are in any doubt about what your pictures will look like just include more of the surroundings than you need to in the composition. Later on you can work with a Photo editing program and crop out the unwanted parts and then enlarge the subject to the size you want.

Photographic Tips About Keeping the Camera Stable

When Standing Up

1. Always hold your camera with both hands, and keep your elbows tucked in close to your ribs for stability.

2. With a hand-held camera it is possible to take blur free pictures at a shutter speed of 1/60 and above. To do this, you will need to hold your camera with both hands. Make sure the lens isn’t too heavy or too long, and that the subject is perfectly still.

Against a Vertical Surface

1. Hold your digital camera solidly against a vertical surface. Examples: a wall, tree trunk, or post etc. Keep your elbows tucked into your ribs to avoid camera movement.

With Elbows on a Horizontal Surface

1. Always keep your elbows away from the edge of the surface you are using.

2. A table, bench, or car roof etc. will give handy support that will keep your digital camera steady.

When Lying Down

1. A rock or camera bag can be useful support for your digital camera. Just make sure that the buckles and straps on your camera bag don’t get in the way of your camera’s lens and ruin your picture.

Other Forms of Support

1. You must use a tripod, monopod, or clamp to support your digital camera if you will be using shutter speeds less than 1/60. Even when using one of these forms of support, bumping your camera when pressing the shutter release button is still possible. To avoid this, use a cable release, or the self timer on your digital camera, if it has one.

Using the Camera Controls

Photographic Tips About Manual Focus

1. All SLR digital cameras and many less expensive point and shoot digital cameras have a manual focusing mode. This gives you the option of focusing in on the foreground and letting the background blur. You can also focus in on the background and let the foreground blur, it’s your choice.

Photographic Tips About Understanding Shutter Speeds

1. You must choose a fast shutter speed to stop moving objects.

2. To heighten the sense of movement you should choose a slow shutter speed. This causes a blurred image which appears to be moving.

Photographic Tips About Understanding Aperture

1. Use wide aperture settings to soften ugly background details.

2. Using a smaller aperture setting will give you a deeper depth of field.

3. The size of the aperture is set by f-stops. So, the larger the f-stop the smaller the lens aperture.

Photographic Tips About Getting the Proper Exposure

1. A properly exposed picture will appear balanced, and have good color depth. You will also see most of the details of the main subject.

2. Underexposed pictures will be dark, and only the brighter areas will show much detail.

3. Overexposed pictures have too much light. You will see the detail in the areas that are in the shadows, and it will bleach the brighter areas out.

Photographic Tips About Manual Exposure

1. Correctly exposed photos are not always the most effective. You should experiment with your pictures by over riding your digital camera’s exposure meter. Slight under exposure may cause a loss of details in the shadowy and darker areas, but the depth of color may improve.

2. You can use overexposure in portraits to hide skin blemishes.

Photographic Tips About Which Lens to Use

1. Use a wide angle lens when you are photographing a large subject or when you want lots of background in your picture.

2. You can give the appearance of being closer to your subject by using a lens with a longer focal length. This will compress the perspective so your subject is the main attraction for the eye. The background will be a blur.

3. If you increase the focal length even more, by using a telephoto lens , the background will be a total blur. The telephoto lens will also magnify your subject so you can see all the details there are to see in it.

4. 50 MM lens is a very good choice for general purpose photography, and still life subjects.

5. Use a wide angle lens to capture all subjects, near and far, in a sharp focus. They are particularly suited for landscape photography.

6. An 85 MM lens is a great lens for portrait photography.

7. 100 MM or greater lens is what you need for taking pictures of nervous or dangerous animals and birds etc.

Photographic Tips About What Makes a Great Photo

1. To be able to spot a great photographic subject you will need to learn to take a fresh look at the things around you. You must become aware of shapes, form, color, and light. All these things combined will make some very interesting images.

Photographic Tips About Which Format is Right

1. Use the vertical format when photographing tall subjects.

2. Use the horizontal format when shooting landscapes of all types.

Photographic Tips About Filling the Frame

1. Here is a simple way to improve the impact of an image. Get closer to your subject so it fills the whole frame. This will prevent the subject from becoming lost against an ugly, boring or distracting background.

2. If it’s not possible to move closer to the subject, use a telephoto lens to make the subject fill the frame.

This is the end for now but it doesn’t have to be if you want to add some more tips, and I hope you will. All you have to do is commenting your tip here. Remember to put a link to your site, in your tip, for a one way incoming link back to you.

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