Tips and Tricks!

Want to learn some useful tips for photogrpahy? You have come to the right place! Below is a list of a few tips that I thought of to help you out with your photography!

Tips and Tricks

1. Starbursts: To get this cool effect, you have to have a narrow aperture (f/32.0, f/20.0, etc.) and somewhere for the sun/light source to shadow. The narrow aperture allows for little light to get to the sensor. If you set your camera up on the edge of the shadow and the light source, you can create a starburst. This can also be done without a shodow, but it is much easier with a shadow.
starburststarburst
2. If you do not have a shutter release cable and you want to reduce vibration (for long exposures), then use the camera's built in timer, the delay will allow for the camera to stop shaking.
3. No tripod? No problem! Use the nearest rock, wall, or fence to prop up your camera.
4. Shoot in shutter priority mode ('S' on Nikon and 'Tv' on Canon). Shutter priority allows for the camera to choose the appropriate aperture while you set the shutter speed. This setting is useful for when you need to quickly change the shutter speed and dont have much time to fiddle with the aperture.
5. Use this handy exposure chart if you want to get into daytime long exposures with ND filters.
exposure chart
6. When taking photos indoors, try not to use the camera's built in flash (turn auto flash off in the settings). Instead, use a wide aperture and a high ISO. If you have one, use an external flash because it gives a softer light than the harsh unnatural light of the camera flash.
7. It's not about the gear you use, it's how you use it. Having fancy expensive photography equipment is nice and will improve the quality of your photos, but it's not necessary to take amazing photos. All the photos I take are with kit lenses and an entry-level DSLR. Buying fancy equipment won't help your photography at all if you don't know how to use it and the basic fundamentals of photography.
8. Make it a habit of backing up your photos! One day when I was taking photos, a message popped up on my camera that said the SD card could not be read. Luckily for me I didn't lose any photos. If I did lose them, they would've been gone forever because I did not back any of the hundreds of photos that were still on my SD card. Learning from this almost painful mistake, I later backed up all my photos onto an external hard drive. So this doesn't happen to you, back up your photos.