3 Photography Tips I Found Useful

Yesterday I went to a BBQ at Bowness Park. It sounded like a fun event, so I brought along my Canon EOS 20D not knowing what to expect.

Throughout the day, I found these tips I’ve learned from various sources to be really really useful. These are also geared towards intermediate digital camera owners (break out of automatic mode if you haven’t done so already!):

1. Use Speedburst mode when possible (a.k.a. Sports mode)
   For the second set of the photos I took when we went to the nearby playground to play Grounders, I applied a tip I learnt from the digital photography school blog on 11 Tips for Better Candid Photography. For any scenario where there is a lot of movement and spontaneity involved, this mode is perfect because you will capture a handful of images. Possibly one you wouldn’t expect yourself to capture such as these priceless photos I took yesterday:
   
2. Distance yourself and kill the flash (stay stealthy)
   Also 2 other great tips from that same post from the digital photography school blog. Distancing yourself from the action lets the people you focus on, focus on the matter at hand instead of the camera, resulting in a better candid shot. Personally, I love photos which are more candid. When filming movies, the actors should never look at the camera. I think more photographers should embrace this concept, they tell a better story.
   
3. Zoom in and get level (Other views aren’t as immersive)
   Also another tip that I learnt from the digital photography school, though I believe it was advice geared towards photographing children’s birthday parties.

   Zooming in allows you to capture details and essentially crop out other things that are going on nearby which can distract the viewer from the matter at hand. Of course you can take a zoomed out photograph from the beginning, but when you crop just a piece of it and want to print that out, you miss out on the details. Don’t be afraid to zoom in to different subjects and take many photos, the beauty of digital photography is that you can review what you just took later on and clear them out to make more room. If you have high capacity media for your camera, even better; you have the luxury of rejecting photographs when importing them.

   Getting level with your subjects helps the viewer of your photograph get immersed in the setting. It’s not really fun looking at a photo of a person where the photograph wasn’t taken at eye-level.

   

Of course you shouldn’t try to use these tips each time you take a photograph, otherwise you get trapped in the problem where all your photographs look like they were taken from the same perspective/angle. They also might not work sometimes, for example, you will need flash when you’re inside in low-light settings.

Most importantly, if you haven’t done so already, break out of automatic mode and try to experiment with your camera. Learning and getting used to how your camera works is essential if you want good results.