Photography Do's and Don'ts

2. What is
Photography ?
Photography is art, it is all about that artistic
ability to look at something ordinary and capture
the moment to make it eternal.
You should know that photography comes with
many challenges. It is about looking at things
differently and with a fresh view. Something as
basic as a spoon, could be used artistically.
Would you believe there are professional
photographers out there that don’t fully know
how to control their camera? It’s true. How do I
know?
I used to be one of them.
Yep, it’s a big ugly confession, but it’s true. We
started off shooting in Aperture Priority mode,
and let the camera do the thinking for us.

3. Understanding Exposure
• A good exposure is how bright you want the image to be.
• If it’s brighter than you want, it’s overexposed. If it’s darker than you want, it’s
underexposed.
• In the end it’s your own creative decision. You’re the photographer after all. But you need
to know how to adjust all your settings to get that exposure you’re looking for, and how to
use your camera to help you figure it out.

5. Focus on the eye
• If you’re familiar with the phrase, “the eyes are the windows into the
soul,” then you ought to know that this phrase plays a vital role in
photography as well. In order to lock in the viewers’ interest, it’s
important to keep them in focus. Why? Failure to do so could cause
the final output to look like a mistake.
• Additional tip: Filling the flash, together with a diffuser, are some of
the great ways to make the eyes brighter.

7. Zen and the Art of Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO
Here’s what you need to know about the big
three: aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Each one
is designed to give you more light, with a payoff.
The art of truly mastering the manual mode is
understanding what each one of those elements
takes away as it gives you more light.
Larger aperture gives you more light but takes
away the length of your depth of field (blurrier
backgrounds). Slower shutter speeds give you
more light but can make your images blurry if
either the camera isn’t still or the subject moves.
And higher ISO will offer you more light but will
add noise to your image.
So, in becoming a master of manual, don’t think
about what the controls give you, think about
what they take away.

9. Learn
basic
editing
As you learn more about processing, you can always go back and
reprocess older images even years later if you still have the SOOC
(straight out of the camera) file, but there won’t be anything you
can do about the totally blurry images of your baby from not
understanding the basics.
Also, shooting in RAW gives you tons of flexibility for editing when
you get around to it. And having a nice SOOC allows you to use
your processing to bring out your vision instead of trying to fix a
bad image. I know that RAW can sound very scary, but really it’s
not. Yes, you have to do at least the basics to every single image
because your camera isn’t doing it for you, but you have so much
control over the outcome. Want to dramatically change the
exposure, no problem.
Did the light change and you didn’t have a chance to change the
white balance, you can still do a lot to correct that if you shot in
RAW. RAW is the digital equivalent to a film negative. It gives you a
great base to develop the image to suit your vision.

11. Shoot in auto
Breaking away from those automatic
settings can be quite nerve-racking, but
the more you explore, the better your
photography will become. Sure, these
settings make it easy to get started, but
remember you spent a pretty penny to
create great photographs. Why not learn
how to get the most bang for your buck?
Even more, auto settings do not always
adjust correctly in awkward lighting
conditions, and you may get photos that
are blurry or dark. Learn how to react to
these conditions by manually adjusting
your camera settings.