Top Tips for Photography Beginners

You can easily take some stunning high-quality photos on your mobile phones nowadays. In fact, many photographers pride themselves on exclusively using a smartphone to take all of their professional images.

But you just can’t be the traditional DSLR cameras for professional photography! Although DSLR cameras are a little more complex to use than a mobile phone, they have a much wider variety of features and settings that can elevate your images to the next level.

The issue that many people face is knowing where to start with a DSLR camera. They can be complex to figure out and it takes a lot of skill and knowledge to use the camera’s features to their full potential.

If you have recently bought yourself a camera and are keen to start taking some semi-professional photos, we’ve got some great tips for photography beginners to get you started.

Think About the Background

A common mistake that many beginner photographers make is focusing solely on the person or object that is at the forefront of the photo. Even if you do have a main focal point of the image, it doesn’t mean you can forget about the rest of the photo!

The background makes a significant difference to the overall look and feel of your image and it can completely change people’s interpretation of your artwork. So, you should always take careful consideration when choosing the photography backdrops and scenery that you use in each image.

For example, if you want to portray a mysterious tone in your photos, a dark black backdrop with harsh indoor lighting is a great option. Using lots of colorful flowers and greenery in the background on your driveway or in your garden will convey happier emotions to the viewers of your image.

Avoid Overexposing Your Images

When you are choosing your camera settings at the start of your shoot, it’s essential that you pick the right shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. These are the three most important settings when it comes to choosing the brightness of your images.

Choosing the right shutter speed, aperture, and ISO will ensure that your photos are not overexposed beyond repair. Photo exposure can be edited post-production to a point, but if your images are extremely bright and overexposed, it may be impossible to fix them.

When you first begin your shoot, lower the ISO to around 100 and choose a fast shutter speed. Take a few test images to check how they look before you begin properly shooting

Tips for Photography Beginners – Back Up Your Photos

Any professional photographer will tell you to back up your photos as soon as you have taken them. You never know when your camera is going to break or your SD card is going to corrupt. The last thing you want is to spend hours taking a bunch of images that then get lost due to faulty technology.

Always keep at least two copies of your photos, ideally a copy on two separate hard drives. There are also lots of cloud-based storage drives that might be useful. Using the cloud means that any physical damage to your hard drive won’t affect your ability to retrieve your photos.

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash