Going on vacation or a long trip, you always take a camera with you in order to capture the bright moments of life, but how to properly photograph with a DSLR and what parameters should you pay attention to so that photography delights you?
In this article, we will consider all the parameters that you need for proper photography on a trip, we will try to present everything in such a way that it is clear even for a novice photographer. After reading our article, you will no longer wonder how to properly photograph landscape, portrait, architecture and other areas of photography. But first, read our articles on how to choose a camera and how to choose a lens.
More and more, driving through different countries of the world, we observe the transition of all travelers to SLR cameras, but most of them, having bought a device for artistic photography, take pictures in automatic modes. Why pay that kind of money if the traveler doesn't even want to see what potential a DSLR holds? Or maybe he just doesn't know how to take pictures correctly, perhaps we will start with this.
We will start with matrices camera. The most important parameter of correct photography is carried by the matrix, the larger the physical size of the matrix, the greater the light transmission capacity, which means that the photo will be much richer and brighter in colors. On budget SLR cameras, the matrix size is 23 × 15 (crop matrix). In professional technology, the physical size of the sensor is 36 × 24 (full frame or Fullframe), with a full-frame sensor you get amazing photos, but for the correct photographing of the object you will need some other parameters that are worth paying attention to.
A camera with large number of megapixels... For a modern SLR camera, a number of 18 megapixels or more is quite suitable, but many factories, under the leadership of marketers, manage to shove a huge number of megapixels into a small matrix of some kind of soap dish, which is impossible with its small physical size. You shouldn't expect perfect photos from such cameras! Let's give advice, pay attention to Nikon series SLR cameras from D7000 onwards, Sony alpha series, Canon EOS with two or better one digits before D "" (for example Canon EOS 60D).
All of the above series of cameras have a matrix not for a wide consumer market, which means that the quality of the matrix remained at a high level, unlike the lower series of these cameras, which are well promoted by marketers and which people “bite” so well because of the low price. You already know half of the answers to the question of how to take pictures correctly and choose a good matrix, but which mode is better to choose?
Another parameter for correct photography is depth of field... Now you need to forget all the standard modes (auto, portrait, landscape ...) and start using the modes “Av, Tv, M, P”, Nikon has“A, P, S, M" other. For the depth of field mode, we need the “Av”From Canon or“A”From Nikon. In this mode, you can change the aperture number, which can vary from 1,2 before 22.
You have probably seen more than once how good photographers take a photo with a blurred background, this is the depth of field and it depends on the aperture. The lower the aperture number, the more you can blur the background, but first you need to focus on the subject you want to highlight. For example, to properly photograph a portrait, you need to set your aperture to roughly 1.4 to 5.6. To correctly photograph the landscape, you need to set a number from 11 to 22, from such numbers the depth of field will be at the limit and the image will turn out to be sharp and realistic.
The second point to consider is that the focal length of the lens also affects the depth of field. The longer the focal length, the more the background is blurred behind the subject. The wider the angle of the lens, the less blur will be.
Another factor influencing the question of how to photograph correctly is the distance from the lens to the subject and from the subject to the background. To clarify, portraits need to be shot at a greater zoom, having previously set the depth of field to the minimum value (for example, set it to 1.4).
For correct photographing of portraits, there are prime lenses or portrait lenses with a focal length of 35-85mm (for such lenses, the minimum aperture value is from 1.2). With such lenses, a blurred background is provided to you if the subject is far from the background and you set the minimum number of depth of field.
Let's go further to understand the question of "how to take pictures correctly", for this you need to study the exposure parameters. The shutter speed is designated "S" for Nikon, and "Tv" for Canon. This mode is used extremely rarely, and is mainly needed for artistic photography. For example, in order to correctly photograph the river, which will freeze in the picture, we need to take an exposure of about 5 seconds, after such an exposure, this is what you get ...
If you decide to experiment with shutter speed, be sure to stock up on a tripod, otherwise the whole image will turn out to be blurry. Exposure should be used only in the evening or at night, in the daytime the photo will turn out to be just white due to the large amount of incident light during the long exposure. It is also worth considering that in this mode the matrix is especially susceptible to breakdowns and can simply burn out from the sun, for this use neutral filters or setting the camera in the shade, filters are put on the lenses and protect the matrix from overheating.
Let's open a little secret, if you don't have such a filter at hand, then use ordinary sunglasses, from which the artistic effect will change your photo for the better. But sometimes even at the slowest shutter speed that can be set on the camera (up to 30 minutes), the image is still dark, ISO will come to our aid, which is another answer to the question of how to take pictures correctly.
Light sensitivity (ISO), set when you decide to take pictures in the dark. At night, when your photo turns out to be dark, and with the flash, the photo turns out to be light and flat, the ISO parameter comes to the rescue, which should not be overused. Its value can be set from 100 to 12000 or more, depending on the SLR camera.
In order to correctly photograph with this parameter, we recommend not to raise the ISO value to more than 6400, then “noise” begins to form in the shadows and your photo loses its quality. In order to correctly photograph an object at night, of course, many will start using a standard flash, we will talk about this parameter separately!
If you decide to find answers to the question of how to take pictures correctly, then forget about the standard flash. A photo with such a flash turns out to be excessively light and flat in volume, if you have extra money, then be sure to buy an external flash, you will take a huge step towards the right photo.
At worst, you can use the usual built-in flash, but with a little secret. So, we take a regular A4 white sheet and close the flash, in this case the sheet will serve as a light diffuser and will give the image a light, voluminous tone, and will also remove the “red-eye effect”.It is good to use this method in a dark room or at night.
On the way to success in the question of how to take pictures correctly, we go further and consider the sharpness of the lens. No landscape is complete without sharpness, to get the sharpest image, take a look at the lens options. The sharpest lenses are prime lenses, zoom lenses are inferior in this regard, they have blur at wide and far angles.
In order to take a high-quality, sharp and correct photograph of an object, to distinguish it from the main plan, you will definitely need a fixed lens! But there is one big secret - all lenses have their own maximum number of sharpness, this number can be calculated by taking several test shots at each depth of field and see the results on the big screen. Typically lens sharpness starts from 2.8 to 11.
Another most famous and main answer to the question of how to take pictures correctly is the rule of the golden ratio. Divide your image into two horizontal lines and two vertical lines, so the main subject should be located at two points of intersection of the lines. Do not forget to photograph the landscape correctly. If you, for example, shoot the sea and the sky, then either the sea or the sky should occupy more than half of the frame (2/3 of the frame). This rule is called the correct composition of the frame and is one of the important parameters of a successful photograph.
how to correctly photograph a portrait and not crop anything unnecessary? To do this, you need the cheat sheet below ...
We have considered all the technical parameters on the question of how to take pictures correctly, now we will consider the usual vital parameters, which should not be forgotten in everyday shooting and which will make it possible to perfectly and correctly photograph the subjects of shooting.
The first step is to check the battery charge and take a spare battery with you, you will need it at the most opportune moment in your life. Do not forget to check the size of your memory card when leaving home, sometimes it is full and there are only one copy of the photos on it. Remember, the more discharged the battery, the more autofocus will miss on the subject.
For correct photography, you should also pay attention to dust on the camera mirrors and lens glasses, you can easily check this by photographing a light solid background. To remove dust, use only a special pencil or other cleaning agents for the optics and the apparatus.
We continue to get answers to the question of how to take pictures correctly and do not forget the attributes for the camera, if you shoot in the dark - do not forget to take an external flash and a tripod, shoot artistic photography at long exposures - do not forget photo filters, a tripod and other accessories.
For the right approach to photography, do not forget to dress yourself correctly for the weather. Before starting shooting, check all the camera settings so as not to miss an important moment, choose the optimal mode and values for shooting. If suddenly the battery runs out during shooting, and you have not yet photographed the object you need, turn off the screen, switch to manual lens focusing mode and lens stabilizer.
If water or sand gets into the camera, then first of all, remove the battery and do not insert it until the camera is completely dry, if you have a hairdryer at hand, then this is just great. Sand is a different story, sand can cause mechanical damage to the internal mechanisms of the camera, and then you will be provided with expensive repairs.
Observing all these rules and recommendations of the travel-picture.ru website described above, you can definitely succeed in photography. But in order to raise your authority in your own eyes, we recommend communicating with photographers on specialized sites and forums, exhibiting your photos at various thematic exhibitions on the Internet, sometimes even making money on it.
Well, here are all the answers to the question of how to take pictures correctly were painted and shown. In order to learn how to take pictures correctly, you should always experiment and forget about the standard photography modes. At first, pictures in manual modes will turn out to be dark, blurry and not of high quality, but after you snap a few hundred frames with different settings, you will see all the possibilities of a SLR camera on examples of your work!
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