How Do You Take The Best Pictures You Can Using A Camera?
Hi and welcome to Episode 151 of the Photography Explained podcast. I’m your host Rick, and in each episode, I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English, in less than 27 minutes (ish), without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google. Not in this episode.
First - here is the answery bit
To take the best photos that you can, stop, slow down, look around and think about what you are photographing. Think about what you are including in a photo, think about what you are not including in a photo, think about how the elements of a photo relate, and think about the light. Then get your composition. Then get all that technical stuff sorted. And then take the photo.
They say the best advice is free, and this is just that. Free advice that will help you to take the best photos that you can every time. Everything I talk about in this episode costs nothing other than time. And thought.
Yes, a lot of what I am talking about here is all about plain old thinking.
OK – here is the talky bit
Is this really what I am saying? Stop, slow down, look around, and think. Yes, it sure is. And this will help you to take the best photos that you can every time. And don’t worry, I will explain this. I want you to progress from taking good photos to really good photos. Good pictures to great pictures. There is no easy way to take great photos, you need to work at it, practice, try things, and find your way.
See we need to realise one thing – most of the time, when someone is looking at one of your photos, all they know is what they see. I would say the vast majority of the time. So let’s go with that.
What do people care about when they are looking at your photo?
Someone looking at your photo probably does not know the back story, all that pain, suffering and effort that you might have gone through to create that amazing photo.
No one knows that you walked barefoot on ice for 24 hours, with no food or water, in a force 10 storm blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back, and were being attacked by a starving killer polar bear as you dangled off the edge of a cliff to get that epic photo. Nope. No one knows or cares.
Really?
Really.
And why does no one care? Because no one knows. Now when you get to the rarefied space of being world famous people might know this stuff about you, but for us normal folks this is the reality. Social media might give you a brief period of recognition, but that is all it will be for most of us.
No one knows.
So we need to get over that and make sure that what people are looking at, our photos, are the best that they can be. This is the point. Take the time.
Stop, slow down, look around and think about what you are photographing.
So instead of just arriving somewhere and taking hundreds of thoughtless photos stop. This is the starting point, not getting your camera out and taking photos. I know this is disappointing, as you just want to get stuck into creating great photos right?
Bear with, this will help you. Rather than just getting stuck in without too much thought, do this.
Look around.
What can you see? What looks interesting? Look around, walk around, study things, and see what you find.
OK – great, this is a good start.
Next - think about what you are including in a photo
You have arrived somewhere to take photos, so you must already have an idea of what you want to photograph right? And if you just happen to be in a place with your camera no problem, the same applies.
What are you going to photograph? And why are you going to photograph it? What is the main subject of a photo? And where are you going to place it?
The next logical thought is this – if you take a photo of something will other people find it interesting? And why will they find it interesting?
Remember, all people know is what they see.
Think about what you are not including in a photo.
As important as what you include in a photo is what you do not include. A cluttered, messy photo can be unappealing. A simple, clear composition can be much more interesting, and powerful even. A good way to simplify a composition is to decide what the subject matter is, what will be the star of the photo and come up with a composition that excludes things that detract from the subject.
I am talking here about not only bad stuff, but also stuff that we do not want to include
Think about how the elements of a photo relate
Moving around helps with this. When you move how things relate to each other changes. And this can dramatically affect the photo that you take. This is a great thing to do, just walking around and looking. With time, practise and experience you will start to see things aligning in ways that make sense, things will start to hang together more. Different angles give you different compositions. These different viewpoints can get you better photos. And a different perspective can also give you a different outcome for a photo. It is about thinking and looking.
You can use a low angle, or you can use a high angle - these can both dramatically change a composition.
And you can do this any time, not just when you are taking photos. I do this all the time, look at stuff when I am out and about and see how things change when I move.
It might just be that I am quite sad though. Just saying. I never claimed to be normal!
Think about the light
Photography is drawing with light. And light is directional. Look at what the light is doing. And see how it changes when you move around. Shadows change and move, and impact on other things differently when you move.
Where is your big, free natural light source? I am talking about the sun here. When is the best time to take a photo? You can't rely on taking every photo at golden hour - this is the harsh commercial reality. I wish!
And do you need to introduce more light?
The time of day will of course affect the position of the sun, which can have a massive influence on the success of the photo or not.
Then get your composition.
This is when I will use my camera. Up to this point, I have been using my eyes and my brain. And my legs to walk around with of course.
Next, I either raise my camera to my eye or place it on my tripod. I like using a tripod, as the very act of putting my camera on a tripod slows me down and makes me think. Putting my camera on my tripod is a committing act to me.
I use the optical viewfinder to get the composition that I want. I will also use the LCD screen on the back of my camera to help me, but the screen on my Canon 6D isn’t the best. And as I am in my fifties my eyes are not as good as they used to be! Yes, that is the best way that I can put it, something for you youngsters to look forward to!
I normally use landscape orientation, this tends to work for me, but I am not afraid of trying portrait mode. Changing the orientation is a great way of making a photo better composed.
So I look at what is in my viewfinder and adjust the contents by moving and zooming. This is the thinking time, this is the bit that will make or break a photo. What we include and do not include.
Use the rules of composition, I talked about these in another episode, and also on my blog. I use the rule of thirds a lot, which is great for simply putting the horizon higher or lower and not in the middle, instantly making any photo better. Great for landscape photography.
Take a test shot with your phone
This helps me. I often take a photo of what I am going to photograph with my phone. It has a much bigger screen and gives me an instant look at what I am photographing. The photo that I have taken with my phone will have pretty good exposure, will be sharp enough for these purposes, and will have had some processing done to it.
Phones give you good pictures immediately. I use an iPhone, but android phones are as good these days, if not better.
And I can zoom in quickly, which helps to exclude stuff that I do not want in a photo, stuff that detracts, bad stuff.
Refine the composition
Having looked at my test photo I can refine the composition if I need to, and then take a test shot. I am using AV Mode so the exposure will be ok enough for a test shot. And if I am being picky I connect my camera to my phone and view the photo that I have taken on my phone. I use a camera app to connect my camera to my phone, which is surprisingly useful.
This all depends on how much time I have, and what I am photographing.
Once I have got the composition that I want, then I make sure that I get the best image capture that I can.
The most important thing is what is in a photo.
Get all that technical stuff sorted.
I haven’t talked about this at all yet have I? Camera settings. So many different camera settings. But this is the point. Sort out what you are taking a photo of first, and then think about how you are going to take the photo. You should be able to do that efficiently and quickly and effectively with any current dslr camera or mirrorless camera.
You need to get these things nailed.
Focus
Where are you going to focus? I use a Canon 6D. It has 11 focus points. I manually select the one that I want to use.
The Canon EOS R has 5655 focus points. I can’t help you with that.
But you need to get what you want in focus to be just that, and the rest of the photo – well it depends. For a photo of a building, I want everything sharp. For a landscape photo, I also want everything sharp.
For a photo of a very specific thing I want that sharp but the rest blurry.
Depth of field
The aperture, lens focal length, where you focus and the position you take the photo will all influence the depth of field.
In general terms
- A large aperture gives less depth of field than a small aperture
- A longer focal length gives less depth of field than a shorter or wider focal length
Exposure
Very important. Exposure is made up of aperture, shutter and ISO, the sensitivity of the camera sensor, or film of course, to light.
Get the exposure correct and you have captured the fullest range of lights, darks and everything in between that you can in a single image capture.
But remember – you cannot capture the same range of lights and darks in a single image capture than you can see with your own eyes. This is just a fact, camera sensors are not as good as the human brain.
So get as much of the lights and the darks as you can. And I have covered high dynamic range in other episodes, which I might come back to with my longer format episodes. Yes, I will add that to my list right now.
Moving or still
If I am photographing a building it is not moving, so I don’t need to worry about the shutter speed too much. And my camera is normally on a tripod. This is why I use AV Mode, as the aperture is the thing that I want to set for each photo. I use manual mode some of the time when it suits me.
If you are photographing something that is moving quickly you will need a faster shutter speed. You need to freeze a moving subject.
But, If you want to create blur in a photo use a long exposure.
The exposure triangle
I have talked about this before. The exposure triangle is the combination of three camera settings, aperture, shutter speed and ISO. These combine to determine if you correctly capture the range of light in a photo.
And this is something that you do need to understand if you want to take your photography seriously. I think that I will revisit this as well, as when I covered it before it was when my episodes were much shorter – I couldn’t possibly have given the subject of exposure justice in less than 10 minutes-ish!
Done – added to my list.
And then take the photo
This is it. This is the time to create something new. This is the time at which everything that you have learned comes together. This is the exciting bit. This is what photography is all about. When you gently press the shutter release button. Job done.
And this is what you do when you have done all that stuff that I have talked about.
Photography is about creating new things.
And relax
There can be a lot to do and think about before you take a photo. But once you have done this hopefully you will feel good. Relax, see what you have captured, and either move on or go home.
This leads me nicely to something else for you to think about.
My one photo rule.
Right. Shoot me down here but this is how I work. If I am working for a client, and they need 30 photos, I will try to take just 30 photos. It never happens, I am just not that good, but I do not do what I used to do.
And if I am photographing a sunrise, guess what, I am only after one photo. Do you know what, I am going to do a whole episode on my one-photo rule. Well, why not? And I have decided that this will be the next episode.
I am not saying to go out and only take one photo and then call it a day. No. But I am saying try to get one photo that is the best photo that you can of something. Don’t take hundreds of photos and try to find a good one on your computer.
Put all your efforts into getting one photo that is the best that you can do. Sorry I will come onto this in another episode. Shut, up Rick.
Right – talky bit over - what if I use a phone and not a camera?
Well, the title for this post had the words with my camera in it. But I removed that bit because this applies to the taking of photos, not to the taking of photos with a camera. And if all you have is your phone that is the best camera that you have!
I see it like this – a phone is a device that you can use to take photos. A camera is also a device that you can use to take photos. Both are equally valid, if different. Different tools for different jobs working in different ways.
Take the time, thought, care and attention and then take the photo with your phone. And if what you have you are happy with, job done! You might need to make some tweaks to whatever adjustments you have with your phone, but these will probably be less than with a camera.
What do I do?
This is what I used to do. I used to turn up at a location and take photos of anything and everything.
I would quite literally do this, and then when I got home excitedly import the photos into Lightroom and look for a great photo. Well, I had captured everything when I was there right? So there had to be some amazing photos in there.
And this is where my loathing of searching through endless rubbish came from. I was looking for a decent composition amongst all the rubbish that I took. And this is not easy to do. This is hard work. This is boring work. Trying to find the better images amongst a load of at-best average stuff.
Now I try to get one photo. The best photo that I can. The highest image quality that I can achieve. More on that in another episode. But I take fewer photos now than I ever have done, and my photos are better, and I no longer have to search through hundreds of photos to find something to edit. And this is what I and other professional photographers do, we concentrate on what we are taking photos of. We concentrate on taking better pictures every time.
That is the main point of this episode, think before you take a photo.
How long does this take me?
Don’t worry – not as long as it might sound! It could be a couple of minutes, which is much less time than I used to spend in Lightroom trying to find a decent photo.
The best photographers spend their time on the composition first, and you should too.
Some thoughts from the last episode
How Does A Camera Work? Just The Stuff You Need To Know!
Well, it was a whistle-stop tour of how a camera works and some of the parts of a camera. I enjoyed this episode and would like to reiterate just one thing.
A camera is a lightproof box with a hole in it. The light is recorded on the sensor when a photo is taken. Photography is drawing with light.
Next episode
Episode 152, My One Photo Rule – title being worked on. But it will definitely be about my one-photo rule which I mentioned in this episode.
And now some stuff for you to do
First off, if you have a photography question you want me to answer in plain English, in less than 27 minutes (ish) but still without the irrelevant details, just head over to PhotographyExplainedPodcast.com/start where you can find out what to do. Or just say hi. It would be lovely to hear from you.
And a favour
If you enjoyed this episode please write a nice review on your podcast provider of choice. And post it on your social feeds. And why not follow my podcast to make sure you get the next episode when it is released?
That’s all.
This episode was brought to you by, erm, a cheese and pickle sandwich and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps all washed down with water as I forgot the Diet Pepsi, all consumed before I settled down in my homemade, acoustically cushioned recording emporium.
I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast (it says here), and for giving me 27 ish minutes of your valuable time. Yeah, I think that this episode will be 25 minutes long.
Take care, stay safe
Cheers from me Rick