To be a pro at something, you have to begin somewhere. To be a beginner means to make mistakes and boy! Can you make quite a few when you are a struggling photographer on the block?
Here are 5 common photography mistakes you can make when you step into the work of digital photography.
1) Making use of the wrong white balance
In photography, white balance is an essential yet misunderstood aspect. Light has different color temperatures, just like the different times of the day.
While our eyes can process the colors of the day, digital cameras cannot really process this without a little bit of help from us. Cameras use white balance to do away with the color casts of various temperatures.
- Custom White Balance: Sometimes, cameras read white balance incorrectly. During these times, you need to set it up manually yourself by setting a custom white balance menu.
- Automatic White Balance (AWB): Your camera guesses the best option for your photo. Many digital cameras come with presets such as tungsten, daylight, fluorescent, shade and cloudy.
2) Throwing limits on your composition
What’s the most basic rule when it comes to photography? The “rule of thirds”. It’s all about splitting your shot into nine equal sections by a set of horizontal and vertical lines.
What does it imply? You need to place the most important aspect in your shot on one of the lines or where the lines meet. This does not mean you should let it control your creativity.
- Don’t be scared to fill the frame by closing in on your subject
- Use frames such as trees, bridges, and arches to either draw attention to or isolate your subject
- Check for lines, patterns, and textures to enhance your composition
3) Overlooking the basics
One of the major photography mistakes you can make is not acknowledging the basics.
Using a very low shutter speed
- To shoot objects in motion such as vehicles and people, you need a fast shutter speed. Balance aperture and shutter speeds to make certain that the exposure is just right.
Not raising your ISO
- The higher the ISO, the more digital noise there is. This means bad image quality. This may make you keep the ISO to 100-200, as low as possible.
- This can lead to underexposed pictures. A high ISO can be very handy in a variety of situations.
4) Compulsorily shooting in JPEG
Despite the supposed benefits it provides, rather than shooting in JPEG, shooting in RAW:
- Preserves more image data and allows more detail to be recovered from shadows and highlights
- It offers higher quality pictures
Yes, the file size is larger but external memory is easy to find and affordable nowadays.
5) Depending on post-processing to solve issues
Don’t depend on these tools to fix all your errors. Post-processing should be used to bring out the best in pictures not fix bad photos. To use post-processing to a minimum:
- Be cautious of saturation: Too high and you end up with artificial-looking images that are robbed of their highlights and shadows.
- Avoid over-sharpening: An out of focus picture looks bad no matter how much you sharpen it.
We all start from somewhere. Just make sure you avoid these photography mistakes and you will surely reach the top successfully. Now you know where to start from and where your destination lies.
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