Beginning Photography Tips

Looking for beginning photography tips but not sure of what basics you should know? Before we get into the technicalities and start looking at some specific digital photography tips and details about your camera, there are a few things you should probably bear in mind.

Photography has been described as anything from simply a method of capturing an 'as it is' image, to an art form. Others maintain that photography is just a technical pursuit.

Personally I believe it to be all of the above.

Photographic Fundamentals

Before learning the other Digital Photography Basics which may also include understanding our Digital Camera Settings , and certainly before taking a look at the tutorials page, let's look at some very important fundamentals to consider, no matter in the beginning stages or thereafter.

The Camera Never Lies

This old axiom is actually almost totally untrue. In fact, the camera spends almost all of its time lying, the lens sporting cad that it is!

Ever seen those fantastic blue sky landscape holiday shots, and wondered why your shots never look like that, or why you never seem to be able to visit a place where the sky is that blue? That would be because the photographer was using something called a Polarizing Filter, which basically eliminates the part of the washed out color spectrum present, and allows the primary color light rods through the filter (it also eliminates reflections in windows and water, giving a clear view through them).

And how about panoramic Landscape Photography ?

Ever wondered why those shots seem so wide and expansive? Why is it that your 'point and shoot' compact camera doesn't seem to take shots that wide?

Well, this would simply be because the photographer in this case is using a wide angle lens as part of his Photography Equipment and this lens gives a far greater angle of view than some other lenses.

So, it's an important one of the beginning photography tips to know, that what you see, isn't always what you get an an actual shot.

Confidence? Get some!

Learning any new skill can be daunting, but digital photography requires a certain amount of confidence. Don't just take pictures of landscapes and flowers, because you worry that if taking shots of people you will be seen as a beginner or make some mistakes. It's highly unlikely the person you're taking a shot of will know you've made any mistake at all!

Take it from my own personal experience, acting confident over time creates actual confidence. But never doing digital photography with confidence will see that you remain without confidence, and maybe restrict you to certain kinds of subjects, whereas otherwise you may have found your real photographic skill and joy with some other subject if you had just pushed yourself to have confidence with it :)

Digital Photography Skills

No one learning beginning photography tips learns all of the technicalities over-night; and even after you have learned certain digital photography techniques, it will still be quite sometime before you master them, but that's OK, and to be expected.

I've never met anyone who was 'a natural' in photography who didn't also have to learn the technical side of photography first. You can only go so far with 'point and shoot' and then you have to learn the beginning photography tips and fundamentals all photographers with a dslr do.

What Actually Makes a Good Shot?

A good photographer knows how to create many different kinds of technical effects, and also how to use his camera creatively.

It's no good if when people see your wonderfully creative shot and then ask how you got such a shot , you reply with: 'I haven't got a clue!

Here is a list of probably the most important technicalities a standard 'good' photograph should have, beginning photography tips not withstanding.

By 'should have', I mean in photography a technically good photograph will have the following elements to the correct degree.

For beginning photography tips, you can't get much better than these:

• Focus. Is the majority/all of the shot in focus and sharp, or at least the desired part of the photograph, or is it out of focus and a bit soapy? Deliberate or not?

• Exposure. Is there a good mid-balance in a shot where it's neither too light or too dark, and also there is good contrast? If so, that's a good exposure.

• Contrast. As my photography teacher always drilled into me 'is there a good deep black, and a good white?' and also a good hard contrast of colors in-between?
  Without good color saturation a shot will simply look washed out and uninspiring.

• Composition. Now this can be a tough one to learn, and really takes practice. Good composition covers quite a few different points, such as angles, depth-of-field, foreground, mid-ground and background as well as the type of shot close-up, wide-angle shot and so on. Learning how to make even a dull subject look good, is a skill of a good photographer.

A technically good shot hits all of the above points. Creative photography 'plays with' the above values, yet 'a fluke shot' in no way means you are a good photographer. Think how much better it would be if you are able to take any kind of shot you wish, at will.