One of the most common question among beginner photographers is: how do I start learning how to take better pictures?
If you have asked that question yourself recently, this article is made for you!
In may 2023 I purchased my first camera. I didn't know anything about cameras or photo theory. Basically only thing I remember knowing was the rule of thirds, which was really useful. But overall, I was lost. Now I want to give my tips on how to progress.
Start with the basics
Gettings the basics down is the most important part. It's going to take some time and a lot of pictures but with these tips, it will go fast.
The most important part of photography is the exposure triangle. Every photo taken resolves around this concept. The exposure triangle consists of three parts:
Shutter speed
= How long the shutter is open for
Aperture
= Depth of field
ISO
= Sensitivity to light
Now, you might be thinking: What do these mean and how do they affect your photo?
It all depends on what you're shooting, but here are the basic principles of the exposure triangle.
The slower shutter speed you have the more motion blur will the image have. For example, sports photography usually use fast shutter speeds to capture beautiful stills but panning shots use slow shutter speeds to capture the movement with beautiful motion blur.
It's important to remember that the faster your shutter speed is, the darker is the final image going to be. This is because the light has less time to enter the camera sensor.
I usually set the shutter speed first depenging on my needs.
Then I move on to aperture. Aperture controls the depth of field. Wider aperture gives you a shallower depth of field and smaller aperture gives you a deeper depth of field. A concrete example of this would be that if you want a blurry background, use a wider aperture. If you want a larger part of the image to be focused, pick a smaller aperture.
Aperture can be easy to mess up because wide aperture means the smaller numbers. For example, f/1.8 and f/2.8 are wide apertures and f16 and f22 are small apertures. This is because the f in the front means focal length and we are dividing with the number. For example a f/4.0 on a 100 mm focal length means you have 25 mm aperture because 100/4 = 25. The explanation is not important to remember but it can you help understand why wide aperture means smaller numbers and the other way around. At least to me, this was pretty confusing at first, so don't worry if it's confusing to you.
Also, when using wider apertures your sensor can gather more light, which results in a brighter image. So, like with shutter speed, changing the aperture changes the brightness of the image.
Finally, we move on to ISO, which basically means the sensitivity to light. The higher ISO = the brighter the image. There's one drawback though and it's called noise. When you use higher ISO your image will have more noise. The basic principle is to have as small ISO as possible so that you have minimal noise.
The amount of noise also depends on your camera. Full frame cameras pruduce less noise than crop sensor cameras and higher megapixel cameras produce more noise than lower megapixel cameras. Most beginners start with a crop-sensor camera, because they are a lot cheaper.
When I had my Canon m50 mark II, which is a crop-sensor camera, I tried to stay below 800 ISO whenever I could. But you also shouldn't be afraid of high ISO because you have a lot of tools in your hands to remove that noise, thanks to improved technology. The most popular option by far is the denoise feature in Lightroom. I have been using this for a long time and it's very powerful. I highly suggest trying it yourself!
Now you know what the three parts of the exposure triangle are and how each of them affect your photo. The fastest way to master the exposure triangle in practise is to play around with the settings, try different exposures and take a lot of photos.
Use a tripod
In the beginning, tripod is your best friend. It will dramatically improve the quality and sharpness of your photos while you are still learning the exposure triangle. Although, it's also important to shoot handheld from time to time to learn to use shutter speed.
When capturing still images, prefer manual focus to capture sharp and crisp images.
Use presets
If you just want to focus on taking pictures and not editing them, I would highly suggest using presets. If you use Lightroom, you can easily download presets for free from other creators online.
If you want to use my free presets, click here
Using presets will save you a lot of time, especially in the beginning. This is because, when you edit your photos with presets, you only have to change the basic adjustments and maybe something in the color mixer. This will allow you to spend more time taking photos and less time editing.
You can also learn photo editing with presets. Just download a preset and try to understand what certain settings do, and how they affect the photo. After you have done that, you can try to mimic the preset with your own. I learn a lot of new techniques by doing this.
Learn the basics of histogram
Histogram is a very powerful tool that every photographer uses. In the beginning you don't have to know everything, but there's a couple very useful things that you should know of.
Clipping highlights or shadows.
Histogram has to ends. The left side being the shadows and the right side being the highlights. The values between are the information that the sensor gathers from the image. If the values hit either side of the histogram, detail will be lost. We want to avoid this at all costs.
Histogram is divided into 5 parts: Blacks, shadows, exposure, highlights and whites. You don't have to worry about it too much when you are a beginner, but making sure to avoid clipping is the most important part.
Changing the contrast affects the histogram a lot. An image has a low contrast when the peak of the histogram is towards the middle part. It means that it has little shadows and little highlights, meaning that the image is really flat. When raising the contrast, the peak divides into two and the peaks move towards the ends. Usually we aim towards the middle gound but it really depends on what you're shooting. And that brings me to the last thing you should know about histogram:
There's not one right solution to histogram. It always depends on the lighting and scenario as well as the vibe you're going for. Experiementing is a really good solution. I also like to compare my histogram to the photo I am trying to replicate if I am trying to learn, if that's available.
Follow other creators
This can tip can feel like a no brainer, but I mean it. You should follow a lot of other creators and be inspired by others. Watch and analyze what they are doing, and most importantly, how they do it.
Being intrested in something will motivate you to do it yourself and try new things. And what happens when we try new things? We learn. Photography is a really innovating field. There's always something new to try and experiement with.
Take me for example. I am a nature and a landscape photographer but I enjoy shooting other things too. I just don't share them. I have shot car events and cars and learned a lot even though it's not my field at all.
The most important part is to have fun
If you try to force yourself to learn, it won't work. Trust me.
I had a period in my photography career when I didn't really enjoy photography. This was because I had to do it so much to keep up with my posting schedule. It was not a fun period and I didn't really learn anything. I just kept doing the things I knew already and bruteforced it through. I then realized that there's no point in doing that and changed my schedule.
This helped me a lot. After a short while, I was able to enjoy photography again and I was back to learning new things and progressing. And that motivated me even more.
Right now, I am doing a lot more work and posting a lot more, but I still enjoy photography more than I ever have. And that's just a mentality change. It proves how important your mentality is.
That's why having fun through your journey as a photographer is the most important part of learning.
Good luck!
Now you are ready to start! With these basic tips you can start your photography journey and learn fast. It doesn't matter whether you are shooting on a mobile or a professional camera, if you are a beginner all of these tips apply to you.
I wish you good luck with your journey, and I'll see you next week!
