Lighting Tips to Help You Take Better Pictures
In this age of digital cameras, you have probably thought that you can just point and shoot and out will appear a great shot. Not so fast.The honest truth is, you may have a great digital camera, but if you are clueless in what to do, you will take ugly shots.
I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills. These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are about using lighting and they will be some of the best advice and keys to your success in taking great photos.
First great tip in regards to lighting.Now if the shots you will take are going to be outdoors during the day, the natural sunlight will be some of the best lighting possible. Now you are probably thinking, “that’s easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there”, when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows.Or it will wash out the face details while the sun is overhead.
Overall, you are going to want to take most of the shots with the sun behind you.This eliminates any harsh shawows from effecting your shot from the sun.There will be some times when you want to take shots from different angles when you do try to get some shadows into the shots.
Now that we know what to do during the day shots, what if you have to take some night shots?
The key to taking photos at night is turning off your flash.Of course if it is absolutely dark with no light you wil need it, but for times when there is some lighting, use the lighting around you, but make sure the shutter speeds are slow enough to let light in.Also, stay steady when you are taking your photograph or you will cause the picture to blur.Applying these couple of techniques will make a dramatic difference for those nights shots you take.
The third and final tip with using lighting to capture great photos is the golden hour. There is something photographers call the “golden hour” or magic hour, and that time is sunrise and sunset.
It is during this time of day when you will capture great shots that capture more warmer colors.You’ll be able to get that golden lighting that isn’t available during any other time of day.
There you go. Probably the biggest key in taking greatshots is to make sure you take advantage of the natural lighting. Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.
Tags: general, photographer, photography, wedding, wedding photographer