8 ms·

This is very nice. A lot of good information! But for beginners I believe there are just two simple rules that help a lot to create nice pictures: * Rule Of T

by pasta 8y ago

This is very nice. A lot of good information! But for beginners I believe there are just two simple rules that help a lot to create nice pictures: * Rule Of Thirds (most camera's have an option to turn this on visually) * Give people room to look. So when someone is looking to the right, place them in the left of the picture so they have "room" to look to the right.

colanderman 8y ago
I would actually place one rule before those, and it's a purely technical one: Understand and embrace exposure compensation. If your camera doesn't give you rapid access to that control, get a new one. (Thankfully most cell phone cameras do these days.) 90% of crappy Facebook pictures could be made passable if the subjects were correctly exposed. Too often, bright or dark backgrounds are exposed as a dull grey, leaving subjects washed out or in shadow. If the scene is bright ("high key"), nudge that knob up so it looks bright. If the scene is dark ("low key"), nudge it down so it looks dark. This can completely change the dynamics of a photograph for the better, and will allow you to more readily focus on the aesthetic aspects of photography such as composition.
- pasta 8y ago
  I don't agree with you because great photographers can also create nice pictures with a cheap camera. But: I also agree with you that when you want to go a step further you can use things like exposure to express your feelings even more.
  - colanderman 8y ago
    But I'm not giving advice to "great photographers", I'm giving advice to beginners. It's kind of like saying, "a virtuoso can make beautiful music with an out-of-tune guitar". That's very true, but beginners should still tune their guitars. Feelings don't matter if you can't see the subject because your point and shoot exposed for the bright background. That's frustrating and gets in the way of producing a shot you're proud of (e.g. by using the framing techniques you suggest).
    - pasta 8y ago
      Yeah but a perfect exposed picture with a bad composition is still a bad picture. I think most cameras today create great picture quality in auto mode. Lime a guitar with autotune. But a perfectly tuned guitar can still be played bad. So I think there are 2 simple rules that will give you a nice simple song: rule of thirds and space to look.
      - colanderman 8y ago
        I disagree. While white balance, focus, and even flash control have improved to the point that beginners can safely ignore them to focus on composition, in my experience exposure compensation has lagged behind. Take SnapChat for example. It's a great gateway into photography, because it's fun and accessible. But god forbid you ever pose a subject against a white background. You're just looking at a grey mess with a dark blob in front of it. At least the camera app on my Motorola sprouted a compensation dial a couple years back. That made me very happy, and comfortable enough just to carry my phone around for casual photography. To mirror your reply, a perfectly composed picture where the subject is just a black blob against a generic blue sky exposed to middle grey is still a bad picture. I'm not disagreeing with your advice; but I don't think it's either-or.
- notyourday 8y ago
  Err.. that's not quite correct. Modern sensors gave the software enormous ability to extract details and do exposure compensation on shadows and only shadows in post processing, especially if the scene is stored in RAW format. There's however nothing that the sensors can do with the washed out highlights - that information is gone and no post processing can do anything about it. So the basic rule of shooting a scene that has brights and dark elements is to always underexpose to get the bright details in as it keep the option of bringing dark details out.
  - colanderman 8y ago
    My advice isn't targeted at photographers who know how to develop raws. I would expect they already know what exposure is, and if they don't, well, my advice applies equally well to development as shooting. Someone just getting started in the hobby is much better served by learning to turn a dial on their point-and-shoot than messing around with developing raws. Minimizing the turnaround time between shooting and results is crucial to promote development of aesthetic sense and appreciation for the hobby that is necessary to justify the investment in learning the development process.
- giobox 8y ago
  I used to embrace exposure compensation a lot more on older DSLRs, but the exposure latitude of modern camera RAW output is now so great you can easily fix an image exposure +/- one stop with little or no real perceivable loss of quality. Shoot RAW, worry about exposure nudges later. I'd say this is true pretty much of anything with a micro 4/3s or larger sensor since about 2013. Even supposedly unrecoverable washed out highlights are surprisingly recoverable on newer cameras. For sure there are exceptions (bright snow scenes for example), but it's rare I will touch the exposure comp dial today.
  - colanderman 8y ago
    Yes, if you're shooting RAW, you're past the point where the above advice is applicable. But there's a lot of people who don't (beginners, casual photographers who want something that looks better than Facebook selfies).
    - giobox 8y ago
      Perhaps, but to use the exposure comp dial effectively you need to know what an exposure "stop" is, which is a pretty complex concept if you are just a casual snapper, especially as it is inter-related to ISO/aperture/shutterspeed with changes in any one affecting the other two. This is probably why very few compact cameras even have a dedicated exposure comp dial, and virtually no OEM/standard cellphone camera apps expose this setting. If we are talking casual snappers nowadays we more often than not are referring to cellphone photographers, as the continuing collapse of the compact camera market illustrates. Exposure metering is pretty great nowadays anyway (even on modern cellphones like the Pixel/iPhone), I love how you can effectively spot meter on the iPhone just by touching anywhere on the viewfinder.
      - colanderman 8y ago
        Why would you need to know anything about stops? Just turn the dial up or down until the preview matches your experience. My phone's exposure dial doesn't even have markings. I agree that tap-for-spot-expose is nice, but insufficient if your subject should be bright or dark. E.g. taking a picture of a high- or low-key mural.
fastaguy88 8y ago
Before those two rules, I would put: * look at (and fill) the edges of the frame. Too often, we look at the part of the picture we are interested in (often the center), and ignore the empty/ugly space around it. Look at the edges, and the center will take care of itself.

by pasta 8y ago

colanderman 8y ago

I would actually place one rule before those, and it's a purely technical one: Understand and embrace exposure compensation. If your camera doesn't give you rapid access to that control, get a new one. (Thankfully most cell phone cameras do these days.) 90% of crappy Facebook pictures could be made passable if the subjects were correctly exposed. Too often, bright or dark backgrounds are exposed as a dull grey, leaving subjects washed out or in shadow. If the scene is bright ("high key"), nudge that knob up so it looks bright. If the scene is dark ("low key"), nudge it down so it looks dark. This can completely change the dynamics of a photograph for the better, and will allow you to more readily focus on the aesthetic aspects of photography such as composition.

pasta 8y ago
I don't agree with you because great photographers can also create nice pictures with a cheap camera. But: I also agree with you that when you want to go a step further you can use things like exposure to express your feelings even more.
- colanderman 8y ago
  But I'm not giving advice to "great photographers", I'm giving advice to beginners. It's kind of like saying, "a virtuoso can make beautiful music with an out-of-tune guitar". That's very true, but beginners should still tune their guitars. Feelings don't matter if you can't see the subject because your point and shoot exposed for the bright background. That's frustrating and gets in the way of producing a shot you're proud of (e.g. by using the framing techniques you suggest).
  - pasta 8y ago
    Yeah but a perfect exposed picture with a bad composition is still a bad picture. I think most cameras today create great picture quality in auto mode. Lime a guitar with autotune. But a perfectly tuned guitar can still be played bad. So I think there are 2 simple rules that will give you a nice simple song: rule of thirds and space to look.
    - colanderman 8y ago
      I disagree. While white balance, focus, and even flash control have improved to the point that beginners can safely ignore them to focus on composition, in my experience exposure compensation has lagged behind. Take SnapChat for example. It's a great gateway into photography, because it's fun and accessible. But god forbid you ever pose a subject against a white background. You're just looking at a grey mess with a dark blob in front of it. At least the camera app on my Motorola sprouted a compensation dial a couple years back. That made me very happy, and comfortable enough just to carry my phone around for casual photography. To mirror your reply, a perfectly composed picture where the subject is just a black blob against a generic blue sky exposed to middle grey is still a bad picture. I'm not disagreeing with your advice; but I don't think it's either-or.
notyourday 8y ago
Err.. that's not quite correct. Modern sensors gave the software enormous ability to extract details and do exposure compensation on shadows and only shadows in post processing, especially if the scene is stored in RAW format. There's however nothing that the sensors can do with the washed out highlights - that information is gone and no post processing can do anything about it. So the basic rule of shooting a scene that has brights and dark elements is to always underexpose to get the bright details in as it keep the option of bringing dark details out.
- colanderman 8y ago
  My advice isn't targeted at photographers who know how to develop raws. I would expect they already know what exposure is, and if they don't, well, my advice applies equally well to development as shooting. Someone just getting started in the hobby is much better served by learning to turn a dial on their point-and-shoot than messing around with developing raws. Minimizing the turnaround time between shooting and results is crucial to promote development of aesthetic sense and appreciation for the hobby that is necessary to justify the investment in learning the development process.
giobox 8y ago
I used to embrace exposure compensation a lot more on older DSLRs, but the exposure latitude of modern camera RAW output is now so great you can easily fix an image exposure +/- one stop with little or no real perceivable loss of quality. Shoot RAW, worry about exposure nudges later. I'd say this is true pretty much of anything with a micro 4/3s or larger sensor since about 2013. Even supposedly unrecoverable washed out highlights are surprisingly recoverable on newer cameras. For sure there are exceptions (bright snow scenes for example), but it's rare I will touch the exposure comp dial today.
- colanderman 8y ago
  Yes, if you're shooting RAW, you're past the point where the above advice is applicable. But there's a lot of people who don't (beginners, casual photographers who want something that looks better than Facebook selfies).
  - giobox 8y ago
    Perhaps, but to use the exposure comp dial effectively you need to know what an exposure "stop" is, which is a pretty complex concept if you are just a casual snapper, especially as it is inter-related to ISO/aperture/shutterspeed with changes in any one affecting the other two. This is probably why very few compact cameras even have a dedicated exposure comp dial, and virtually no OEM/standard cellphone camera apps expose this setting. If we are talking casual snappers nowadays we more often than not are referring to cellphone photographers, as the continuing collapse of the compact camera market illustrates. Exposure metering is pretty great nowadays anyway (even on modern cellphones like the Pixel/iPhone), I love how you can effectively spot meter on the iPhone just by touching anywhere on the viewfinder.
    - colanderman 8y ago
      Why would you need to know anything about stops? Just turn the dial up or down until the preview matches your experience. My phone's exposure dial doesn't even have markings. I agree that tap-for-spot-expose is nice, but insufficient if your subject should be bright or dark. E.g. taking a picture of a high- or low-key mural.

fastaguy88 8y ago

Before those two rules, I would put: * look at (and fill) the edges of the frame. Too often, we look at the part of the picture we are interested in (often the center), and ignore the empty/ugly space around it. Look at the edges, and the center will take care of itself.