Photography Tips and Tricks

My relation to photography is like that of a PhD student and its guide. Hate and Love! Almost anywhere I have travelled, my old DSLR camera has accompanied me but still, I haven’t spent a penny on purchasing a new camera or its accessories in over a decade.

The camera basics include understanding the usage of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, etc. But before familiarizing with these settings, one must learn to hold the camera properly.

I learned the basics of camera settings in 2006-07 so might be wrong at places. I recommend using aperture priority mode in most of the photography instances. This gives more control in letting the light-in to the sensor and with its combination with ISO, one can take bright photos even in low visibility areas. Moreover, if you keep the camera on shutter priority mode, even blood flow in your palm shakes up the camera while the shutter speed is slow.

ISO as it’s called determines the ability of film to respond to different intensities of light. So a higher ISO film will be more responsive to dim light whereas a low ISO shall be used in bright sun. It must be noted that increasing ISO also adds to grains in captured images, making the photo less appealing to the viewers. Naturally, this means that one must go with low ISO settings on cameras.

Depending on your camera model, one can buy different lenses such as telephoto or macro. These lenses have ability to take telescopic or microscopic images. There are various filters available in the market to protect your eyes and also capture photos in different modes/themes such as sepia etc. Photo editing is another ballgame, which I am not familiar with.

The lady is positioned at around 1/3rd from a side.

Once you are familiar with these features, the art behind capturing photos needs to be understood. There are certain tricks like a rule of third, which means that your subject should be located at one-third the distance from the side of the viewfinder. But, this necessarily is not universal as many portraits have people focused in the centre! So, it comes with some experience and your creative side, how you exploit this rule.

The cloud curvature is touching diagonally on the frame.

Also, it’s advisable to capture curves such that it meets the frame diagonally.

There are almost 3 background shades here and the ship is moving to the left.

If you are clicking a moving car, boat, etc then leave space in the direction in which they are going. While clicking nature, try to have 3 backgrounds split at 1/3rd distance in landscape mode.

Wires touching diagonally on the frame.

Other ideas that I have tried are to capture dancing feet, having contrast in the background and subject, reflection in the rainy season, silhouettes, street wires, etc.

Be creative and capture moments that you enjoy!