Friday, October 22, 2010

An Ounce of Prevention ...

A major lesson I've learned over the years is that it's far easier to take the "right" picture the first time, rather than try to fix a flawed picture. Here's an example:

Another example: Have you ever taken pictures of buildings, only to find that the buildings lean in? This commonly happens when you are too close to a building. You tilt the camera upward, and that's the result. While this can be corrected in Aperture, it's not always easy, and you can sometimes "lose" part of the picture. Two ways around this one: Use a wide-angle lens, or back up.

A really good one: Do you ever take pictures indoors, only to notice that your pictures have a yellowish/goldish tone to them? It's a white balance issue - nearly impossible to fix if you didn't shoot in RAW. It's so easy to prevent, though - change the white balance setting in your camera from Automatic to Tungsten. Voila! Problem solved.

Finally: Are your nighttime pictures too blurry? (I sound like an infomercial) This is because the camera is more sensitive to movement in low light. I used to lose hundreds of pictures this way. Salvaging them in a photo editor was impossible. A few things to try: Bump up the ISO (a setting on your camera), trying several settings because too high adds a lot of "noise", or set the camera down on a fixed surface (like I did for my Hershey photos), use a monopod, or go all out and use a tripod. You'll definitely see better results.

Most of these tips are realistic, and easy to include in your overall checklist. The end goal is to take the nicest pictures with the lowest level of effort. These tips have helped me for years.

Until Monday!


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