Basics- Round Two

Camera Settings
You don't need a fancy SLR (Single Lense Reflex) to take good photographs. It's all about learning to extract the best from your equipment. Here are a few things I recommend:

• Never use digital zoom. Turn it off if you can.
• Always shoot in program (P) mode if your camera has one. It's semi-automatic, makes all the setting decisions for you- but lets you customize to suit your needs. It's as easy as shooting in auto- so don't worry.
• This might seem strange right now, but never use your camera flash! You should only use your camear flash if you need to take photos in low light of a close objuct, or can't get an image without it being blurry.
• Trying shooting in the lowest ISO (Speed Range) without getting a blurry image.
• Never use on camera sharpening, saturation or contrast controls. These are much better done on the computer in the future.
• The above applies to black and white photos as well, it'll be much better to do it on your computer later on.

What are you photographing?
A good photograph will always require a certain amount of thought to go into it.
The first thing you should ask yourself is, what do you want to take a photograph of? If you're just taking a photo because it looks beautiful or interesting- what makes you think that? Is it the landscape it's in? The fact that it's off to the side? What catches your eye about it?
This helps you identify the key elements that you want to capture. Now, try to fit all the key elements into the frame of the photo. Also try to eliminate all unnecessary elements, which may distract the viewer from the main focus of the image.
Also, pay attention to the back ground- say you're taking a photo of a person. Do you really want a lamp post sticking out of their head? Either ask your subject to move, and if not possible- move yourself. If the key element in your photo is in the foreground (In the front of the photo), always try for a less cluttered background. If there is something obstructing your view, move closer or off to the side to keep it out of the photo.
Remember, when it comes to composition less is sometimes more. So don't take a wide picture, if you only want to focus attention on say- a person. That just wont have the same affect as if you moved a little closer, or zoomed and took the picture.

Rules of Photo Composition

Rule of Thirds

• The Rule of Thirds is based on the fact that the human eye is naturally drawn to a point about two-thirds up a page. Crop, zoom or focus your photo so that the main subjects are located around one of the intersection points rather than in the center of the image.
• Your landscapes will be optimally pleasing to the eye if you apply the Rule of Thirds when you place your horizon line.
  If the area of interest is land or water, the horizon line will usually be two-thirds up from the bottom. Alternately, if the sky is the area of emphasis, the horizon line may be one-third up from the bottom, leaving the sky to take up the top two-thirds of the picture.

Golden Section Rule

• It has been found that certain points in a picture's composition automatically attract the viewer's attention. Similarly, many natural or man-made objects and scenes with certain proportions (whether by chance or by design) automatically please us.
  To get a clearer sense of these special "Golden" composition points, imagine a picture divided into nine unequal parts with four lines. Each line is drawn so that the width of the resulting small part of the image relates to that of the big part exactly as the width of the whole image relates to the width of the big part. Points where the lines intersect are the "golden" points of the picture.

That's all for now Photography fanatics~