Skills for taking Good Quality Photos.

 

It's all about:

1/. The opportunity.

2/. What exactly are you shooting.

3/. The framing of your subject/s.

4/. Have a look at these examples.

 

What type of camera are you shooting with?

It could be a DLSR camera with a fixed lens, a wide angle lens, a telephoto lens.

It could be a compact camera.

It could even be a mobile phone !

Pentax K-1 DSLR Swapable lens up to 250mm	Lumix TZ9 zoom 28 -600mm zoom	Sony Cybsershot DSC-W830 25-200mm zoom
		Samsung Galaxy s10+ mobile phone with three cameras

No matter which of these you use, the rules of photography are the same:

1/. Decide exactly what you are going to photograph and decide what sort of background setting will you use and what don't you need.

2/. Frame the photograph. (Sort out what's needed and what is not needed to be in the picture).

3/. If you are photographing people ensure they are "in the frame" and not obscured in the distance. Avoid blurry main subjects. You can blur out the background if required, so long as your subject is in focus.

4/. When shooting it is preferable to use the landscape mode (wider area coverage), to fill the frame with a more interesting shot.

Verticals should only really be used for a portraits of one person or two, or when photographing something really vertical - such as a tall building (and then preferably also take a landscape shot to compliment). Avoid at all times vertical photos where a landscape shot would give better (more) detail.

The above especially applies to mobile phone photos which you want to move off your phone for displaying!

 

 

5/. Photographing people:

Ensure they are in focus and no tops of heads chopped off, as can be quite a common issue.

Your subjects do not have to be directly facing the camera, but they need to be identifiable. Backs of heads may be good for anonymity, but don't work well in a good personable photograph.

 

6/. Photographing inanimate objects, or landscapes.

Fill the frame with as much detail as needed. But leave out/crop out irrelevant objects, which will detract from the subject of the photograph.

7/. The Camera Controls for the DMZFZ200 Test of your knowledge.

There are 10 questions to look at:

1/. Where is the on/off switch located?

2/. What is the best programmable mode to shoot in?

3/. What setting do you select to shoot a video?

4/. Does video always need a tripod and why?

5/. I want to zoom to 150mm (remember the camera can zoom to 600mm), what do I do?

6/. I want a wide angle shot of 35mm (remember the camera shoots from 25mm), what do I do?

7/. It’s dark and I want a well lit photo of something fairly close by. What do I do?

8/. I want to playback my shots. What do I do?

9/. Should the camera lens be clean at all times and why?

10/. When using the camera how should I hold it?

11/. The camera straps, should they be on at all times, why?

12/. There is a red dot on top of the camera with a movie camera icon. What does this do?