Tips You Had to Learn that Nobody Taught You

[unpopular]

What are some of the helpful tips that you had to figure out, but nobody ever bothered to teach you? These can be either artistic or technical.

For me, it would have to be how to familiarize yourself with camera latitude. The way I did it was to take a photo of a light fixture, increasing exposure until the bulb over exposed, and then decreasing exposure until it under exposed. Doing this, I had a better notion of how my camera handles hilights, because I tend to meter off the hilights, this was very useful information.

 

[KmH]

Never piss into the wind. Doh!

Why do you meter the highlights?

 

[kundalini]

Don't step on Superman's cape.


It only took a couple of times, but remove the lens cover before you start shooting.

 

[spacefuzz]

That people opinions are just thier opinions, and that shouldnt keep you from going out to shoot.

 

[imagemaker46]

When standing on the sidelines shooting professional football pay attention to everything, don't let anyone stand behind you, backing up quickly can help prevent a great deal of pain. I've seen too many photographers learn this the hard way. Hockey pucks and baseballs arrive a lot faster when you don't pay attention.

 

[flea77]

In sports, when the ball is in play (or javelin, etc etc) and the players/refs are looking at you, RUN!

Allan

 

[MissCream]

Don't keep shooting whatever you are shooting with the intent of fixing something that is wrong in PP, fix it during the shoot... May seem obvious but when I first started I always felt so rushed I wouldn't take the time to fix the little things.

 

[oldmacman]

Actually listening to critique and implementing good advice into your work. I guess that's a way of saying develop thick skin because it will help your photography. If you can look back in a month and see improvement, that's a good thing.

 

[amberandhercamera]

Remember to look behind you when backing up to get the "right" shot. Especially when you are near a set of cement stairs. Whole wedding party watched as I fell backwards down 5-6 steps. Managed to hold my camera safe... The rest of my body not so much.

 

[unpopular]

Why do you meter the highlights?

When I first started taking digital photos, I was never quite sure how to expose. I went back and asked some of my past mentors and college professors, but I never quite got a satisfactory answer. While with film exposure techniques are pretty well established, digital photographers often are confused about where to meter from. As a result, the spot meter is often neglected or under-utilized. My first approach was to treat it like b/w zone system, thinking of curves as development time, but then I started learning more about the advantages of "exposure to the right of the histogram". This technique encourages the photographer to over expose as much as possible, and then compensate in post. The technique provides as much light as possible to enter the sensor such that useful information is more likely to drown out noise. As a result, I slowly started approaching digital photography more like color slide film.


Certainly I could meter at the mid-tones and expose uncompensated, or I could expose at the shadows and stop down three times. However, if I did that, the exposure might be "good", at least according to the histogram, but the data would not necessarily be. Depending on the scene, such an exposure might be a bit noisier and less flexible as a result of decreased signal to noise ratio, especially in the shadows. Overall S/NR would decrease than if I increased exposure. This is why many photographers "expose to the right".

Because I know my camera can handle hilights four and two thirds stops above meter without blowing out, placing hilights at EV +4.6 ensure that the exposure is pushed as far as possible to the right of the histogram without blowing out. Consistently, even one third stop more exposure will result in blown out hilights.

Likewise, because zones IIX through IX are placed at the outer limits of my camera's latitude, any shadows at this point that block up would be beyond my equipment's capability. I could provide more exposure to obtain greater shadow detail, but doing so the hilights would then blow out. The only solution would be to take multiple exposures and combine them.

(I'm sometimes not so great at explaining this stuff, if you have any questions, feel free to PM me)

 

[mishele]

You don't always need a plan when you are going out to shoot!! Just go!! Great things can happen!!

 

[KmH]

Remember to look behind you when backing up to get the "right" shot. Especially when you are near a set of cement stairs. Whole wedding party watched as I fell backwards down 5-6 steps. Managed to hold my camera safe... The rest of my body not so much.

Fighter pilots call it situational awareness:

‪Wedding Photographer Falls Into Water Fountain‬‏ - YouTube

Know your venue.........

 

[Compaq]

Discover that the thing on one of the tripod legs weren't something used to measure the correct size of the tool used to tighten the knobs on the legs, but the tool itself.

 

[tom beard]

Thirty years ago, I was invited to shoot with an important professional photographer. We shot many frames and he taught me a lot. It was like a one student master class. When I got home, I rewound the film, opened the camera back. There was no film there. I had forgotten to load the camera! He later asked me how my photos came out. I had to tell him the truth. Now, thirty years later, when ever I pick up my camera to start a shoot, I get red-faced again. Tom Beard

 

[helloyo53]

Make sure to change the WB setting according to the light around you (if you are not shooting RAW). I've made the mistake of shooting in tungsten one day then going outside a different day, and, using the same WB at tungsten, taking some pictures. Needless to say, the photos looked like an LSD trip (not that I would know what one is like).