Lighting Tips to Improve Your Photography Skills
In this day and age of digital cameras, you've probably heard or thought that all you have to do is push the button and great pictures magically appear.Hold on, don't go so fast. The truth is you can have the top of the line digital camera, but if you don't know what you are doing, you will take lousy shots.
I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills. These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer. These tips all involve lighting and they are going to be some of the biggest keys to your success in taking your photos.
First great tip in regards to lighting.Now if the shots you are taking are outdoors during the day, some of the best lighting possible will be the natural sunlight. Now you are probably thinking, "that's easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there", when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows.Or it could blur the details of faces when the sun is overhead.
Overall, most of the shots you are going to want to take with the sun behind you.This stops any harsh shadows in your photo caused by the sun.There will be some times when you want to take shots from different angles when you do try to get some shadows into the shots.
Now that we have tackled the day shots, what if you are taking shots at night?
The key to taking photos at night is turning off your flash. Of course if it is pitch black you will need it, but for times when there is lighting, you want to use the lighting that is around, but you have to make sure you set your shutter speeds slower to let in enough light.Another thing, make sure you keep a steady hand when you take your shot or you can blur the photos. Doing these couple of tricks can make a dramatic difference when taking night shots.
The final tips to using lighting for great shots is using the golden hour.Now there is a time that photographers refer to as the "golden hour" or "magic hour", and that is during sunrise and sunset.
These times of day you wll be able to capture great shots because you will get the more warmer and inviting colors.You'll be able to get that golden lighting that isn't available during any other time of day.
There you have it. Probably the biggest key in taking greatshots is to make sure you take advantage of the natural lighting. Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.
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