The one best piece of advice you've been given...

pinktrainers

pinktrainers

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I was talking to a friend of mine's dad a little while ago (who has been a photographer for decades) and he gave me the single best piece of advice I've ever been given on photography (specifically DSLR photography): he said "you have to shoot the same subject over and over and over until eventually, if you're lucky, you get one that's..." at which point I piped up and said "perfect!", to which he just shook his head and replied "no, one that's good enough".

This really put things into perspective for me - just how different shooting with a DSLR is from the P&S style I grew up with, and also how getting that great shot requires a great deal of patience.

So I'm just wondering if anyone else has any one simple piece of advice that has really stuck with them, I'm sure there's a lot of collective wisdom to be uncovered!
 
I have to say there have been two bits of advice (or rules) that I apply every time I use the camera:

1) Your shutter speed should always be greater than the focal length of the lens (even more so on crop bodies)

2) Always expose to the left - referring to your histogram and not over-exposing....

As my hands are not that steady, the first is really important for me, and until I understood the ETTL rule, I could never get on with landscapes.

Steve
 
"If you havent got a steady hand, get IS"
 
"you can NEVER take too many photos of the same thing" so basically same as you
 
Learn what not to light. Often the shadows can reveal more than the lit areas. :)
 
Jelster said:
I have to say there have been two bits of advice (or rules) that I apply every time I use the camera:

1) Your shutter speed should always be greater than the focal length of the lens (even more so on crop bodies)

2) Always expose to the left - referring to your histogram and not over-exposing....

As my hands are not that steady, the first is really important for me, and until I understood the ETTL rule, I could never get on with landscapes.

Steve
Click to expand...

Eek! I much prefer ETTRing. Especially on a noisy body like my old 1Ds... I didn't actually know ETTL was an accepted technique, and I never expose my histogram left of the center on purpose! Then again I don't shoot landscapes much.

Onto what the actual thread is about... the best piece of advice that I have learned is sometimes just to not press the shutter button. 50% of the time at least when I raise the camera to my face I don't actually take a photo, and for it I end up with less carp on my memory card.
 
"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." - Robert Capa.

Basically, fill the frame. Every last mm.
 
Jelster said:
I have to say there have been two bits of advice (or rules) that I apply every time I use the camera:

1) Your shutter speed should always be greater than the focal length of the lens (even more so on crop bodies)

2) Always expose to the left - referring to your histogram and not over-exposing....

As my hands are not that steady, the first is really important for me, and until I understood the ETTL rule, I could never get on with landscapes.

Steve
Click to expand...

Exposing to the left you say, I'm not so sure about that, I'd always expose to the right slightly since the highlights hold more detail? plus Images tend to get more noisy when you bump the exposure up in post rather than when pulling it down.
 
Be yourself!!!!!! and what you see as art is your vision of how art should be.....also please yourself not others......:clap:
 
Never eat that yellow snow;)
 
Be yourself!!!!!! and what you see as art is your vision of how art should be.....also please yourself not others......:clap:
 
Just to confirm, Exposing to the left, means NEVER letting your histogram hit the right hand edge (you're exposing to the left of the furthest right point)

Obviously, when shooting something against a very bright background, this is sometimes broken (bird against a bright sky for instance), but in basic portraiture and landscapes, it makes sense....

Steve
 
guys exposing to the left is a film thing ;) expose for the highlights and the shadows will sort out themselves

'here ya go, now don't **** it up' I try to live by don't **** it up and hopefully it'll make me a wee bitta money to go with some pretty good images
 
Interesting article on exposing to the right that may be of interest to some. Coincidently it was only yesterday I read this, hence why I could find it again... don't you hate that when you know the perfect web page is out there and you just can't remember how you found it?

On topic again - "Learn from your mistakes." has always been important to me. Applies to everything in life but I apply to to my photography especially. Take photo's, recognise faults and remember to avoid them in future. Slowly your images should become more refined and to a higher standard (I'm still waiting for it that part!).
 
HoppyUK said:
"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." - Robert Capa.

Basically, fill the frame. Every last mm.
Click to expand...

beat me to it...it's astonishingly accurate, almost without exception.

And don't let the above make you think 'omg I need to buy a 400mm lens....' quit worrying about gear. shoot with what you've got. IGNORE your lust for some new shiny thing, and just get out and shoot. Push comfort zones, experiment, be creative, force yourself to shoot in a manner that you control, rather than the (common on this forum) reportage type of 'shoot' where all that you control is where you point your camera and what settings you have got dialled in.
 
Jelster said:
Just to confirm, Exposing to the left, means NEVER letting your histogram hit the right hand edge (you're exposing to the left of the furthest right point)
Click to expand...

eeerm I dont think so :) why would anyone let the histogram go to either edge..

A good exposure is the histogram peaking in the middle.. expose to the right over exposes and expose to the left under exposes...

Personaly in poor lighting and using high ISO i always over expose as theres less noise in light colours :)
 
For Digital it's something that I've recently heard and have been playing with:

"Expose for the highlights and let the shadows look after themselves"

The opposite of film I believe!
 
KIPAX said:
A good exposure is the histogram peaking in the middle.. expose to the right over exposes and expose to the left under exposes...
Click to expand...
That really depends on what you're shooting. :)
 
KIPAX said:
eeerm I dont think so :) why would anyone let the histogram go to either edge..

A good exposure is the histogram peaking in the middle.. expose to the right over exposes and expose to the left under exposes...

Personaly in poor lighting and using high ISO i always over expose as theres less noise in light colours :)
Click to expand...

The definition of 'correct' exposure is elusive, and it depends a lot on your output. For JPEGs, the best exposure will probably deliver a histogram with a lump around the middle, as you say.

But if you want 'optimum' exposure, with as much image data as possible crammed on to the sesnor for the best image quality you can get, then shoot Raw and expose as far to the right as you dare. Right up to the edge, and even beyond it with highlights that need to be pure white anyway. (Tip - enable blinkies!)

The difference between the two can be around three stops! :eek: Seriously, three stops is not unusual and the difference really shows in the shadows.
 
Best advice - go back in time & set the camera to Manual.

'Modes' make life so easy in this day and age but you can't beat taking complete control and knowing why things are the way they are.

Even if you then use your camera modes - you have an understanding of what the camera is doing.
 
Harvey_nikon said:
For Digital it's something that I've recently heard and have been playing with:

"Expose for the highlights and let the shadows look after themselves"

The opposite of film I believe!
Click to expand...

That is the technique for film, slide film anyway. Basically the exposure suggested by an incident light meter reading.

It's different for negative film, and different again for digital.
 
'Take lots of pictures and try and fix what you're doing wrong'

Digital makes this a lot easier to do on many levels, you can quickly see that there is a problem, you can see the settings that the camera was set at, and you can quickly take another picture when you've identified what went wrong. And once you have the camera, the memory card and battery, it only costs the price of re-charging the battery to take a picture. ;)

I've known people have new cameras for months and hardly take any pics. :eek: They go on courses to learn about photography, but don't take any pictures. They just won't learn that way, no matter how much they are told or shown. :bonk:

The trick is knowing that there is a problem, and understanding how to fix it. ;)


I stopped taking pictures all those years ago when I had a film camera because it was sooooo slow to progress. :(

Oh!, and the cost. :LOL:
 
"Stop using pre-sets, dial it to Manual and experiment with it, or you`ll never get to know your camera nor what you can get out of it and out of yourself ".
 
"Don't get into photography, its expensive!" I ignored it.

Thats proven true...
 
gingerjon said:
For every perfect piece of advice you've had someone else will have had a perfect piece of advice that contradicts it in every way.
Click to expand...

Agree! This thread is starting to prove that!! :shrug:
 
trencheel303 said:
Onto what the actual thread is about... the best piece of advice that I have learned is sometimes just to not press the shutter button. 50% of the time at least when I raise the camera to my face I don't actually take a photo, and for it I end up with less carp on my memory card.
Click to expand...

I've heard this summed up as "Don't try to take the photo that isn't there." As you say, it seriously cuts down on the wasted shots.
 
The thing that improved my photography the most was the advice to use the * button to focus. It did not feel right at first, but with practice it is now like second nature. It tends to be one of those things that gets discussed to death and then you don't seem to see it mentioned.

Graham
 
Mostly with regard to press and PR work:

Always take the photo: you only ever regret the ones you didn't take.
 
charge your batteries before you go out, and always BUT always carry a spare!!!
 
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