15 ways you can improve your photography in a day

You don’t have to be a technology expert to take better pictures. The art of photography lies just as much in how you ‘see’ the world as how much you know about camera settings. So here are our top 15 tips for better photography that almost anyone can use. The more advanced your camera, the more control you’ll have over the settings, but in the end it’s the eye behind the camera that makes the difference…

1. Change your viewpoint
Don’t just shoot everything from head height. Try lying on the ground to get a worm’s eye view or getting up high on a balcony or a rooftop to look down on your subject. It can make everyday subjects look new and different.

2. Fill the foreground
If your subject is far away it can leave the foreground looking empty, so look for some interesting objects to fill it, such as a bed of flowers or a cafe table in a city scene, rocks in a landscape or a boat in a seaside scene.

3. Look for frames
Trying using natural frames for your photos, such as archways, doorways or windows. They can act as a kind of natural enclosure for your subject, whether it’s a portrait, a landscape or a photo of a landmark. It stops your viewers’ eyes from wandering out of the frame and subtly focuses attention on your subject.

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4. Shoot at night
The rule with digital camera is, if you can see it, you can photograph it! You can shoot city streets at night by bracing your camera against a wall or a table and using a high ISO, but it’s better still to get a tripod, set a low ISO for best quality and use the camera’s self-timer to fire the shutter so that you don’t jog it and blur the picture.

5. Move in closer
Don’t just take ‘long’ shots. Move in closer and fill the frame with your subjects. It doesn’t matter if you crop off the edges because this can give the picture even greater impact. Try this with patterns and textures, such as fruit on a market stall or brightly-coloured fabrics.

6. Change the exposure
Digital cameras can only estimate the correct exposure – they don’t know whether your subjects are intrinsically light or dark, or how you want the picture to look. So if your picture looks too light or too dark, use the EV compensation control to reduce or increase the exposure. You’re the one who knows what you want your pictures to look like, not the camera!

7. Watch your speed
Camera shake is the single biggest cause of failed photos, so watch your camera’s viewfinder or LCD for the shutter speed indication (you can switch on info displays on most cameras). A speed of 1/30sec or below is risky for hand-held shots, and with telephoto lenses you may need to shoot at 1/250sec or faster. If the light’s too dim for the camera to use these speeds, increase the ISO setting.

8. Capture movement
You can use shutter speeds creatively on cameras with shutter-priority or manual modes. Slow shutter speeds of around 1sec will blur moving water, and 10sec or more will blur pedestrians, and turn traffic at night into trails of light. All you need is a tripod and time to experiment.

9. Switch off the flash
If you’re taking pictures in sports stadiums, theatres or museums, turn off the flash! The only way to get well-lit, natural-looking shots is to increase the ISO setting and use whatever natural lighting there is. Besides, flash is annoying for other people – it’s why photography is banned in so many places.

10. Find your focus
You can’t always trust the camera to choose what to focus on. It might pick the object nearest the camera or whatever is in the centre of the frame, depending on the focus mode. Instead, on most models you can choose the focus point manually, moving it around the frame to position it over your subject.

11. Level it up
Nothing looks worse in landscape shots than a sloping horizon, but did you know keeping the camera level can also fix converging verticals in pictures of buildings? It’s tilting the camera upwards that makes the sides appear to lean in, so move further back, keep the camera level, and the problem is fixed!

12. Stand back for portraits
If you get too close to people when you take their pictures, you exaggerate the features closest to the camera – usually noses, but sometimes chins or foreheads! Instead, move further away and use a longer zoom setting. This produces a much more natural-looking perspective.

13. Choose your moment
If the sun’s gone behind a cloud, or some people are standing in the way of your picture, just wait. It sounds obvious, but a little patience can make all the difference between the perfect photo and a near miss. Photography isn’t just about choosing your subject – it’s about choosing your moment too.

14. Change the background
Don’t become so fixed on your subject that you overlook the background. It’s actually just as important, because it can either complement your subject perfectly, or ruin the picture. So take a few moments to change your position or zoom setting to find the perfect background before you press the shutter button.

15. Lock your settings
If the camera’s not focusing on the right thing or giving you the right exposure, reframe the shot until it does and half-press the shutter release – and keep it half-pressed – to lock the focus and exposure settings. Now reframe the picture how you want it and press the shutter button the rest of the way to take the picture. It’s a lot quicker than changing the focus or exposure settings manually!

Praveen Bhat

Praveen Bhat, fashion photographer, is more than somebody who takes good pictures; he has the Midas touch to make his models look their best artistically. Praveen's work with brand names like : 

Atlas, Conditions Apply, Ritu Wears, Femilla Fashions, Designer Jewellery by Ruhee Nanda, Lakhani Shoes, Gujranwala Jewellers, Designer Varsh Bajaj, KG collection by Designer Khushboo Gulati, Koga Collection by Designer Jenjum Gadi (WIFW), She n she, Bhanuni Collection by Designer jyoti verma (Dubai Fashion Week), Catu's Collection by Designer Navneet, Flu Jeans, Virsa Shervani, Roop Ji's, Anand Fashion's (Designer shoot for U.K), Kuvam, Adobe, Manhar, Kurta Palace, Yes Baby and many more..... Lakhani Shoes, Ritu Wears, Kuvam and also with some of the best designers in the industry is a reflection of his style, fashion and passion towards fashion photography.

Praveen's passion for photography goes back to his school days; though it was a hobby then he learnt manual processing and printing of black and white films from Mr. O.P. Sharma. In 2007, Praveen who by then had a promising career in the airlines industry, quit, and chose to take up photography professionally. Mr. Amitabh Bhattacharya (presently core faculty at APEX) trained him on the basics in photography.








Anyone who feels they are looking to learn more about the craft and science of photography should pay great attention to Praveen Bhat's work. His success comes from the fact he possesses the technical and artistic skills needed to create a valuable picture. Praveen is an extremely talented individual and has the tenacity to balance strategic thinking with effective tactical execution.

Praveen is very selective about the assignments he takes on; by demonstrating professionalism, simplicity and high integrity, he has established a lasting reputation along with respect toward his models and clients.

Praveen is now working on various international trends, techniques and lightings at his studio at Delhi (Noida). He strives towards making his mark in the international market considering the fact that fashion in India is growing rapidly with various international brands / designers coming to India.

What keeps Praveen going is the love and support he gets from his family and friends; they have been pillars of support as he strives towards his achieving his goal- 'to be the best in the fashion photography industry'.
FOR MORE
Praveen Bhat (Fashion & Advertising Photographer)www.praveenbhat.net http://www.pbase.com/praveenbhat

10 camera settings you don’t use (and which you probably should)

It’s easy to fall into a pattern when you take pictures, favouring some subjects and overlooking others, and sticking to the camera settings you know rather than experimenting with those you don’t. Sometimes it takes looking over your portfolio as a whole in your photo management software of choice to realise just what kind of a rut your photography is stuck in. But never fear – here are 10 shooting options you should explore in order to get the most from your camera and start breathing new life into your pictures…

1. Manual mode
Modern metering systems are so sophisticated you might imagine exposure is far too complicated to figure out manually. Not true! In fact it’s remarkably easy to estimate the exposure for any conditions manually – and you get to see the result on the LCD straight away, so it only takes a moment to tweak the settings and try again.

Switching to Manual mode has two big advantages:

1. You base your exposures on what you can see looks right, rather than what the camera’s exposure metering system imagines you want.
2. You can use a constant exposure for a series of shots taken in the same light, without the camera making unnecessary adjustments.

2. Daylight white balance
The camera’s auto white balance system tries to correct for different-coloured lighting to produce neutral-looking colours. Isn’t that what you want? Not always! Sometimes it’s the colour of the light that ‘makes’ the picture, especially with landscapes, and the last thing you want is for the camera to try to ‘fix’ it.

Instead, switch your camera to the Daylight preset. This fixes the colour correction values to match regular daylight, so that any changes in the light colour are recorded faithfully, such as the cool blue light of dawn or the warm golden tones of early evening.

3. Spot metering
Your camera’s Evaluative metering system does a good job of measuring the tones across the whole image and arriving at a good, compromise exposure. Often, though, it’s just one area of the frame that’s important, and that’swhere Spot metering mode comes into its own. It measures the light across a small area only and ignores the rest. This is often the only way to get the correct exposure with tricky subjects like spotlit performers on a stage, but it can be equally effective with everyday shots where your subject is in a different light to its surroundings.

4. Monochrome Picture Style
Picture Styles control the look of the picture saved by the camera, and almost all digital SLRs offer an equivalent. If you’re planning on making black and white photos, the Monochrome Picture Style is especially valuable because it enables you to see how your pictures are looking as you shoot them, and how to compose them more effectively when you’re working with shapes, light and shade rather than colour.

Shoot in your camera’s RAW+JPEG mode, and you’ll have one colour image (RAW) you can work on later, and a black and white shot (JPEG) that you can share straight away. On EOS digital SLRs, you can even apply ‘contrast’ filter effects using red, yellow or orange filters.

5. Use the self-timer for tripod shots
A tripod is great for keeping the camera still during long exposures, but that’s not much help if you jog it when you press the shutter button. The ideal solution is a remote release, but what if you don’t have one with you?

Simple – you just use the self-timer instead. 10 seconds, the usual self-timer delay, is rather a long time to wait, of course – but did you know you can change the delay to a shorter time, such as 2 seconds. That’s enough for any vibration to die down, but quick enough – hopefully – to catch your subject before it moves.

6. Program shift
In program AE mode, the camera selects the shutter speed and lens aperture combination automatically. If you want to choose either setting yourself, you’re usually advised to switch to the Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority modes instead.

But there’s a quicker way – your camera’s program shift function. If you don’t like the shutter/aperture combination, you use this to shift it in favour of smaller apertures or higher speeds. On Canon EOS cameras, you do this by turning the main control dial on program AE mode – simple!

7. Auto ISO
Auto ISO isn’t just for beginners. Normally you’d set the ISO manually to suit the conditions – low ISOs for best quality, for example, and high ISOs for hand-held shooting in poor light.

But this brings the risk of camera shake, if the ISO isn’t high enough, or excess noise if you’ve set it higher than it needs to be. This happens all too easily if you’re shooting in changing conditions and don’t have time to alter the settings.

This is where auto ISO comes into its own – the camera will use the lowest suitable ISO for the conditions and only increase it where necessary to avoid camera shake. You can usually set the maximum ISO you want the camera to use, if you’re concerned about quality.

8. AE lock button
On most cameras you can half-press the shutter button to lock the exposure, so that you can re-frame the shot and take the picture without the exposure changing. However, this also locks the focus, which isn’t always desirable.

So use the AE lock button on the back of the camera instead. This locks the exposure only. You can release the shutter button as you reframe the shot, then press it again when you’re ready to take the picture. The camera will re-focus on your subject, but keep the exposure you ‘locked’ – perfect for spot metering.

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