Place your subject off-centre
I mentioned above about ‘centring’. “… centring the subject in the viewfinder may not result in it being centred for the lens, this will result in an off-centre final picture, not that this can be a bad thing”.
Rather than placing your main subject in the centre of the photograph, place it to one side and ensure something interesting and relevant is in the background that fills the remainder of the space. For example, if photographing a kiddie opening a birthday present, frame them to one side and have unopened presents or other kiddies at a birthday party filling the rest of the photo. Experiment.
There are a couple of guidelines that can help you place your subject in the frame, the most common being...
The Rule of Thirds
One of the most common guidelines in photography is the "Rule of Thirds". It is a simple guide that can add, to your photos, an interest and dynamism.
When composing your shot, mentally divide the image into thirds horizontally and vertically, place important elements either along these lines or where the lines cross instead of in the middle of the frame.
It's a simple guide rule and will result in balanced, easy on the eye pictures. Having said that, the "Rule of Thirds" is one of the rules you'll often want to break. Which is good, as it is what everybody follows and sometimes you will find a better photo results from ignoring the rules and experimenting.
Take photos by the truck load
Deleting photos in the camera is one of the major benefits of digital photography and you should exploit this to the maximum.
Unlike film, there aren't hours and money spent developing films to see what results have been captured, it's all instant.
Take more photos than you need and then delete the ones that aren't what you want or like. Keep moving, changing the angle of attack or how much of your subject fills the frame; sometimes just the smallest change of angle can have the biggest impact on the final photograph.
Deleting on a regular basis not only keeps the best, it also ensures you don't need a big, expensive, memory card as you will not be storing your multitudes of image files.
This is also a useful habit to get into when photographing children or groups. With a large number of people, there is always someone with their eyes closed or checking their clothing. A lot of shots lets you filter the dross and keep the best.
The majority of digital cameras have a continuous shooting or 'sports' mode, where many shots are taken in rapid succession.
It's important to remember, when taking a photo, there is often a short delay between you pressing the button and when the shutter fires. This delay is caused by the shutterspeed, aperture and white balance regulating themselves. It may also mean the action has finished by the time the shutter actually releases, such as the kiddie blowing out candles on a cake, and you’ve missed the moment.
With Continuous Shooting you can take a sequence of shots and then sort through them to keep just the good one. This can be useful in any shots of children, groups or animals as well as sporting action, which will be covered in other sections, and is a long established practice, even in film photography. Experiment.
I mentioned above about ‘centring’. “… centring the subject in the viewfinder may not result in it being centred for the lens, this will result in an off-centre final picture, not that this can be a bad thing”.
Rather than placing your main subject in the centre of the photograph, place it to one side and ensure something interesting and relevant is in the background that fills the remainder of the space. For example, if photographing a kiddie opening a birthday present, frame them to one side and have unopened presents or other kiddies at a birthday party filling the rest of the photo. Experiment.
There are a couple of guidelines that can help you place your subject in the frame, the most common being...
The Rule of Thirds
One of the most common guidelines in photography is the "Rule of Thirds". It is a simple guide that can add, to your photos, an interest and dynamism.
When composing your shot, mentally divide the image into thirds horizontally and vertically, place important elements either along these lines or where the lines cross instead of in the middle of the frame.
It's a simple guide rule and will result in balanced, easy on the eye pictures. Having said that, the "Rule of Thirds" is one of the rules you'll often want to break. Which is good, as it is what everybody follows and sometimes you will find a better photo results from ignoring the rules and experimenting.
Take photos by the truck load
Deleting photos in the camera is one of the major benefits of digital photography and you should exploit this to the maximum.
Unlike film, there aren't hours and money spent developing films to see what results have been captured, it's all instant.
Take more photos than you need and then delete the ones that aren't what you want or like. Keep moving, changing the angle of attack or how much of your subject fills the frame; sometimes just the smallest change of angle can have the biggest impact on the final photograph.
Deleting on a regular basis not only keeps the best, it also ensures you don't need a big, expensive, memory card as you will not be storing your multitudes of image files.
This is also a useful habit to get into when photographing children or groups. With a large number of people, there is always someone with their eyes closed or checking their clothing. A lot of shots lets you filter the dross and keep the best.
The majority of digital cameras have a continuous shooting or 'sports' mode, where many shots are taken in rapid succession.
It's important to remember, when taking a photo, there is often a short delay between you pressing the button and when the shutter fires. This delay is caused by the shutterspeed, aperture and white balance regulating themselves. It may also mean the action has finished by the time the shutter actually releases, such as the kiddie blowing out candles on a cake, and you’ve missed the moment.
With Continuous Shooting you can take a sequence of shots and then sort through them to keep just the good one. This can be useful in any shots of children, groups or animals as well as sporting action, which will be covered in other sections, and is a long established practice, even in film photography. Experiment.
HINTS & TIPS
THE ABSOLUTE BASICS 2
THE ABSOLUTE BASICS 2
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Fig.1 Joe Centred
Fig.2 Joe Off Centre
Terry O'Donnell
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