Playing with light
Playing with different lighting conditions can improve your shots. For one, shoot with the sun at your back to get even lighting on your subject. This makes your subject front-lit, helping you avoid shadows on faces and bring out more detail. Sometimes you may not be able to change your stance, so look for a Canon camera that offers Intelligent Auto which automatically identifies a variety of different scenes and makes adjustments automatically from a bright sunny day, sunset or a cityscape at night. Learn more here.
Get Creative
Some of the best Keepers are found when you move out of Auto mode and take advantage of your Canon PowerShot’s capabilities. To do this, you don’t have to move to full manual settings, but can try shooting with aperture-priority mode helping you to put your subject in focus and achieve a blurred background or try shutter-priority helping you to capture movement like a flowing waterfall. Learn more here.
Prevent red-eye – no longer ruin photos
Don’t you just hate when the perfect family snap is ruined by evil eyes? Webmaster, Drew, shares his knowledge on how to stop red-eye dominating photos.
What causes red-eye?
Red-eye is when a person’s pupils appear to be red in a photo. This occurs when using a camera flash when close to the person/animal in low light. This effect happens when the light of the flash occurs too fast to allow the pupil to close, and a large amount of the bright light passes into the eye through the pupil. The camera records this light, which shows as a red colour because of the blood at the back of the eye.
How to prevent red-eye
There are a few different ways to achieve a successful photograph that looks perfect and avoids the red-eye effect – it’s not so difficult when you know how.
1. Avoid looking at the lens
While this may not be achievable with animals, ask the subject of the photograph to look slightly to the left or right of the camera lens. This will mean that the light from the flash will not directly hit the back of the eye and the normal colours will be reflected back to the camera.
2. Double flash
A range of cameras come with a feature called red-eye removal and what this will do is make the flash go off twice. The first flash is to make your pupil close for the second shot, which occurs slightly after the first flash. If you do not have this feature on your camera, take two photos in quick succession.
3. Turn the flash off!
Many camera users have their flash automatically turned on. During the day, there is little reason to use a flash, especially inside. If taking a photo inside, turn the light on or open a curtain.
Want some more photography tips? Click YOURLifeChoices simple short cut.
Framing and Point of View
Add a new dimension to your photos just by choosing a new point-of-view. When possible, try shooting from ground level or from high up. Even small changes in perspective create big differences in the way things look.
The more you move around and look at your subjects from all angles, the better your chance of getting that Keeper. Try using your camera’s optical zoom to get in close and get a Keeper with a single, dominant subject that fills the frame. Learn more here
Rule of Thirds
Capture significantly better Keepers with this simple rule. It’s an easy way to create interesting, well-balanced shots. Just imagine lines that break the frame into thirds, horizontally and vertically. The points where these lines intersect identify four strong spots where you can place subjects and prominent features in your shot.
Any of these four spots can be used as a focal point to create a natural balance that’s more interesting than the actual centre of the frame. Learn more here
