Are you frustrated with your photos?
You are not alone! There are 4 common photography frustrations I hear from people, over and over again. They all have solutions. And the beautiful thing? Solve it for one photo and you are on your way to solving it for all of your photos!
One simple Ikea light is enough to capture an indoor image.
There Just Isn’t Enough Light In My House & I Don’t Want To Use Flash
Photography is light. You’ve got to have it. When you find yourself indoors and want to to create a photo, you have a few choices:
- Increase your camera’s ISO
- Add more light with lamps and other lights in your home
- Meter for the light on your subject’s face from a television, computer, or other electronic device
- Use your flash (I know you said you didn’t want to…but sometimes it is the best answer)
Shutter speed is TOO slow. Do you recognize the three lovely ladies?
Every Photo I Take Is Blurry! Is My Camera Broken?
Shutter speed. Shutter speed. Shutter speed. When your photos are blurry, it is almost always a shutter speed issue. Either your shutter speed is too slow to stop your subject’s motion or too slow to be hand held.
Keep these rules of thumb in mind:
- 1/125th of a second stops most everyday movement
- 1/500th of a second stops most children’s movement
- 1/1000 of a second stops most runners, bikes, and cars
Don’t forget the reciprocal length of your lens rule to avoid camera shake. And here are a few more ways to get sharp photos!
White balance as the camera sees it and white balance corrected.
All Of My Indoor Photos Are Ugly Yellow!
What your eye sees and what the camera sees are not the same. Your eye naturally adjusts the color of light that it sees. Your camera shows you the truth. To avoid having the ugly yellow cast on your indoor photos you have a few choices:
- Adjust your white balance setting for the light you are in
- Shoot in RAW and set your white balance in post-processing. You can adjust your white balance with a JPEG image, but you won’t have the accuracy of RAW
Select your focus point so the camera doesn’t get it wrong!
My Camera Focuses Behind My Subject, Not On My Subject. Ugh
Ah. Focus. It is so frustrating to think you have it right only to discover after the fact that your camera focused on the wall instead of your sweet little one’s eyes.
Here are a few things to consider to get the best focus:
- Use your middle focus point for the most control
- Select the focus point directly over the area you want in focus
- Avoid letting the camera choose your focus point. It doesn’t choose wisely
- Make sure you have enough light on your subject to obtain focus