Ships 5-7 business daysWhen you have an artistic eye and spend hours on a shoot capturing what you’re certain will be amazing images, it can be extremely frustrating when you return to the studio and discover that your photos are nothing like what you saw with your physical eyes and creative vision. This is a common problem for photographers and easily addressed with a few tips that can help capture exactly what you see with your eyes and/or accurately portray your creative vision.
Frame the shot right
When you’re taking photographs, focus on what your eye finds interesting, this can be the position of elements or a specific object. Whatever you choose, frame your shot on what you feel is interesting and avoid capturing any background distractions in the shot. You want whoever looks at your image to see what’s in frame and to imagine what exists outside the frame.
Remember that camera lenses and eyes see differently
Your eyes are capable of a much higher dynamic range than your camera lens, which means you can clearly see a dark object against a light background. Your camera doesn’t possess that same dynamic range and this makes it almost impossible to capture exactly what your eyes see accurately. The camera can’t capture the extremes of dark and light your eyes see so compensate for that by lightening the darks or darkening the lights, depending on what you want to expose properly. To lighten the dark you can use a reflector or fill flash to direct light. To darken the light, move the subject somewhere darker or use a reflector for shade.
Use the power of aperture settings
Aperture settings allow you to control the brightness and focus of the non-subject portions of your photos. A small aperture has a large F number and produces a deep depth of focus. A wide aperture has a small F number and creates a narrow depth of focus. Use a narrower aperture to keep more elements in the image in focus and have an evenly distributed exposure. To bring your subject out of the background noise, use a wide aperture.
Move around
Don’t rely solely on your camera’s zoom to adjust your composition, move around to get close or move away from your subject matter. When you physically move closer to your subject matter for the shot, your subject appears larger while enabling you to capture surroundings that zooming in with the lens usually cuts out. On the other hand, when you zoom in on the subject while moving further away, you can accurately capture the specific parts of the background you want. Both techniques of physically moving and adjusting zoom help your composition better represent what you see with your eyes.
Keep your camera handy
When you’re shooting or even when you’re just out exploring, you never know when the perfect opportunity to take a photograph will arise so keep your camera handy. During a shoot, set your camera to reasonable settings as you’re searching for the next great photo opportunity so you’re ready when it arrives. Sometimes great shot opportunities only last a few seconds and having your camera in hand, turned on and properly adjusted is essential.
Capturing images that truly represent what you see with your eyes takes practice and patience, but the effort is worth it when the images you see in the studio accurately represent your creative vision. Enhance the quality and impact of your photography with Baboo Digital’s wide selection of printing, mounting and framing services.
Featured image by Thomas Hawk
