How To Take Better Photos With A DSLR?

Today’s question is from Connor who asks:

Question: How to take better photos with a DSLR?

After recently getting a new DSLR for the family.  My wife and I have made it a point to learn how to take better photos of our kids.  What are somethings to consider when taking photos of the kids?

Answer

We discuss the topics –

• Learn your camera equipment – Read the Manual!
• shutter speed, aperture and ISO
• Take photos everyday
• Take lots of photos
• Framing and composing
• Slow down and previsualize the photo
• Learn to read the light
• Simple post processing
• Using lightroom presets
• Keep your equipment simple
• Hold your camera properly
• Clean your equipment

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Hey Connor, thanks for your question.

Let’s start off with learning your camera equipment because really, this is the most simplest and most basic thing you could do with a new camera.

You’ve to learn what all the dials are, you’ve got to learn what all the buttons and menus do. Even if you don’t use them, you will down the track. You just need to know where everything is.

Learn your camera equipment – Read the Manual

To do that, other than playing with the camera is to actually read the manual. I know, boring, but you’ve got to do it. It’s one of those things where the manual will basically tell you how the manufacturer expects you to use their camera.

Same thing applies for anything, right? We’ve all got to read the manual if we want the optimum results here.

The manual also has other things such as troubleshooting tips, which are usually at the back of the book. It also talks about accessories. It even tells you, I know my manual, it even tells you how to hold the camera.

It’s one of those things where as much as we loathe reading manuals, you’ve just got to do it. What I find is looking at the index and just finding different topics that I want to learn about cuts at that boredom because after the first couple of chapters, you think, “What am I going to get?” Because it’s usually the most basic at the beginning. Yeah. Just skip to different chapters if you’re finding it a little bit boring. That way, hopefully, you will get something out of it.

Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO

As you’re getting out of auto mode, and you use the camera for a little while, auto will take you to a certain degree. Auto will take you to a certain point once the conditions become a little bit trickier or you want to get a little more creative, that’s when you need to know about the manual modes or the creative modes and then also knowing your shutter speed, aperture and ISO.

The ISO is how sensitive the sensor is to light. The lower ISO, which is you would generally use when it’s very bright, and the high ISO is when it’s quite dark like indoors, if you don’t want to use any flash or even with flash.

The aperture dictates how much light is coming through the actual lens. Also shutter speed, you use that to freeze your objects or say for instance, you got somebody running and if you have a high shutter speed, you will freeze the action. If you have a slow shutter speed, you’ll make the photo be blurry, maybe make it washed out because it’s allowing too much light in.

They all allow light basically into the camera. Changing one affects the others. What I do recommend is if you are going to change anything, you just change one of these at a time. Don’t change them all. Putting your shutter speed, then aperture and then maybe changing ISO, maybe that could be one way you can try.

What I do recommend though is once you are comfortable and you want to get out of auto mode, go to YouTube, type in “Shutter speed, aperture and ISO,” and there is going to be stacks of videos that you can visually see how to … By changing these settings, what actually comes from them. That’s something you can do when you become a bit more comfortable.

Take photos everyday

It doesn’t matter if it’s your digital SLR or your mobile phone, you’ve got to take photos everyday. This will help your mind get used to taking photos and just reading situations.

You don’t want boring photos of the kids looking straight at the camera going, “Cheese.” You do them everyday, right? You do them at birthday parties. What you want to and to take better photos of the family would be to take natural candid photos.

If your kids see you take photos everyday, they won’t even think about it. It would become an everyday thing. Therefore, you’ll get more natural photos. You’ll blend into the background. When they hear a shutter go, they won’t even turn around. In the beginning, they will. They go, “Oh, you’re taking my photo.”

Then they’ll put the hands up or they’ll act silly. Hey, maybe they’re photos you want. Taking photos everyday is important, good way to document the family. It’s something that I try to do myself and making a book at the end of all the photos is quite nice.

Take lots of photos

Now, next will be is take lots of photos. Now, taking photos everyday is one thing but taking lots of photos when you are taking photos is very important. Think of it this way, you know when we take a photo of a group of people?

You go, “All right. Everybody, look towards the camera.” You take the photo. There is for some silly reason, someone is looking away. Eyes are closed, their mouths have got some weird teeth hanging out. It’s one of those things where you don’t want photo, right. They move on. You’ve just got that photo that just doesn’t look like.

What I recommend is maybe taking two or three photos of the same object. Now, that works quite well if you’ve got a group of people. What happens if you’re taking at a scene?

Say for instance, you’re taking a photo of a landscape. There is this ugly pole on the way. Well, if you just put your camera up and you take it, then you review on the back of your LCD and you go, “You know what? There is a lamp post here.

Let’s just move to the side.” You move to the side. Then when you say that you move to the side, and you go, “Hang on. The photo looks slightly different. It’s looking a little bit more pleasing, a little bit better to the eye.” Well then maybe changing your angle. Maybe getting lower or getting higher.

Still taking photos of the same thing but you’re doing it slightly different every single time. I’m not saying to take the same photo five times exactly the same way.

Change it slightly and see how your photos will come out. I bet you that you’ll get a lot more keepers. You’ll be a lot happier with the photos, that’s for sure.

Framing and composing

The next would be framing and composing your photos. As I’ve just briefly mentioned about objects that we don’t want in our photo, that’s the decision that you’re making before you actually press the shutter button.

It’s going to make or break your photo. If you take one photo and then you see that okay, there is somebody bangs straight in the middle. Put him to the side, just off the centre will make the photo a little bit more pleasing to our eye. Not too sure why that happens, but it’s just how it is.

That’s where the rule of thirds comes into play. Just like a tic-tac-toe board where the lines intersect. If you can imagine that on a rectangle, and placing your objects of interest on those lines where they intersect will get you a bit more pleasing photos. Now, it’s not to say that everything has to be done like that. But you need to try that first and then compose your photo and see what works best.

Once again, as you can see, all these elements I’ve mentioned, they all interlink with each other. I’ve taken more photos of the same object. Well, maybe recompose. Try something different or if there is something distracting, well then turn the camera away. You’ve just got to keep on taking more and more photos.

Slow down and previsualize the photo

The next is slowing down and pre-visualizing the photo. This is quite important because if you’re just taking a photo, put your camera up, take the photo and then you move on. You’re just taking a snapshot, literally. You’re not really giving any thoughts. Hey, anybody can do that.

If you give it a little bit more thought and compose a little bit better, maybe take two or three photos of the same scene that you’re thinking, “Okay. Well, if I take it from this angle or if I go a little bit higher or a little bit lower, well then, you can also use pre-visualizing as well, I’m taking this photo and I’m picturing as black and white.” Well, black and white works on lightness and darkness or contrast.

If your photo is full of lots of dark, well then it’s not really going to be a nice photo or it it’s very white, it may not turn out that well. Pre-visualizing of how you want the photos to be will help you slow down and it won’t just get you to basically shoot and pray.

Shooting thousands of photos and hopefully you get one. We don’t want that. We want even though we’re taking lots of photos, we want to make them all count. Well, most of them count.

That’s something you should be thinking about every time you take a photo. The more photos you take, especially if we’re taking photos everyday, it’s going to become so natural.

You know that, “Okay. I’m going to take a photo. Then I’m going to a side or I’m going to get lower or a bit higher,” or you know where to place someone because of your previous experience.

Learn to read the light

The next would be to learn to read the lights. Now, photography is all about light. Okay. It’s basically Greek word that means writing with light. If you have good lights, good quality lights and the colour of light have all make or break your photo. They all, I guess, are important as each other. Good quality light because, an example would be, say for instance I’m in a darkly lit room with one light that’s a tungsten light.

Well, everything is going to be blue. It’s just going to look wrong, right? It’s not a good quality light. Yes, it’s a different coloured light but it’s not really desirable if you want to take pictures of, say, your kids. Now, if you want to get a certain feel and you want to use the blue to your advantage, yeah, that’s fine. You can do that.

Good quality light, say for instance, middle of the day, very harsh, intense bright light. You can still take photos in bright sunlight. You’re using shaded areas or using reflectors to get rid of some of the lights is one way.

Beginning of the day, in the afternoon, nice golden warm lights. A light is not harsh but it’s also soft. The warmth of the orange and the yellows puts a nice little glow on our skin.

Even if we’ve got pasty skin, it’s nice little warm, like you’re kissed by the sunlight. It’s really really nice. Bring the kids out to the park.

Maybe get them to play and chasing around each other, seeing what happens when you have the light in front, when the sun is to your back or the sun is towards their back. See the different types of results that you get from there.

The thing about reading light is it’s one of those things. You’ve just got to keep on taking photos. When you look at your photos after, you can go, “Okay. Well, now I know that if I put my kids in shaded areas, this is the results. If I put them right next to a window …” One of my favourite things to do is getting sliding door windows.

Putting kids in front of that and so your back is towards the window and they’re facing you, gorgeous. The light that hits their face because it’s such a big light source is really nice and pleasing. It’s soft and makes any crappy photos look good. It’s really good. It’s one of the things that when I take photos inside, it’s the first thing I do. Come and stand here.

Even everyone else is in the other side of the room, they’ve got to stand where I want them to. That way you get really really nice pictures. Then you won’t be disappointed.

Using lightroom presets

The next would be simple post-processing. Look, I know there is all these presets that are out there. They say there is a … One click preset means that if you’re in Light Room, and basically you’re clicking one button and it does it all for you.

Well, that does work to a certain point. When presets are designed, they are designed in such a way where they’re using a sample photo. That sample photo has a certain exposure, as well as other elements. Using that reference photo, if your photo is not close that, then your results, from that preset is going to be different.

Full disclaimer, I actually sell presets myself. I sell a system of presets where there are one click presets so to speak. I always say to people, “They’re a good starting point.” You apply the preset and then you make adjustments. That’s why it’s very important to know about exposure, knowing how to make your photo light and dark, adding a little bit of contrast, adding a little bit of sharpening, knowing about highlights. When you’re outside and there is parts of if it’s a white shirt or parts of people in the face and it’s quite bright, well, that’s a highlight. Knowing what to do with a slider to make that come back to normal is very very important.

Simple post processing

Keeping your post-processing simple. If you can have a well-exposed photo in nice pleasing light, your post-processing is going to be cut to almost nothing because what I generally do is just a simple lightening or darkening of the photo, may crop a little bit more because of the lens that I had that didn’t quite allow me to get closer or I was just too far away physically.

Then adding a little bit of sharpening, a bit of contrast. I think really that’s it. I don’t do too much of my photos. The photos come across quite natural.

That’s the look that I go for. If you want to apply presets, that’s cool.

It’s a great way to learning. But you should learn what changes the presets are making so you can mimic those yourself. Therefore, understand what the software is doing to your photos.

Keep your equipment simple

The next would be keeping your equipment simple. I know that you’ve only just started. You may only have one lens or two lens.

If I’m photographing my family, I usually use one lens. I don’t sit there and changing lenses because I’m going to miss moments.

If you just one have lens, one camera body, and you just quickly take photos of the family that way, it’s actually quite … Well, it’s quite liberating because you don’t have all this extra equipment to think about. You can concentrate on the actual subject, okay. It could be the kids. It could be landscape. It could be anything really.

Keeping it simple to one camera lens and one camera, and if you are shooting the kids, or actually photographing, I shouldn’t say shooting. You are photographing the kids, put it into burst mode. I said before, take multiple photos.

Sometimes kids can be quite quick. Put it into burst mode and keeping your finger down for four or five photos, and then picking the one that you like because they’re moving very fast is one way of getting some nice photos.

Hold your camera properly

This is actually very important. We all should learn how to hold the camera properly because it stops camera shake.

Quality of photos will elevate once we can get nice sharp photos. Standing up, and if you can put your body to 90 degrees to the actual subject and then have your feet at 90 degrees, and then using your arms up against your body, your torso.

Then obviously, holding the camera body with one hand. Then the lens, sorry, the hand that’s holding the lens is to cup the bottom of the lens. Don’t hold the top, but cup the bottom of the lens.

What this does is you’re stabilising the lens and you can zoom that way if you have a zoom lens. By putting your elbows towards your torso, you’re anchoring yourself by putting your feet at 90-degree angles, like a shorter width apart.

You’re 90 degrees to the actual subject, you’re anchoring yourself. Also, before you’re about to take the photo, hold your breath. Don’t … Then really hold as if you’re doing a deep sea dive. Just breathe normally and then just hold your breath for a split second as you’re pressing the button and then release because if you’re breathing while you’re actually pressing the shutter and you’re taking multiple photos, well, as you’re breathing, the camera will go up and down because your lungs will be moving your arms because they’re anchored towards your torso.

Clean your equipment

Lastly, clean your equipments. Just like anything, if you want it to function properly, keeping the lens clean, the front and the back elements.

Don’t change your lenses in a windy, sandy area. Most cameras come with a sensor cleaning mode on their camera. Use that. If you really need to get it done properly, then obviously, you can get it done professionally or even you can buy a kit online. It’s one of those things where you’ve got to do it regularly for your camera to function correctly.

The same thing applies to your mobile phone. Man, how many times have you pulled out your phone and you’ve taken a photo and you go, “Wow, it’s not so sharp.” I bet if you look at your lens on your mobile phone, there is all lints and who knows what else is stuck from your pocket or a ladies’ handbag.” That’s my tips there. I hope they give you something to think about.

You and your wife enjoy photography because it really is a wonderful thing, and especially if you’re photographing the family. It’s very very important to take multiple photos everyday if you can. These are the times that we need to cherish our kids as they grow up, and doing something to the photos.

Printing your photos

Create an album. It’s very easy to go and use Blurb.com Upload your photos using their software. In a few days’ time, you have this beautiful album that you guys would cherish or even printing canvasses, go down a local store, print a canvass. Frame it. Good on for you getting a your Digital SLR camera. I hope those tips help you out. If you have a question or you …