Educations Portal

In this day and age of digital cameras, you’ve probably heard or thought that all you have to do is push the button and great pictures magically appear.  Not so fast.  The truth is you can have the top of the line digital camera, but if you don’t know what you are doing, you will take lousy shots.

Well, I would like to share with you some great tips on improving your digital photography skills.  These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are about using lighting and they will be some of the best advice and keys to your success in taking great photos.

First tip you will use in regards to lighting.Now if the shots you will take are going to be outdoors during the day, the natural sunlight will be some of the best lighting possible.  Now you are probably thinking, “that’s easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there”, when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows.Or it could blur the details of faces when the sun is overhead.

Overall, you are going to want to take most of the shots with the sun behind you.This stops any harsh shadows in your photo caused by the sun.  But there will be some instances when you want to try different angles when you are trying to get some shadows into the shots.

Now that we have tackled the day shots, what if you are taking shots at night? 

The trick to taking night shots is to turn off your flash.Now if it is pictch black, of course you will need it, but if there are some lighting, use it, but make sure the shutter speeds are slower to let the light in.Also, stay steady when you are taking your photograph or you will cause the picture to blur.Doing these tricks should make a significantly dramatic difference when you take night shots. 

The third and final tip with using lighting to capture great photos is the golden hour.Now there is a time that photographers refer to as the “golden hour” or “magic hour”, and that is during sunrise and sunset.

It is during this time of day when you will capture great shots that capture more warmer colors.You’ll be able to get that golden lighting that isn’t available during any other time of day.

There you go.Probably the biggest secret in taking great photographs is taking advantage of the natural lighting.  Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.