Photo taken by the Burg and permission has been granted to use this shot under Creative Commons.
It’s funny but I tend to disagree. As a kid I used to walk around using my hands to frame a rectangle that way I would know what to take a picture of once I got my hands on my Dad’s Minolta Range Finder.
You have to first be able to see, know what you want to take. Frame it in your mind.
Then you need to know some very very basic things.
Don’t shoot into the sun.
You be the ZOOM: move around the subject, get real close…
Look at the background too. Try to spot funny faces, picture bombers, branches coming out of heads….
Take more than one shot. Luck in created in numbers. Photos you get from digital cameras with SD cards are cheap so shoot
Learn the Rule of Thirds, use it then try something completely different.
Of course you also need to know when to break all these rules.
If you do this with a P&S you will still get some great shots. But not every shot will be great, boy do I know that (Hence I’m a Web Developer). I love a quick shutter and an adjustable aperture, that’s why I bought my first K1000 (35mm) and my new K200d. But I am still learning about controlling light, 20 years on. The P&S did all of this for me so I could concentrate on the Frame.
These three pics are all taken on a Point and Shoot
This photo was taken with a Samsung 5M P&S whose tech name is far too long.
This photo was taken by Andrew Gullick a Montreal Flickr User. His shot is spectacular and taken with a Canon G9. Please click through to his Flickr profile and see some of the breathe taking shots he’s captured.
And finally this most recent shot taken by Fellow FatDad Schultzter:
Now when I want to take great pictures, I rely on the tools that I know will get me good results. The K200d with my old Pentax 50mm prime all glass and metal lens and a bounced flash like in this shot.
Could I of taken a better picture with a new lens, soft box or puffer given enough time and practice. Probably.
Pro Level Gear, processing and software should simply be tools to render that picture you framed in your eye to the one you deliver on paper/screen faster. Photoshop does cool stuff as a web developper, I use it daily. But rarely, very very rarely does it make a crap picture amazing.
But we all knew this. Right?
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The guts of this post were originally posted in a Flickr gorup by myself. Read the other takes on the Techniques and Gear here
