5 Beginner Photography Tips 2021
Are you looking for ways to improve your photography skills? Whether you've just picked up your first camera or whether you're just looking to improve your photography, these tips are for you!
Keep in mind that, photography is an art best-practiced every day. While these photography tips can help, the quickest way to get better at photography is to implement them and shoot photos every day.
Let's get into the 5 photography tips;
- Use a wide aperture to isolate your subject from any shot.
- Look to improve your photography compositions skills by using a tripod.
- Shoot in RAW format.
- Shoot at sunrise and sunset.
- Learn the 3 basic camera settings.
1. Use a wide aperture to isolate your subject from any shot.
Our first photography tip for you is to open up that aperture to isolate your subject from the image. When taking photos, the aperture is one of the three main camera settings you can control. The aperture is a set of blades that open and close to let light pass through the lens and onto the sensor. The lower the aperture, f1.4, f1.8, f2.0... the shallower the focus plane will be. This gives you that dreamy out-of-focus background blur a lot of photographers chase. This gives you really good subject isolation and makes your subject 'pop' out of the image.
2. Look to improve your photography compositions skills by using a tripod.
As a beginner photographer, it can be fund to run around handheld and take your photos. If you want to know what it takes to take a good photo though, you will need to slow down and take your time setting up the composition of your shot. The best way to do this is to use a tripod. When using a tripod to improve your photography, you will be forced to slow down and take more time in setting up the composition of your shot. Here are a few things to look out for when composing your shot.
- Leading lines
- Reflections
- Random objects in your image
- Lens compression
- Foreground and background elements
- interesting subject frames
The Lightroom Presets I edit every photo with!
3. Shoot in RAW format.
Our third beginner photography tip is to shoot in RAW format. What is RAW format you ask? A RAW image is an image file that contains unprocessed or minimally processed data from a digital camera’s sensor giving you close to a clean sensor readout from your camera. This gives you a lot more information in your shots when it comes to editing. The RAW images are larger but, if you can store them I would highly recommend shooting in RAW because your final image will come out a lot cleaner and give you a lot more control when adjusting and editing.
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4. Shoot at sunrise and sunset.
Shooting at sunrise and sunset, or golden hour as it is referred to is key for improving your photography. The golden light you get at sunrise and sunset is usually the best lighting conditions for most landscapes and is the best natural lighting conditions for our skin tones. Just shooting at sunrise or sunset will improve your photography skill as it will teach you how to work with natural, golden light and how to shoot with a time limit.
5. Learn the 3 basic camera settings.
Learning the 3 basic camera settings is crucial for improving your photography. You must learn how to shoot manually as this teaches you how your camera settings affect the shots you take. If you haven't already, switch your camera into manual mode and start playing around with the Shutter Speed, Aperture and, ISO to see what results you are getting. If you haven't already read our article about the 3 basic camera settings, you can do so here
I hope those photography tips helped you out in your journey to become a better photographer. If you are interested you can learn more about photography on our blog or on my Tiktok account, both you can find linked.
If you are looking to upgrade some of your photography gear, here is what gear I use to take all of my photographs.