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135 Comments
- cr4ft, on 04/30/2008, -6/+79Kevin could submit a video wiping his ass and it'll become popular, nonetheless I still dugg this
- CalipsoII, on 04/30/2008, -3/+62Everyone who read this comment and immediately thought dirty things, raise your hand.
- diggleague, on 04/30/2008, -6/+49(1) Perspective - I don't think that can be emphasized enough. So many people are just programmed to get the subject in the shot, and shoot. It is amazing how much better adding angles or unorthodox views can make a photo look. Normal perspective is the telltale sign of an amateur.
- TJ11240, on 04/30/2008, -7/+46Tips were great, photo examples were mediocre
- DeskFlyer, on 04/30/2008, -0/+35"The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it." -Ansel Adams
- seantubridy, on 04/30/2008, -5/+32Stop with the HDR.
- brycelb, on 04/30/2008, -0/+23I have to say, this is one of the better "how to take better photos" articles I have read. If I could add one thing (which I think is more important than all the rest" it would be, CONTENT. If you focus on improving, or in some cases actually thinking about, your content, your images will improve dramatically. Every great photographer thinks about content first and uses "technique" to deliver that content.
- PolarBearCa, on 04/30/2008, -1/+19I half agree with you and half disagree.
I THINK what you might be trying to say is "Point and Shoot Digital Camera". Using a digital SLR camera, and setting it to Manual mode, is one of the best ways to learn photography in this day and age.
And I find it staggeringly unbelievable that you think that you should believe that you should take FEWER shots. That's just plain wrong-headed. If you can fill your 10 GB card with photos, that's not a bad thing. A substantial part of the art of photography is going back to look at what you took pictures of, and selecting what worked and what didn't. With Digital you have extra benefits - EXIF data shows what settings you used or changed, and tells you what you may have done wrong - or even better, what you did correctly so you can repeat it in future.
In the past, photographers would shoot dozens of rolls of film and hope to get a few good pics out of them. They had to waste a LOT of film and developing chemicals to get a few good shots, which they would then print. There was a substantial amount of expense and a certain level of waste involved. With digital, that is no longer a factor: whatever space and battery power you have determines how many shots you can take, and those that don't work out are just data files which can be deleted. I don't know what "waste" you are referring to exactly, because if you are suggesting that digital image files are wasteful, then you really need to get offline and stop wasting the same valuable resources by posting messages to public forums.
There are a few useful tips in the article, but for the most part it IS pretty cliché. I would never recommend using a Polaroid camera for learning anything - I'm not even going to go any further than to point out the extremely ***** image quality produced by low-grade optics.
Get rid of the point and shoot cameras of any ilk, 110 film, Polaroid or APS... they will not teach you about photography at all.
Instead get an SLR of some form, preferably digital, and learn to use it on manual. Learn to use the light metering capabilities, when to use grain by upping the ISO and when to avoid it, learn to tell the difference between a good, sharp, well composed image and a snapshot. Read some photography books, and study the master photographers of the past, and most of all decide on what YOUR visual style is going to be through experimentation.
Forget about trying to find 21 steps that will make you an expert... that's the biggest problem with the state of photography on the web today. Everyone can get a cheap digicam and start throwing them up online, and there are enough ass-kissers out there to make them feel like experts. Taking a few pics may be photography, but it doesn't make you a photographer. - meshman, on 04/30/2008, -0/+14"Add some movement to an image by shaking the camera or moving around to add some motion blur to subjects that are standing still or stationary."
Sadly, most of my photos turn out this way. - groundzerofilms, on 04/30/2008, -4/+17Light painting makes photography badass!
- Duggan360, on 04/30/2008, -1/+14I really hope i that you did this on purpose
- DeathJux, on 04/30/2008, -0/+12My two biggest pieces of advice from my years of shooting:
Practice and Peer Review.
Just get out there and shoot shoot shoot and just over time you will start to figure out what works best and what looks best. Once you get back with a bunch of shots, reduce them down to your best (which, for me, is usually 1 out of 8 or so) and then join Flickr or another forum of photography enthusiasts and get critiqued. I have improved drastically in the past two years through these two major points of interest. - Wrathernaut, on 04/30/2008, -2/+14Makes it look just like a trendy commercial nowadays.
- yourmightyruler, on 04/30/2008, -1/+10No, stop using HDR when it's not needed or necessary.
- sgtbutterscotch, on 04/30/2008, -3/+11I thought it said "21 Ways to Shoot Better Photographers." This was definitely a let down...
- schaufel, on 04/30/2008, -8/+16Hopefully none of you take these tips too seriously. These tips are as cliche'd as some of the article's photographs. And the recommendation to use a digital camera to learn photography? That is as absolutely backwards as you can get. Photography is best learned on a basic 35mm camera with no extra functions, that way you're forced to learn about shutter speeds and aperture settings and f-stops and how a camera REALLY works. It also encourages you NOT to waste by encouraging you to take a good photograph the first time, not by taking 16,000 shots with your digital and it's 10GB memory card, hoping for three good images.
- spiffytech, on 04/30/2008, -0/+7I agree that not bombarding new photographers with lots of functions and features is good for learning the basics, but film has severe disadvantages with regards to experimentation that prevent me from recommending it over digital for new users. Many times as I was learning with film cameras I got back from the lab with two dozen black or white images because I didn't understand lighting, or blurry images because I didn't understand shutter speeds and exposure times.
It wasn't until I got a digital camera that this changed because I became able to notice what situations produced these results and experiment with camera settings and technique to counteract them on the spot. It's much easier to learn if you can correct after three mistakes and get good shots thenafter then to correct after each set of 24 mistakes and figure out what went wrong after the fact.
It's not wasteful to use the large capacities of digital cameras. What's wasted? You only accelerate your learning as you get to try out many different techniques at once and see which you should persue before leaving the scene. Isn't the usual advice to just take lots of photos? - raeshao, on 04/30/2008, -2/+9Stop butchering HDR. Using the technique correctly provides completely different results than the wacky pics most people associate with HDR. Most people just flatten the image into an odd looking, unrealistic mess.
- inactive, on 04/30/2008, -1/+7Thank goodness this did not suggest HDR.
- HxChris91, on 04/30/2008, -2/+8Now if only Kevin would buy us all cameras...
- badtothebone, on 04/30/2008, -0/+6So myspace pictures are really high art?
- xbrok3nxfairyx, on 04/30/2008, -0/+5I prefer film. I think it takes more skill to develop and print your own photos, and as far as the dust is concerned, you just have to know how to make a good print. Plus you can always spot tone photos, once again it takes skill to do that, spot toning can also ***** up prints more then helping them. Also anyone can point and shoot with a digital and i think that photoshop is sometimes over used and overdone. plus there are really sweet things you can do with flim such as double expose and sandwich negatives to make a double image. also there are some really cool cameras that have 3-9 lenses in different variations of arragments. check out lomo cameras or color splash cameras, they are pretty fun. and i feel that digital takes out the excitment of seeing how your picture came out. shooting with film makes people more careful of what they are shooting and the content and composition become more intentional.
- YanSan, on 04/30/2008, -1/+6well depends on the look you are going for. for a vintage look, nothing beats using a vintage film camera. i have also heard some people still use film because you can enlarge them better.
- coheedcollapse, on 04/30/2008, -1/+5I agree completely. Polaroid/lomo is absolutely not the way to go when it comes to learning photography nor is digital. I started with an old film camera my grandpa gave me and worked on from there. Now I use digital, but in almost all instances I think hard about composition and shoot in single shot mode even if I have the ability to shoot 1,000 photos.
The tips are at least PARTIALLY decent for an absolute beginner (other than freaking shaking the camera to create your own motion blur- that's stupid), the photos demonstrating them are absolutely horrible. - TheBanditKing, on 04/30/2008, -0/+4Oh come on, surely there are plenty of people who buy digital cameras, get interested in photography, get a DSLR, then figure out how to get off the auto setting. its a bit generalising to think that people who learn on film master the art while digital beginners never do. This is elitism, guys.
Give it ten years and we'll be awash with excellent proffesional photographers who've never touched a film camera. - charlie55, on 04/30/2008, -0/+4it seems like everyone already does this.
and it seems to me that what is interesting in a photo is too subjective for this to matter. i take a picture of what i like, and that is it. i dunno why i need to be told what is interesting. - coheedcollapse, on 04/30/2008, -0/+4I don't like to edit my photography, but I DO like digital because it's much MUCH more convenient. I'm a totalitarian when it comes to developing/unloading my photos, so the local Walgreens is out of the question. I don't have hours and hours of extra time so building my own dark room and developing my own stuff is out of the question. I love being able to go on a trip and never buy more film. It's just great.
Naysayers of digital are getting less and less to complain about as the technology progresses. You can blow digital up to almost anynormal proportion (I've blown my stuff to 20x30 with no problem, I can't see needing much more), and now, with improved sensors in the higher end stuff, you can go to ISO 1600 with very little loss of quality. - Mercedes383, on 04/30/2008, -0/+4I shoot film and digital and the film camera I use, which is a Bronica ETRS 645 medium format camera, has far more resolution than any digital camera except a digital back which cost over $25,000. The Bronica cost me $800.
- inactive, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3I spent a long time at a photography shop in a mall yesterday, just talking to the salesman as a college student who is thinking of going into photography. It was one amazing conversation, let me tell you !
But the best part was trying out a top-of-the line pro full-frame DSLR with the most expensive lens he had. It was fun :D - sholt, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3Perspective is just part of composition. A poorly composed image from a unique position/perspective is still a poorly composed image. Just as a well composed image from a normal perspective will always be a good image.
- gllopc, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3You win douchiest comment of the year - and it's only April.
- jakobmakob, on 04/30/2008, -2/+5Wow, I really couldn't disagree more. I think use of perspective to make an otherwise lame shot look "kinda neat" is pretty much the telltale sign of an amateur. Unless you were being sarcastic, in which case I totally missed the sarcasm.
- inactive, on 04/30/2008, -3/+6Digital FTW. While I feel terrible and like a poser saying that anything and everything can be fixed in photoshop, anything and everything CAN be fixed in Photoshop. With a film camera, something as simple as dust on the image sensor could kill an entire shoot because you probably wouldn't even know it's there until you print. With digital that same speck could be taken out digitally
- Lutremi, on 04/30/2008, -1/+4Who cares, it's still badass
- lukak, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3agreed. If you need to use hdr, go out and buy a graduated 3 stop ND filter like every other photographer on the planet. Or use negs. Just don't create that visual vomit and call it a f*cking photograph.
- gullevek, on 04/30/2008, -1/+4Thats wrong. double
a) if you shoot slide and you scan it, you will always do some post processing in photoshop. I always remove all the dust that way
b) if you do negative prints, in a pro lab, they get cleaned, etc
The only reason would be a dirty lens, a really dirt lens. With fungus inside, or a big scratch on the back element. And both have to be shot very stopped down. Most the time I don't see dust on the sensor because I shoot wide open. - Ellsass, on 11/05/2008, -0/+3No kidding. Ever heard of Autostitch?
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch ... - sassafras1232, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3HDR is like the massive overuse of filters that happened when photoshop first came out. It's interesting now, but after a few years everyone will realize what's going on and it will fade into just another "effect". Hopefully.
- pegothejerk, on 04/30/2008, -0/+3Essentially it's trying to get you to train yourself to constantly think about how the curves in normal every day objects (street lines, rocks, curbs, horizons, broken glass, wires) compare and contrast to straight lines around them (table, wall, shadows, light rays). Sorta like how your brain recognizes similiar parts when putting together a puzzle, but in a much more complex way. It will allow you to see shots you normally wouldn't find with your everyday eye. Eventually you will notice shots all the time, and wish you had your camera with you. Which leads me to add one more thing to that list: always have your camera on you. I carry a leather fossil city bag everywhere with it inside. I always will after learning how useful that is.
- innocentsinner, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2Same here. I'm just getting back into the hobby after buying an XTI. I -loved- my Canon AE-1, especially the way it felt in my hand, but film is just too much of a hassle. I tried convincing myself that it was still 'better' somehow, but failed miserably.
- blinkgreen, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2I can't believe how offensive some of these comments are to the person who wrote this article. I just want to say that this article is for people who aren't going to become photographers (or professional ones for that matter). This is for the everyday person who doesn't know shutter speed, f-stop, or even what a light meter is. This is just a way to make their photos a little more interesting.
That said, to those who talk about learning photography, there is no wrong or right way to learn. I am a photographer and I like to use all different techniques. Polaroid, Film (both true b/w and color), digital, etc. The problem is, there is no wrong or right way (just what is more appropriate). You just do whatever you feel what is right and not what some other person commenting on digg (or any other site) tells you to.
Also, the discussion about taking many photos compared to making the perfect shot. It totally depends on the situation and what you are using. You could be at an event and have a limited time, then shoot as much as you want (you can sometimes get great shots accidentally). But, if you are in a situation where you can control the subject and the lighting, then take your time and shoot in manual for better control. - lukak, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2Umm... "vintage look", "hand development" and "lack of excitement" are pretty weak arguments. From a photographer's point of view, the only benefit I see in film photography as opposed to digital is the fact you can pull 3 or more stops from colour or black and white negs(depending on the film, iso etc). At least 3 stops over in negs and about 2 stops under in trannies. Sure, go ahead and try to beat that with digital instead of making a super-fake impossibly coloured and detailed HDR. It's the versatility in film that makes me still use it. that said, Digital has it's place in the studio.
- Metasquares, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2In the end, no one is going to know whether you took 1 shot or 1,000 - all they will see is the photo you post. Given this, I think you would want to take more shots rather than fewer.
And manual modes on DSLRs have the same settings as 35mm cameras, as far as I'm aware. - TheBanditKing, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2Actually you're getting buried for arrogance...better examples?
boring photos - coheedcollapse, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2Over exposure has nothing to do with blur and more to do with letting too much light hit the flim/sensor resulting in a washed out, white photo.
I really disagree with his camera shaking tip. Capturing motion by taking a photo of a fast moving object is great, creating your own blur is tacky and ugly in almost all instances. - inactive, on 04/30/2008, -1/+3Unless your scene has very high dynamic range (the sun in the background of a relatively dark subject, for example), then HDR isn't even necessary.
- inactive, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2I am so glad you are being dugg down.
Apart from making your photos look like they were run through an emboss filter, I bet you have no idea what HDR is for, without looking it up. - gedden, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2I agree with all the low tech people, I played around allot with a few digital slrs, but I just got a pentax k1000 and it's love. Oh that sound.
- MrSlumberjack, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2Your logic is kind of flawed. Saying that digital is not good for learning photography because "most people never care to take it off auto" is irrelevant. The people who are motivated enough to learn the specifics of using manual settings WILL actually take it off auto. Its also sort of like saying that you can't learn how to drive a car with an automatic transmission.
The idea that you can't call yourself a photographer unless you know how to develop and print your own ***** is absolutely silly. Today you can be a professional digital photographer and have incredible product if you know what you are doing, and at the same time have little or no experience with a film camera.
Also, you should not have to use film in order to encourage you to take more careful shots and not be wasteful of film. You can be just as careful with your shooting using a digital and at the same time have the freedom of not worrying about being wasteful.
And yes, if you throw a beginner behind an $8000 digital camera and another beginner behind a beginner's 35mm film camera, the one with the 35mm will have an easier time. This is like saying if you put a 16 year old in a ford escort and another 16 year old in a Formula 1 racecar, the one in the escort will have an easier time learning how to drive. - AGHatecraft, on 04/30/2008, -0/+2I have to disaree, and I prefer the look of film. Digital is not easier if you do it right. In fact, I find that it takes me far longer to work on my digital files than it ever did with my film stuff. Sure, digital is easier and faster if you let the camera and software make all the decisions for you, but then you just get what the machines want rather than what you want. To make beatiful digital photos takes every bit as much work as did film photos.
I love how film purists like to downplay the digital workflow simply because they have never really gotten deep in to it. White a digital sensor may never instantly create the richness that film gives us, we as photographers have far more creative freedom since the advent of digital. Sure, people go overboard with photoshop, but people can overdo processing in the darkroom too. In the end, it's nearly all the same. They both just have their own visual quality. Film, in most cases, has better DR, tonal transitions, and a more natural look from an analogue grain stucture, but digital is cheaper in the long run, more flexible, and a little more mobile (IMO). -
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