05 June 2009 ~ 0 Comments

Take Better Pictures with these Lighting Tips

In this age of digital cameras, you have probably thought that you can just point and shoot and out will appear a great shot.Hold on, don’t go 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.

I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills.  These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are all about the lighting and they will some of biggest reasons for you success in taking photographs.

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 can wash out the details in faces if the sun is overhead.

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

Now that we have addressed the shots during the day, what about those night shots? 

The trick to taking night shots is to turn off your flash.  Of course if it is pitch black you will need it, but for times when there is lighting, you want to use the lighting that is around, but you have to make sure you set your shutter speeds slower to let in enough light.Also, stay steady when you are taking your photograph or you will cause the picture to blur.  Doing these couple of tricks can make a dramatic difference when taking night shots. 

The final piece of advice to use for lighting is using the golden hour to capture great shots.  There is something photographers call the “golden hour” or magic hour, and that time is sunrise and sunset.

It is during this time of day when you will capture great shots that capture more warmer colors.You’re going to be able to capture the golden lighting you won’t find during any other part of the day.

There you have it.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.

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