There is a very unfortunate (and expensive) collective thought in the camera
owning fraternity that to improve your shots you should move up to expensive
camera bodies, extra lenses, 12 zillion pixels and then select “Great Shots” on
the Auto mode button. However, there is no camera made with an uploaded software
package to ensure “great shots” every time. “Great shots” are under your
command, not in the “Auto” setting on your camera.
Slow shutter speed with tripod.
An example of where the “Auto” setting can be at odds with
what the photographer wanted was brought home some time ago when a gentleman
wrote it with the following letter.
“Dear Harry,
A question for you regarding some disappointment. I recently
was a guest at a beautiful wedding, the reception was quite well lit so I
thought rather than use a flash and have everybody look like ghosts I would turn
the flash off.
What I had not taken into consideration was that the shutter
speed would be slower without the flash. Most of the photos were blurred, either
by me shaking, or the people I was photographing moving during the shot.
At least I am assuming that was the cause of the bad shots,
what is your opinion Harry?
Thanking you, Sunny,
Your assumption was spot on. The clever brain (or electronic
smarts) inside the camera knows that a certain Exposure Value (EV) is required
to produce correctly exposed shots. That EV has two variables, but which are
related directly to each other, and they are the size of the aperture and
shutter speed.
Now even though you felt the venue was well lit, and I do
often tell people to turn off the flash to stop the rabbit in the headlamps
look, that venue’s ambient lighting was not enough to get to the EV required
without some extreme values in aperture and shutter speed.
I will presume that you had the camera on full ‘auto’ and not
on Aperture Priority, but the result would have been around the same. The
electronic brain knows you can’t hand-hold at much slower than 1/30th second so
will try to use that shutter speed and open up the aperture to whatever is
needed to get the correct EV. That’s the theory.
However, when the camera runs out of aperture setting, then
all that is left for the camera brain to do is to adjust is the shutter speed
even further and its little electronic brain gives the camera an even slower
shutter speed, at which you cannot hand-hold. Blurred shots are the result.”
So the first simple way to improve your shots, is to still
turn off the flash in low light situations, but use a tripod to keep the camera
still. I carry a very small fold-up tripod which can sit on a table, on the
floor, or anywhere you can accommodate its three legs. Be careful when you
depress the shutter button that you don’t move the camera on the tripod, or the
tripod itself, or you have defeated the purpose in having a tripod.
The next way to add some of that elusive “greatness” to your
photographs is to remember and adhere to, the Rule of Thirds.
Simply, all this means is to make sure the subject is one
third in from either edge of the viewfinder. Just by placing your subject
off-center immediately drags your shot out of the “ordinary” basket. The
technocrats call this the “Rule of Thirds”, but just try putting the subjects
off-center. While still on the Rule of Thirds, don’t have the horizon slap bang
in the center of the picture either. Put it one third from the top or one third
from the bottom. As a rough rule of thumb, if the sky is interesting put more of
it in the picture, but if it is featureless blue or grey include less of it.
Simple!
The next item to be aware of is to make the subject the
“hero”. This just means that when you look at the photo, the subject leaps out
of the picture as obviously the “hero”. You do this by walking several meters
closer and making the subject fill the frame. Try it. It works!
