ok, as promised, i continue giving Jillian the photography tips, although i don’t see how can i teach anyone anything
Photography Tips
so i’ve promised Jillian some photography tips. there are quite a lot of different aspects but i myself am not an expert and not a good photographer at all. so i’ll try to do my best at giving you useful tips. i will separate them in several topics and tag as “tips”.
Basic Tip and maybe one of the most important ones: it’s not the camera, it’s you. imagine that your eye is a lens and your brain is a matrix and your hand is the shutter. you don’t need a super expensive camera to make a good shot. BUT you really need good lens to make this shot of a better quality. never fall for the cheapest lenses and never buy the most expensive ones. in the first case they are really really lame and dark, in the second - they are not worth it.
don’t forget that there are different lenses for different purposes. but from my personal experience i can tell that actually there is but one type of lens that fits every purpose i wish. it’s a single focal “fixed” lens. these lens have no zoom, and are made specially for portrait photography. but they are also great at landscape and sometimes even macro. but if you’re more of a reporter-photographer kind of person, you prefer to make quick action shots and/or you’re just lazy to take 2-3 heavy lens with you, then you have to use tele zoom lens. there is a huge difference between the picture quality, colours, light, bokeh and everything. usually photographers have all the types of lenses. not me. i’ve sold all my zoom lens. i use only fixed ones even when i travel. yep, i’m crazy, i change them while i’m running around the city or exhibition w/e it’s really awful and wrong and… hell do you think i care?
my favourite fixed lens are 85mm and 50mm - they are perfect to me. i use Nikon D700 and i use Carl Zeiss lens 85mm and i’m going to buy Zeiss 50mm instead of my broken Nikon 50mm. very important thing you should look out for when buying lens: plastic lens is a disaster. easily brakes, the focus ring is too fast and weak etc. i choose Zeiss because all their lens are metal, they are heavier than the camera itself but they are immortal. they are a bit more expensive than Nikon’s same lens simply for the reason of the materials they are made of. the quality is quite the same. although i prefer Zeiss bokeh and i got used to their hard focusing rings, so i never use autofocus - i always focus manually. it’s not that easy sometimes, but the results are much better although Nikon cameras have a wonderful autofocus system.
always remember that digital cameras have a huge variety of automatic options that can ease your life so very much. there are several modes that allow you to change some or all the options available in your camera. always read your manual carefully, there are loads of useful tips. it’s like i’ve been taking photographs for 5 years already but i never knew i could make a multiple exposure (will talk of it some next time) or w/e before i decided to open my manual for the first time. it was some kind of a revelation to me, lol.
and of course there is a magical little helper named Photoshop or Lightroom or Capture or whatever software you use on your computer. never give up photography if you’re not satisfied with the results. it’s a matter of time and practice. at first you will have to make quite a lot of corrections and changes via Ps. but the more you practice the better your shot would be the less you will have to use any software. but you shouldn’t stick to filters and effects, they won’t do you any good if you’re up to learn how to make your shots really good.
well i guess i will think harder next time and come up with something more useful than that. to be continued…
