What are the most common mistakes made by beginner photographers? As a long-time photographic educator Peter Burian has seen his fair share. In the first of a new two part series, he names four common pitfalls and shares some useful tips to help you avoid them.
As smart as modern digital cameras are, taking great photos is never as simple as selecting your camera's 'auto' or 'program' mode, framing the shot and firing the shutter. Today's cameras are better than ever but there are limitations that determine what they can and cannot do. No camera can capture the same tonal range as your eye, for example. In a high contrast scene, say in the middle of the day, you might be able to make out plenty of detail in the highlight and shadow areas while your camera will render the same scene with overexposed highlights and/or underexposed shadows.
As a photographer you have some decisions to make. You might decide that the photo would work better if you reduced the exposure to capture the highlights, or bumped it up to reveal the shadows. Alternatively, you could choose to reframe the photo to minimise the contrast in the scene or shoot the scene at a time of day with less contrast, say early morning or late afternoon. Other options would be to add fill light (a reflector or an artificial light source to fill the shadows) or shoot an HDR (high dynamic range) image to increase tonal range. These are just some of the decisions – creative and technical – that experienced photographers make all the time. And few, if any, are covered by the reasoning capabilities of your camera's built-in software.
This can seem a daunting prospect when you're starting out in photography, particularly if you've been sold on the idea of a super camera that can produce perfect pictures in every situation. But a key part of becoming a better photographer is understanding that cameras have limitations, and there are ways to work around them.
As a photographic educator I've seen (and made) my fair share of photographic mistakes over the years. The following are the most common, with some strategies to help you avoid them!
01 EXCESSIVE CONTRAST
On days with harsh sunlight, images often exhibit extremely high contrast – murky shadow areas and ultra-bright highlight areas. Important subjects may be hidden in the shadows while light-toned areas can be too bright to retain detail or texture. This effect can be fixed with imaging software, but it takes a lot of expertise to do so while maintaining a natural-looking effect.
We've talked about some simple strategies to deal with high contrast but another approach is to set a low level for contrast in the camera's menu items. This override is usually provided in each of the picture styles such as Standard, Landscape and Portrait. Also, remember to activate the camera's dynamic range expansion (HDR) feature: DRO, Active D-Lighting, Shadow Adjustment Technology, Intelligent Exposure or Auto Lighting Optimiser.
More dramatic shadow lightening is possible if your camera has a High Dynamic Range feature, but that produces images with a distinct look. A low-contrast photo will seem flat and dull, but it's easy to boost contrast with any imaging software program.
There's a better alternative with nearby subjects, such as people posing in a garden. Use the 'Flash Always On' option to even out the lighting. (With many cameras, flash will always fire when it's in the up position or 'On' when you're using P, A, S or M mode.) The burst of extra light can moderate the contrast. Brightening (filling-in) shadows cast by a person's hat, by a tree or building, and so on. If the flash produces ultra-bright highlight areas, set the flash exposure compensation to -1 for gentler fill-in lighting.
In direct sunlight you can counter excessive contrast by choosing a low-contrast level in-camera (right). It's possible to fix an overly 'contrasty' image with software, but that can produce an artificial-looking effect.
02 TOO MUCH NOISE
Noise can be a problem, especially in images shot at high ISOs. With most modern DSLRs noise starts to become an issue above ISO 3200. While all cameras provide noise reduction processing by default, there's only so much it can do and the problem is more pronounced in underexposed photos. When you lighten an image with software, the noise pattern will become very obvious.
All of the better cameras provide a menu item that allows for setting a desired level for high-ISO noise reduction. It may be tempting to set the maximum intensity to eliminate digital noise almost entirely, but that will produce an unnaturally "smooth" effect with blurring of fine detail. The best preventative measure is to make images that are well exposed.
If a photo seems too dark, set +2/3 exposure compensation and shoot it again. And check your ISO setting often. If you were shooting at ISO 6400 the night before, the photos you take the next day will be grainy. If you don't remember to reset it, set a lower level.
Tip: At any ISO above 1600, turn off the camera's dynamic range expansion feature. While an amenity such as Active D-Lighting can be useful at times, the process lightens mid-tone and shadow areas, making the digital noise pattern more prominent than usual.
This seriously underexposed ISO 6400 JPEG was lightened extensively in software (top) and that made the digital noise pattern particularly obvious as seen in the cropped portion (bottom). While the problem is not as serious when underexposure is minor, it's always worth making accurate exposures when shooting at ISO 800 and above.
03 THE WRONG PICTURE STYLE
The vast majority of the latest cameras provide picture styles or creative styles with levels adjustment not only for contrast, but also for sharpness and colour saturation. It's tempting to use the highest level provided because everyone loves “sharp, colourful pics". That's true in theory, but inappropriate settings can produce garish, unnatural images which will be difficult to fix even with expertise in Photoshop.
Imagine a portrait photo with unusually vibrant colours and extreme sharpness: the skin tones may resemble a boiled crayfish, while every wrinkle and imperfection is rendered in an exaggerated manner. This effect will occur to some extent when using the vivid or landscape style and it will be dramatic in any style if you set very high saturation and sharpness. A slight increase to either of these parameters can be useful for some city scenes and landscapes, but rarely so for 'people' pictures.
Tip: It's very simple to boost the richness of colours or the sharpness of an image to exactly the desired level for any type of subject with software. But it's very difficult to moderate saturation – and especially excessive sharpness – while retaining a natural-looking effect.
Before routinely switching to a picture style other than Standard, or activating the overrides, take some test shots with your camera. Take pictures of subjects you frequently photograph: people, landscapes, buildings, etc. Start by testing the colour saturation adjustment at low, medium and high level in Standard and Vivid Picture Style. Then take the same test shots with the sharpness and saturation at each available level, from very low to very high.
Review the images on a large computer monitor (not the small LCD), at normal size and at 100% magnification to visualise the exact effect that a sharpness level has produced. Especially look for extremely high sharpness which can create harsh, visible lines along edges or unflattering effects in a portrait photo. You'll find the Standard picture style works well for many scenes, occasionally with a slight increase in saturation.
For close-up 'people' pictures, you might decide to switch to portrait style since it provides softer contrast, saturation and sharpness for a more flattering effect.
While the default picture style (left) may not always produce punchy results, it's often preferable to excessively high colour saturation, contrast and sharpness (right). These aspects are very easy to boost in imaging software, but it's very difficult to moderate them while retaining a natural-looking effect.
04 FLASH RANGE EXCEEDED
All too often, I see people with digital cameras using flash for distant subjects. A flash unit simply doesn't provide adequate "reach" for a distant bride and groom during a ceremony or for athletes competing in a night football game, for instance. Also, even a large accessory flash gun can't light up the interior of a cathedral, castle or a cave.
Think about the effective range of your flash unit in any low-light situation. A built-in flash unit may have a range of three metres if you're using ISO 100 and a large hot-shoe flash may provide a range of seven metres.
Set ISO 400 to increase the effective flash range by about 50%. After taking a picture, check the image in the camera's monitor. If it's too dark, you may need to set ISO 3200 or even ISO 6400 to boost the sensitivity of the sensor. Of course, that will produce more noise. It's preferable to move closer to the subject, if that's possible, or to even shoot the scene without flash.
Every digital camera includes a "Flash Off" setting. (Often the flash will not fire if the built-in flash is down, when you're using P, A, S or M mode.) With very distant subjects, select this option. Set an ISO that's high enough to let you shoot at 1/15s or 1/30s if you don't have a tripod handy. Brace your elbows on something solid and activate the image stabiliser if that's available. Unless you want motion blur for creative effects, avoid trying to shoot a moving subject because it will be blurred by the long exposure.
Tip: With or without flash, some situations can be impossible to photograph effectively. Professional sports photographers working at an indoor sports event make great images because they can get close to the action, or they are using fast (expensive) lenses that can let in lots of light, or because they set up numerous remote flash units prior to their shoot. Learn to recognise a scene where you can't take good pictures. Put your camera away and simply enjoy the experience!
Top Shooting Mistakes... and How to Avoid Them (Part Two)
Article first published in Australian Photography + digital, July 2014.