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30 tips for perfect pics
Put an end to disappointing snaps and learn how to get the most of your camera's features with our top 30 tips on avoiding photo blunders
In years gone by, photo labs would put quality-control stickers on sloppy pictures with helpful tips on how to avoid making the same mistake in the future. These days, digital cameras and photo printers create the potential for a whole new generation of errors, and there's no photo lab to help out.
Back in the days of film, autofocus was a comparatively young technology, white balance hadn't been invented and ISO was simply the speed rating on the film carton. However, the digital revolution brings with it a whole new raft of new things to think about. And it doesn't mean the old issues have disappeared either; you still get fingers over lenses, slanted horizons and telegraph poles growing out of people's heads.
The good news is that you don't need those white-coated photo lab boffins and their stickers. Not when you're armed with our top tips for avoiding 30 common photo problems.
1. Camera shake
In poor light, the camera has to expose the image sensor to light for longer. And when you use a shutter speed (the length of time the sensor is exposed for) greater than 1/30th of a second, you're entering camera shake territory. There are three things you can do here. First, you can increase the ISO (sensitivity), which will shorten the shutter speed. Try bracing the camera against a wall or a door frame. Better still, use a tripod (although that's not always practical, of course). You can put your camera on a flat surface and then use the self-timer to fire the shutter rather than pressing it with your button and risk jogging the camera.
It's advisable to switch off your camera's flash when shooting at shows or exhibitions, but you may need to increase the ISO to avoid camera shake.
2. Automatic flash
Your camera's built-in flash is designed to provide additional light when there isn't enough of the natural sort. However, this may not always be ideal. Flash is best reserved for emergencies, and you should do without it when you can. It doesn't just spoil the natural lighting, it can leave you red-faced at public ceremonies or sporting events. Your camera is probably set up to fire the flash automatically. You need to cycle through the flash modes until you get to 'off' - most cameras will retain this setting even when you turn them off.
3. Slanting horizons
The human eye is very sensitive to slight changes in angles which it expects to be dead level, like horizons in landscapes or, even worse, a seascape - after all, water's not supposed to be on a slope. You're more likely to get the horizon level if you use the LCD screen on the rear rather than the viewfinder - although this doesn't apply to digital SLRs. Better still, see if your camera has an option to display gridlines on the display. It's also easy to tilt the camera inadvertently when pressing the shutter so even though the shot was level on the LCD, it's slanted in the saved image.
Even slight tilts in the horizon can stick out like a sore thumb so, take your time when composing shots and make sure they're straight on the LCD.
4. Rampant red-eye
Red-eye ruins shots of people and pets alike. It is caused by a combination of flash intensity and the fact that the flash tube is on almost the same axis as the camera lens. Some cameras have anti-red-eye modes which fire off a series of 'pre-flashes' to make the subject's irises close, but that means your subject has to keep still. It's better to switch this off and fix red-eye on your computer - Photoshop Elements 4, for example, can automatically detect and fix red-eye as you import your pictures. Some new cameras from HP and Nikon can detect and remove red-eye in-camera, as the image is processed and saved.
5. Grey snow syndrome
Snow is meant to be a brilliant white. But cameras don't know this, and judge brightness by rendering what's in front of the camera as a standard grey tone. If you are photographing a bright subject - one that is bright-toned, not just well-illuminated - you need to use your camera's Exposure Value (EV) compensation option to increase the exposure, typically by 0.7-1EV. If your camera has this function, its manual should explain how to do this. Changing the EV like this forces the camera to overexpose the scene, and reproduce snow and other light subjects as bright as they are in real life.
6. Indoor lighting
Artificial indoor light has a strong yellow/orange colour compared with ordinary daylight, and while your camera's auto white balance will, in theory, attempt to compensate for this, in practice it never goes far enough. Instead, choose the tungsten or incandescent white balance preset for domestic lighting, or fluorescent for offices. You'll be amazed at the difference it makes to your pictures. If this still doesn't produce satisfactorily neutral-looking colours, your camera will probably have a manual white balance option. To use this, you simply take a calibration shot of a white (or grey) card under the same lighting.
7. Pictures too small
What should you do if you run out of space on your memory card? There are two ways to produce smaller files and it's essential to choose the right one. It's best not to choose a smaller image size, which reduces the number of pixels in the saved image, as you won't then be able to print full-size enlargements without the images appearing pixellated. It's better to stick to the maximum image size but choose a lower quality setting. This does produce some image degradation, but you'll only see it under heavy magnification and it's better than shooting smaller images.
8. Bleached highlights
Digital cameras produce clearer, sharper and punchier shots than most traditional film cameras, but they do have a weakness. The can only record a limited brightness or dynamic range. You may sometimes find the skies in landscapes bleach out to a featureless white, or that brightly-lit 'hotspots' in a portrait shot lose all colour and tone. The solution is to be more careful about the exposure, or switch your camera's metering system from the standard multi-pattern mode which measures exposure at lots of different places on the picture, and may overexpose brighter parts, to the cruder centre-weighted option to preserve bright tones. In this mode, the camera is influenced more by very bright areas and will reduce the exposure accordingly.
Slight underexposure is better than overexposure with digital cameras. It's not difficult to brighten images up, but it's impossible to restore overexposed areas.
9. Picture panic
What do you do if you find your memory card still has some shots on it when you take your camera out? It's not clear whether they have been transferred to your PC or not. Can you delete them and start shooting again, or are they the only copies? Develop a routine to ensure that your camera's memory is kept clear. First, save images on the camera until you've got a decent batch, then transfer them all to a computer, check they've copied safely and then delete them from the memory card.
10. Focus failure
Digital cameras are clever but they're not psychic. You may know what you want to focus on, but the camera has to guess. For example, you may have a shot of two people side by side but the camera will focus on the background between them. In the LCD display, you will see the focus point highlighted by a square or other indicator when you partially depress the shutter button. If the camera is focusing incorrectly, move it slightly so that a main subject is centred, half-press the button again to lock the focus and then, with the button still half-pressed, move the camera back and shoot.
11. Slow reactions?
Sports, animals and children all pose problems for digital cameras. It's hard for you to keep up with the action and harder still for the camera, and all too often you end up with a blurry shot where your subject's already halfway out of the frame. It's because all digital cameras have shutter lag. The best way round this is to get yourself in position, frame the shot and then half-press the shutter button to lock the focus. Now wait for the perfect moment, then press the shutter button the rest of the way. The picture will be taken instantly, with no lag.
12. Feeble flash
Watch a floodlit football match or an indoor sports event and you'll see thousands of tiny little flashes popping off in the stands. It's what your camera will do automatically in dim lighting if you don't stop it. What your camera (or its flash) doesn't know is that the action is much too far away for the flash to reach it, so all you're left with is a near-black photo and maybe some distant pinpricks of light. The solution is simple: Just turn the flash off. The camera will now have to take the photo using the available light, and this will produce much more attractive pictures.
13. Background clutter
We've all got shots with telegraph poles growing out of our relatives' heads. The annoying thing is you mostly only notice this when seeing the print - or when some smart-alec points it out. The first, and obvious, fix is to pay as much attention to the background in your shots as you do the thing you're photographing. Try to move subjects so that what's behind them is neutral in tone or at least not too busy, or shift position to try to find a less cluttered backdrop. You can try zooming in, too. This is more likely to throw the background out of focus.
14. Unflattering portraits
Your portrait subjects aren't likely to thank you for giving them a big nose and a receding chin, yet that's exactly what you do to them when you push the camera up against their faces. The nose is closest to the camera lens so it comes out the biggest. You'll get much more flattering results by stepping back and then using the zoom to fill the frame. Watch the perspective when you're shooting children, too. Get down on one knee so you'll be photographing them at eye level rather than looking down on them, and you won't get the vertical foreshortening effect usually seen in snapshots of children.
15. Finger over the lens
The days are long gone when you could get a whole roll of blank shots simply because you left the lens cap on. Digital cameras won't take a shot if they can't focus, and that's what happens when there's a lens cap in the way. But it's still possible to make that other classic mistake: putting your finger over the lens. If you compose shots using your camera's LCD, you'll spot it straight away, but you won't if you use the external viewfinder. Some super-slim compacts have lenses in the top-front corner of the body and these are the ones which are all too easily obscured.
16. Converging verticals
The sides of buildings are straight. So why do they appear to taper upwards when you take a photograph of them? It's because you're so close that you're having to tilt the camera upwards to get it all in. One solution is, where possible, simply to move back and shoot from a greater distance, using the camera's zoom to fill the frame with your subject. Because you're further away, the camera is less tilted, so there is less distortion. You should also look for a viewpoint where there's something interesting in the foreground so that you can shoot with the camera level.
17. Cold colours
Outdoor portraits can sometimes look cold and unhealthy. It's because you're shooting in shade on a sunny day, or under an overcast sky. Your camera's auto white balance always attempts to normalise the colours whatever the conditions, but this is one situation where cameras often don't compensate sufficiently. Instead, change the white balance from auto to the cloudy white balance setting. Or, if you're shooting in the shade on a sunny day, the light from the sky will be bluer still and you should see if your camera has a shade setting.
18. Squinting subjects
One way to prevent your subjects' faces from being in deep shadow on a sunny day is to turn them to face the light. This is the classic photo advice - 'always shoot with the sun over your shoulder'. Unfortunately, while the sun isn't shining into the camera lens, it will be shining into your subjects' eyes, leaving them squinting and grimacing instead of smiling at the camera. The solution? Look for a nearby patch of shade and move them into that to take your picture. They'll look more relaxed, the light will be softer and you'll end up with a much better picture.
19. JPEG artefacts
Digital cameras offer two or three different quality settings - such as fine, normal and basic. This is the degree to which images are compressed before being saved. The higher the level of compression, the more images can be saved on the memory card, but the lower the quality. Higher compression produces 'JPEG artefacts', or image flaws. You may start to see a loss of fine detail, edge 'halos' around objects and a faint chequerboard pattern in even-toned areas like skies. It's irreversible, so you should always shoot at the higher quality settings if you can.
20. Dead batteries
We're willing to bet your camera has let you down more than once, running out of power just at the worst possible moment. Get into the habit of charging the camera fully the night before any event or day out. If travelling abroad, take the charger and a universal adapter. Check the manual to find the range of voltages the charger can cope with. If the camera uses AA batteries, invest in a set of lithium AAs as spares once you have checked that the camera can use these. They're expensive, but they keep well and last longer in use than either alkaline or NiMH rechargeable batteries.
21. Parallax error
When you compose photos using the LCD on the back of the camera, the shot the camera takes will be identical to what you saw. But use the optical viewfinder, and objects don't always come out as they appeared during composition. This is because the optical viewfinder is separate (this doesn't apply to digital SLRs) and positioned an inch or so above and to one side of the camera lens. This is enough to cause a difference between what you see through the eyepiece and what the camera sees through its lens. It's worst with close-ups, where using the LCD is actually essential.
22. Shaky zooming
The more you zoom in towards your subject, the more any camera shake is amplified. There's a simple rule of thumb for calculating this, but it involves knowing the millimetre equivalent of your camera's optical zoom lens. This can usually be found in the camera's manual. Let's say you're shooting with the zoom set to the equivalent of 60mm. In this case the slowest safe shutter speed for handheld photography is 1/60th of a second. If you're shooting at an equivalent of 100mm it's 1/100sec (or the nearest faster equivalent). If you have a superzoom camera that goes up to 400mm, you need to shoot at 1/400sec. Look for cameras with image stabilisers, because these reduce shake dramatically. You get amazing flexibility from 10x and 12x super-zoom cameras, but long zoom settings need high shutter speeds to prevent camera shake.
23. Lens flare
Lens flare can spoil pictures, and is caused by shooting into a bright light - the sun, or a spotlight, for example. It's most often seen as discs of light diagonally opposite to the sun in the frame. Sometimes the result is a flat, wishy-washy look from lens flare even if the sun isn't in the shot but is still shining on the front of the lens. So if your camera came with a lens hood (many digital SLR lenses do), make sure you use it. With a compact camera, if you can see flare on the LCD as you compose the shot, try shielding the lens from the sun with your hand or a magazine.
24. Party popper
Flash produces very unattractive pictures. The light is harsh, it only works over a short range and it completely kills the atmosphere. Switching off the flash means slower shutter speeds and, in a busy club for example, you'll end up photographing nothing but blur. Instead, see if the camera has a slow sync or night portrait flash mode. This combines the flash with a longer exposure to mix both the flash and the available lighting. Your subject shows up sharp against a naturally-coloured background, often with some rather attractive impressionistic blurring, which really adds to the atmosphere.
25. Lost in the distance
A common error is for the subject of the photo to get lost in the distance, despite everything having looked fine when the photo was taken. This is because the human eye is very selective. It tends to zoom in on the thing it's most interested in and ignores all the space around it. With that in mind, it's important to learn to study the whole image in the viewfinder or on the LCD, and not just the bit you are interested in. And what you may not realise is that the separate optical viewfinders on compact cameras typically show no more than four-fifths of the area actually photographed - another reason why it's best to use the LCD.
26. Lost in the shadows
We all get our cameras out on sunny days, but these can be the worst conditions in which to take photographs, especially outdoor portraits. The sun can cause ugly shadows on people's faces and, if they're wearing hats (at a wedding, for example), it can leave their faces entirely in shadow. The easiest way around this problem is switch on the camera's flash. It sounds a daft thing to do in bright light, but the flash will fill in those dark shadows and produce much more pleasing portraits. Watch any professional photographer at an official event and you'll see they use flash even in the brightest light.
27. Memory card full?
Don't waste time trying to find the perfect image size and quality setting for cramming the most pictures on your memory card. Just buy a bigger memory card. They are quite inexpensive these days. You can get 512Mb cards for £30 or less, and one this size can store hundreds of photos. Alternatively, get a selection of smaller cards (128Mb, say) so that at any one time most of your photos can be left safely back at the hotel. After all, cameras get lost, stolen or broken, which is bad enough in itself without losing all your pictures too.
28. Manual ISO
Digital cameras have an auto ISO feature, which is usually set by default. This means the camera automatically increases the sensitivity of the sensor in dim light to reduce the risk of camera shake. However, it won't usually use the full ISO range available so that a camera with a range of ISO 100 400 might only use the ISO 100-200 range. In bad light, then, you may need to take over the ISO adjustment manually. Older compact digital cameras go to a maximum of ISO 400, but newer models go up to ISO 800 and even ISO 1600.
29. Noisy shots
If some shots have a pronounced speckled or grainy look (known as noise), it's almost certainly due to a high ISO setting. This is the compromise made by the camera to take shots in low light without camera shake. However, you may have set a high ISO manually and forgotten to switch it back. What's more, for smooth-toned night shots, try using a tripod, or rest the camera on a convenient flat surface so that it doesn't move during the exposure, and manually set a low ISO for the best quality. Noise can sometimes be the result of long exposures at night. Check the camera's manual to see if it has a noise reduction mode.
30. Spots on the sensor
Shots from digital SLRs sometimes show small, diffuse dots. These only show up against even-toned areas like skies and are caused by tiny dust particles on the sensor. This doesn't happen with compact cameras, because the lens and sensor assemblies are sealed. Spots can be 'cloned out' in an image-editor, but it is a bit of a nuisance. To reduce the risk of dust, change lenses only when you have to, angle the camera downwards as you do it and find somewhere where the air is still. You can clean your sensor, but wait until it's really dirty because for the inexperienced it's a tricky job that can make things worse rather than better. If in doubt consult a camera shop.
Snap happy
In the days of film, by the time shots returned from the lab, you'd forgotten what you were trying to do in the first place and because of the cost of film and prints, it was all too easy to stick to staid compositions. Digital cameras have changed that and they're more reliable when it comes to focusing, colours and exposure.
But the great thing about digital, of course, is that it is impossible to waste film. Digital cameras provide freedom to experiment with different settings and odd angles without worrying about the cost.
What's more, the results are immediately visible and if you don't like what you see, just shoot it again. Instant results make it easier to learn how to get the most out of photography through experimenting. So get snapping.
Written by Rod Lawton for Computeractive magazine
The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by Saga unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal, medical or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.
